Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
February 4,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
Torture Memos
Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
Uri Avnery
The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
January 31,
2005
Dave Zirin
Mr.
Frank's Fatwah: New Republic Writer Calls for Death & Torture
of Arundhati Roy and Stan Goff
Robert Fisk
Amid
Tragedy, Defiance
Chyng Sun
Gonzales: Chief Prosecutor of Porn?
Greg Moses
The Real Scandals of the Texas Election
Mike Whitney
Cheney at Auschwitz
Ali Tonak
Turkey and the EU: Fantasies and Ultimatums
Patrick Cockburn
A
Victory for the Shia
Website of
the Day
Voting by the Script: Where Did the 8 Million Voter Turnout Figure
Come From?
January 29
/ 30, 2005
Manuel Yang
/ Peter Linebaugh
A
Dialogue About Murder in Toledo
Gabriel Kolko
Wilsonian
and Neoconservative Myths
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad: City of Empty Streets
Robert Fisk
This Election Will Change the World, But Not as the US Wanted
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Con Job: Bush Pledges on Racism Lack Realism
Bernard Chazelle
Why the Children of Iraq Make No Sound When They Fall
Gary Leupp
"This Kind of Subject Matter": Bush's New Ed Secretary
vs. Vermont's Lesbians
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Passion of Paul Shanley
Alexander Cockburn
The Case of Father Jerry
Ron Jacobs
Ballot of the Puppets in Iraq
Brian Cloughley
Smart Bombs; Wrong House: Iraq's Civilian Dead
Fred Gardner
Peron May Split
Sister Dianna
Ortiz
Memo to Bush from a Survivor of the Guatemalan Torturers: Stop
the Torture!
Tom Reeves
How Bush Brings Freedom to the World: the Case of Haiti
Fran Quigley
Report: Haiti Now "More Violent and More Inhuman"
Suzan Mazur
"Mr. Garsin from Kinshasa": an Old Hand Weighs In on
the Murder of Lumumba
Kurt Nimmo
Condi Rice and the Neocon Plan for the Palestinians
Lenni Brenner
Holocaust History: Beyond the UN's Rhetoric
Gilad Atzmon
The
Politics of Auschwitz
Luis Gomez
Power and Autonomy in Bolivia
Mark Gaffney
NASA Searches for a Snowball in Hell: Why Velikovsky Matters
Ben Tripp
Lament of the Mnemonopath
Richard Oxman
Meet the Fuqers
Poets' Basement
Louise, Collins, Shanahan and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
Chemical Industry: Deceit and Denial
January 28,
2005
Rachard Itani
Tsunami
Aid By the Numbers: the US Really is a Miser
Jensen / Youngblood
Iraq's
Non-Election
Patrick Cockburn / Elizabeth
Davies
Attacks on Polling Places Leave 13 Dead
Dave Zirin
The Great Donovan McNabb: Proud "Black Quarterback"
Dave Lindorff
Suicide by State Execution?
Karyn Strickler
A Corporate Death Penalty Act?
Jorge Mariscal
Fighting
the Poverty Draft
January 27,
2005
Seymour Hersh
We've
Been Taken Over By a Cult
Cockburn /
Sengupta
The
US's Bloodiest Day in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Juke Box Journalism: Shilling for Bush
Ignacio Chapela
/ John F. García
The Laws of Nature
Mike Whitney
The Widening Chasm Among Conservatives
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Those Liberal Southern Baptists!
Ray McGovern
Reining In Cheney
Russ Wellen
Marginalizing Bin Laden
Christopher
Brauchli
The
FBI's Carnival of Errors
Website of
the Day
Informed Eating
January 26,
2005
Saree Makdisi
An
Iron Wall of Colonization: Fantasies and Realities About the
Prospects for Middle East Peace
Scott Fleming
In Good Conscience: an Interview with Concientious Objector Aidan
Delgado
Dave Lindorff
Filling Saddam's Shoes: the Puppet Regime Return's to Torture
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Salazar and Obama: Two Dismal Debuts
Toni Solo
The
US and Latin America: a Not-So-Magical Reality
William James Martin
Condoleezza Rice: Confused About the Middle East
William A.
Cook
Bush's Second Inaugural Address: the Lost Ur-Version
Eric Hobsbawm
Delusions
About Democracy
Alexander Cockburn
The CIA's New Campus Spies
January 25,
2005
Brian Cloughley
Iraq
as Disneyland
Mike Roselle
Satan is My Co-Pilot
Josh Frank
/ Merlin Chowkwanyun
The War on Civil Liberties
John Chuckman
Freedom on Steroids
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Party Without Virtue
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
The
Intolerance of Christian Conservatives
James Petras
The
US / Colombia Plot Against Venezuela
Website of the Day
Lowbaggers for the Environment
January 24,
2005
Fred Gardner
Last
Monologue in Burbank
Lori Berenson
On the Politicization of My Case
Uri Avnery
King
George
January 22
/ 23, 2005
Jennifer Van
Bergen / Ray Del Papa
Nuclear
Incident in Montana
Alexander Cockburn
Prince
Harry's Travails
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Company That Runs the Empire: Lockheed and Loaded
Stan Goff
The Spectacle
Saul Landau
Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
Gary Leupp
Official Madness and the Coming War on Iran
Fred Gardner
Is GW Getting the Runaround?
Phil Gasper
Clemency Denied: the Politics of Death in California
Stanley Heller
A Kill-Happy Government: Connecticut Chooses Death
Greg Moses
The Heart of Texas: an Inauguration Day Betrayal on Civil Rights
Justin Taylor
The Folk-Histories of John Ross
Daniel Burton-Rose
One China; Many Problems
Elaine Cassel
Try a Little Tyranny: Questions While Watching the Inaugural
Mike Whitney
Failing Upwards: the Rise of Michael Chertoff
Mark L. Berenson
My Daughter Has Been Wrongly Imprisoned
Christopher
Brauchli
It Doesn't Compute: a $170 Million Mistake
Gilad Atzmon
Zionism and Other Marginal Thoughts
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Day of the Rats
Mark Donham
The Secret Messages of Rahm Emmanuel
Ben Tripp
Adventures in Online Dating
Walter Brasch
Hollywood's Patriots: Soulless Kooks, Mr. Bush?
Poets' Basement
Wuest, Landau, Ford, Albert & Drum
January 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
A
Great American Journalist:
John L. Hess (1917-2005)
Sharon Smith
The
Anti-War Movement and the Iraqi Resistance
Don Santina
Baseball, Racism and Steroid Hysteria
Ron Jacobs
Locked Out and Pissed Off: Protesting the Bush Inauguration
Kurt Nimmo
The Problem with Mike Ruppert
Don Monkerud
Once They Were Cults: Bush's Faith-Based Social Services
Alan Farago
Swimming Home from the Galapagos
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta
January 20,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Dying
for Sycophants
William Cook
The
Bush Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next
Eric Ruder
Why Andres Raya Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War
Mike Whitney
Coronation in a Garrison State
Robert Jensen
A Citizens Oath of Office
Peter Rost
Bush Report on Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions
David Underhill
Is It Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
James Reiss
Adieu, Colin Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom
CounterPunch
Staff
Voices
from Abu Ghraib: the Injured Party
January 19,
2005
Marta Russell
Social
Security Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk
Mike Ferner
Marines
Stretching Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Torture
Tony Paterson
A Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security
Doug Giebel
BS and CBS: When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies
Alexander Cockburn
Will
Bush Quit Iraq?
January 18,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal
Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese
Oil Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17,
2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions
About King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US
Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One
of Texas's Worst Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King
and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15
/ 16, 2005
James Petras
The
Kidnapping of a Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14,
2005
Robert Fisk
"The
Tent of Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social Security Con Job
José
M. Tirado
The Christians I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the Influence
Yves Engler
The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert
Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
Website of
the Day
Ryan for the Nobel Prize?
January 13,
2005
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Hearts
and Minds, Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador Option: Terror,
Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting
for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12,
2005
Robert Fisk
Fear
Stalks Baghdad
Josh Frank
The
Farce of the DNC Contest
Jack Random
Casualties
of War: the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at CBS
Alan Farago
Can
the Everglades be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's
Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11,
2005
Tom Barry
The
US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon
of Foreign Policy
James Hodge
and Linda Cooper
Voice
of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the
the Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two Elections
Harry Browne
Irish
"Peace Process", RIP
January 10,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker
Carlson's Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy
Moss's Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
February 4, 2005
Drugging Children, Then Punishing Them as Adults
Did
Zoloft Make Him Do It?
By
ELAINE CASSEL
When he was twelve years old, Christopher
Pittman killed his beloved grandparents--first shooting them
with a shotgun, and then setting the house on fire, as he fled.
Afterward, Pittman confessed to the crimes.
A few weeks before the killings,
Pittman, who suffered from depression, had run away from his
parents' Florida home. When found, he was committed to a psychiatric
institution. Doctors there prescribed medication--the powerful
antidepressant Zoloft, which has been known to cause hallucinations
and delusions in some people. And in the days before the killings,
his doctor doubled his dosage.
Pittman says that, when he
committed the crime, he was hearing voices that told him to kill
his grandparents.
He also reportedly said that
beforehand, he had been locked in his room and, when he tried
to leave, beaten by his grandfather. (His grandparents were said
to have been considering returning him to his parents, due to
their inability to control the boy's behavior.)
His defense attorneys maintain
that, due to the Zoloft he was taking, Pittman was involuntarily
intoxicated, and that he committed manslaughter, not murder.
Now, at fifteen years old,
Pittman is being tried, as an adult, for murder in Charleston,
South Carolina. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty;
 the Supreme
Court has not approved its use on a person who was so young when
the crime occurred. But if convicted, Pittman could face a term
of life imprisonment in an adult facility--possibly, but not
certainly, segregated from the adults there.
Will Pittman's claim that the
influence of Zoloft made his crime manslaughter, rather than
murder, prevail? In this column, I will discuss the troubling
evidence on Zoloft, but I will also note that it may be difficult,
nonetheless, for the defense to prevail in convincing a jury
that Pittman should be convicted of manslaughter, not murder.
Like Many
Drugs, Zoloft Has Not Been Sufficiently Tested For Use In Children
Zoloft, like several popular
antidepressant medications, has never been specifically approved
for use in children. (Zoloft has been approved for treating obsessive-compulsive
disorder in children; Prozac, which I discuss below, has been
approved for treating depression in children.)
Yet once the FDA approves a
drug, it can be used for any purpose, in any population. Disturbingly,
that means that children, who make up seven percent of the total
U.S. population taking prescribed antidepressants, are ingesting
psychoactive medications (those that affect the brain's functioning)
that, more often than not, have not been clinically tested for
efficacy and safety in children.
A 1997 federal law, the FDA
Modernization Act, attempted to encourage that drug be tested
for children, in particular, but turned out to have loopholes
that meant it did not serve its purpose effectively. In an attempt
to remedy this problem, a 2002 federal law, the Best Pharmaceuticals
for Children Act, gave the FDA the authority to order post-approval
testing, for children, of drugs widely used in children. However,
the FDA has yet to demand that the very antidepressants and stimulants
that are so widely used in children be subjected to post-approval
testing for children.
Of course, subjecting children
to clinical trials brings its own set of legal and ethical dilemmas.
Could parents legitimately offer their children for drug testing
without the child's consent? Could their children sue them at
a later time if they suffered adverse affects from the clinical
trials? Perhaps the safest alternative is to require the consent
of both parent (or guardian) and child for testing.
Reasonable minds can differ
as to what safeguards ought to be taken. However, one thing is
clear: The current situation--in which children take drugs, tested
only on adults, that may pose unacceptable dangers to them--cannot
continue.
We do a terrible wrong to our
children when we allow them to use untested drugs that may cause
them to do violence to others, or to themselves.
Zoloft on
Trial: Some Evidence Suggests Use in Children Is Dangerous, But
Pfizer Denies It
What about Zoloft, in particular?
Is it dangerous for children? Precisely because studies involving
children are not required before a drug can be used in children,
we simply don't know for sure.
Pfizer, the maker of Zoloft,
denies that the drug causes delusions, hallucinations, or triggers
violence. Responding to the defense strategy in the Pittman case,
Pfizer issued a
public statement rejecting the crime's connection to its
popular antidepressant. (The statement, notably, does not mention
specific concerns about the drug's effect on children.)
But anecdotal evidence, at
least, suggests otherwise--as do some studies.
In 2000, studies emerged showing
a possible link between hallucinations and aggression in children
and teens taking Zoloft, Paxil, and Prozac. (Moreover, Pittman's
attorneys plan to introduce at trial internal Pfizer documents
that, they say, show that the manufacturer knew of the possible
side effects twenty years ago).
The reports were mostly linked
to suicidal, not homicidal behavior. However, an attempt to link
these drugs to violence against others is not without precedent.
Parents of one of the Columbine, Colorado school killers unsuccessfully
sued the makers of another popular anti-depressant medication,
Paxil, arguing that it was, at least in part, responsible for
the homicidal acts of their son.
Paxil works on the brain in
the same way as Zoloft and the other popular anti-depressants,
inhibiting the brain cell's reuptake of serotonin from the synaptic
neurons. Hence, the acronym used to refer to these drugs collectively:
They are known as SSRIs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
The drugs enhance the effect of the brain's naturally occurring
serotonin, a neurotransmitter that acts as a mood stabilizer.
Just why the drugs might cause
hallucinations, delusions, and suicidal (and perhaps homicidal)
ideation in young people, as opposed to adults, is not clear,
though it might have something to do with the immaturity of the
circuitry of the young brain.
In 2004, the FDA heard testimony
from members of the public, the drug industry, and the medical
profession regarding the use of Zoloft in children. One of the
parents speaking out against Zoloft was Pittman's father.
After the hearings, the FDA
stopped short of making a finding that the drugs did cause the
complained-of side effects. But it did urge the makers of the
drugs to put a so-called "black box" warning on the
packages, advising doctors and parents to look for signs of aggression,
anxiety, and agitation in children and teens taking these medications.
Pittman's
Defense: Ingestion of Zoloft Caused Involuntary Intoxication
In a variation on an insanity
defense, Pittman's legal team is claiming that Pittman's ingestion
of prescribed Zoloft caused him to become involuntarily intoxicated
on the drug. Involuntary intoxication diminishes criminal responsibility,
on the simple ground that the defendant--intoxicated, but not
by his own choice or consent--is not wholly at fault for crimes
committed while he is intoxicated.
In <http://www.courttv.com/trials/pittman/docs/intoxication.html?page=1>their
brief, the attorneys argue that this involuntary intoxication
mitigates the malice aforethought required to convict Pittman
of first-degree murder. But it's possible the defense will not
succeed.
For one thing, as I discussed
above, although the FDA-mandated warnings mention aggression
as a possible side-effect, Zoloft is generally linked to instances
of suicide, not homicide, and that weakens the defense.
For another thing, prosecutors
have said that when Pittman confessed to the crimes, he was lucid
and clear in his statements--not hazy or intoxicated-seeming.
On the other hand, though childhood confessions should be examined
with a higher level of scrutiny, for reasons I discussed in an earlier article on the false confessions
of young men convicted of a gruesome rape in Central Park, and
another article on the questionable
tactics used to interrogate the juvenile "Beltway"
sniper.
In addition, because Pittman
tried to cover up the crime through arson, and fled, jurors may
believe he had enough presence of mind that he was not intoxicated
in the sense that most people use the term.
Legally, however, intoxication
is not equivalent to drunkenness: It simply means that the defendant
is under the influence of a substance he did not willingly take
(perhaps by being duped into drinking something that contained
an undisclosed intoxicant), or in this case, that he did willingly
take, under doctor's orders, but without the benefit of the warning
of possible violence-inducing side effects.
Perhaps, the judge, in instructing
the jury, will make clear that to be legally intoxicated for
these purposes, one need not be, or seem, drunk. But even if
the judge does so, the jury may find it hard to reconcile prosecutors'
reports of Pittman's lucidity with the defense's claim of intoxication.
Worsening Pittman's chances
is the fact that the jury will see before them a relatively healthy
adolescent, not the mentally ill child that committed the crime.
They may find it hard--even impossible--to see before them that
deranged child, rather than the fifteen-year-old sitting at the
defense table. But it is that child, not the more mature--and
presumably more mentally healthy--young man, who is on trial.
This is a dilemma facing all
defendants who mount a defense based on mental illness, insanity,
or diminished capacity. Since such defendants have to be competent
to stand trial--that is, to be well enough to understand the
proceedings and assist their attorney--they have often been treated
(mainly, medicated) in order to make them coherent enough to
face their accusers. Pittman's challenge is compounded by the
passage of years in which he grew from boy to young man.
If Convicted,
Pittman Will Be Another Tragic Example of a Child Punished as
an Adult
As noted above, Pittman now
faces possible life imprisonment--based on what he did as a mentally
ill twelve-year-old. This is the result of prosecutors' decision
to charge him with murder, when manslaughter would have been
more appropriate, and also of his being tried as an adult, even
at the age of fifteen. (Had he been tried and convicted as a
juvenile, his maximum punishment would have been limited to incarceration
until he reached the age of 21.)
We need to rethink our eagerness
to try children as adults in general--and more particularly in
a case like this one. For when the offense was committed at a
very young age, and under the influence of psychotropic medication
-- one associated with dangerous side effects that allegedly
were known to the maker of the drug, but not disclosed to the
medical profession or the public -- the trial of a child as an
adult, with the corresponding high penalties, is especially inappropriate.
Thus, the Pittman case is an
indictment of both our medical system and our legal system--supposedly
both the world's finest. Our medical system let a twelve-year-old
down when it allowed a doctor to legally prescribe for him a
drug that may well have caused him to have hallucinations and
delusions-including the delusion that he heard voices commanding
him to commit horrific crimes. Our legal system now is letting
a fifteen-year-old down by pretending that he is what he plainly
is not: an adult.
This toxic combination suggests
that it is not just Pittman, but society, that may be in need
of a cure.
Elaine Cassel practices law in Virginia and the
District of Columbia, teaches law and psychology, and follows
the Bush regime's dismantling of the Constitution at Civil
Liberties Watch. Her new book The
War on Civil Liberties: How Bush and Ashcroft Have Dismantled
the Bill of Rights, is published by Lawrence Hill. She can
be reached at: ecassel1@cox.net
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