Joseph Glenmullen:

Joseph Glenmullen is a graduate of Harvard Medical School, and is a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Law School Health Services, and in private practice in Harvard Square.  He is Board Certified in Psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.  He is the author of two books on the side effects of antidepressants: Prozac Backlash: Overcoming the Dangers of Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and Other Antidepressants with Safe, Effective Alternatives published in 2000 by Simon & Schuster and The Antidepressant Withdrawal, Dependence, and “Addiction” published by Simon & Schuster’s Free Press division in January 2005.

Glenmullen testified at the FDA’s February 2004 and December 2006 hearings on antidepressant-induced suicidality, and in the last 4 years has given expert testimony in over two-dozen state and federal cases regarding antidepressants.

Glenmullen has been interviewed on numerous national television and radio shows including NBC’s The Today Show, ABC News’ 20/20, ABC’s Good Morning America, ABC’s World News Tonight, ABC’s Primetime Live, CNN, Fox News, PBS, Court TV, and National Public Radio for his expertise on antidepressants.

Published Study on Psychiatric Drugs and Violence:  Glenmullen co-authored a study published in the December 15, 2010, PloS One, where the researchers used 2004 to 2009 data from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System and extracted all “serious adverse event” reports for drugs with 200 or more.  Of the 484 drugs identified, 31 drugs were disproportionately associated with violence. These drugs, accounting for 79% of all the violence cases, including 11 antidepressants, 6 sedative/hypnotics and 3 drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The specific cases of violence included: homicide, physical assaults, cases indicating physical abuse, homicidal ideation, and cases described as violence-relates symptoms.

Glenmullen argues antidepressants can cause both suicidal and homicidal behavior. “These really are terrible tragedies, but antidepressants can do this to people.”

His website is:  http://www.drglenmullen.com/

David Healy:

Dr. David Healy is an internationally respected psychiatrist, psychopharmacologist, scientist, and author. A professor of Psychiatry in Wales, Healy studied medicine in Dublin, and at Cambridge University. He is a former Secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology, and has authored more than 150 peer-reviewed articles, 200 other pieces, and 20 books, including The Antidepressant Era and The Creation of Psychopharmacology from Harvard University Press, The Psychopharmacologists Volumes 1-3 and Let Them Eat Prozac from New York University Press, and Mania from Johns Hopkins University Press.

Healy has been involved as an expert witness in homicide and suicide trials involving psychotropic drugs, and in bringing problems with these drugs to the attention of American and British regulators, as well raising awareness of how pharmaceutical companies sell drugs by marketing diseases and co-opting academic opinion-leaders, ghost-writing their articles.

Published Study on Psychiatric Drugs and Violence:  Healy and two other researchers published a study in the September 2006 issue of the journal Public Library of Science Medicine that determined that SSRI antidepressants could increase the risk of violence in people taking them. The study looked specifically at GlaxoSmithKline’s Paxil and concluded the drug raises the risk of severe violence in some people. The study states: “In paroxetine clinical trials, aggression and violence were commonly coded under the rubric of hostility. This coding term includes homicide, homicidal acts, and homicidal ideation as well as aggressive events and ‘conduct disorders.’…”

David Healy has criticized pharmaceutical companies that have made billions of dollars marketing Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, known as SSRIs. Psychotropic drugs “prescribed for school children cause violent behavior,” Healy stated.

Healey has cautioned that there is a very high correlation between mass shootings and use of the drugs.  “When roughly nine out of every 10 cases in these school shootings and mass shootings involve these drugs being prescribed, then at least a significant proportion of these cases were either caused by the drugs or the drugs made a significant contribution to the problem,” he said.

His website is:  http://davidhealy.org/

Stefan Kruszewski:

Dr. Kruszewski is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Medical School. He completed post-doctoral work at Harvard Affiliate Hospitals, Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Duke University and Texas Christian University. His recent academic affiliation included a five-year appointment as Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Penn State College of Medicine (1999-2004). Previously, he served as Associate Medical Director of the Physicians’ Health Programs of the Foundation of the Pennsylvania Medical Society. He has been board certified in general psychiatry as well as in the subspecialties of geriatric, adolescent and addiction psychiatry, and by the American Board of Addiction Medicine, in addiction medicine.

Dr. Kruszewski is an expert in addictive diseases and the scientific basis that underscores certain neuropsychiatric drugs, including drugs of abuse, antipsychotics, anticonvulsants, mood stabilizers and stimulants. His research articles, replies, letters and editorials have appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals, including: New England Journal of Medicine, British Medical Journal, Journal of the American Medical Association, American Journal of Psychiatry, and many others.

Whistleblower:  Dr. Kruszewski is also a whistleblower. After he reported systemic physical and pharmaceutical abuses and deaths of Pennsylvania children and adults to his superiors at the Department of Public Welfare, Bureau of Program Integrity, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, (in his capacity as psychiatric consultant to them), Dr. Kruszewski was fired. He decided to speak out about his findings as well as file a Federal Lawsuit in Middle District of Pennsylvania. That successfully settled in July of 2007. Currently, Dr. Kruszewski works in Harrisburg as a clinician and CEO of his own company. He has been a thrice successful qui tam relator. In the past two years, working with the U.S. Department of Justice and plaintiff attorneys in Philadelphia, PA, Dallas, TX and Wilmington, DE, he has settled actions against Southwood Psychiatric Facility, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for sub par medical oversight; in Geodon/Pfizer Inc., in regards to off-label prescribing and scientific misrepresentations and, most recently, in Seroquel/AstraZeneca for off-label promotion and scientific misrepresentations.

In a 2009 trial, in which Kruszewski testified as a defense expert, he stated that, “individuals who take Zoloft [an antidepressant] could experience certain side effects and that includes violent acting out.”  He also stated, “We’ve got thousands of reports over many years now since the introduction of Zoloft to the marketplace, that there is a linkage between violence and agitation problems associated with discontinuation of the drug.”

His website is:  http://www.spkmd.com/