Tag Archives: Suicide

Parents Warn of Possible Psychiatric Drug Dangers

Darkness hung over Charleston Harbor as Matthew Steubing parked his Ford pickup truck on the aging bridge and left a note on the seat beside his Bible. He put on a life jacket and began to climb — up, up, into the span’s superstructure. Then, he jumped.

His parents were waiting for Matthew to arrive home in Winchester, Va., when they received the news on July 18, 2003. Their 18-year-old son plunged more than 160 feet from the Silas Pearman Bridge before slamming into the Cooper River. He was gone. “Our world blew apart,” his mother, Celeste Steubing, said. “We couldn’t imagine this happening because this wasn’t Matthew. … It made no sense.” Matthew, the youngest of six children, had been a vibrant kid, happy and full of life. But after a rough patch in his senior year of high school left him feeling down, a psychologist suggested he would benefit from the antidepressant drug Lexapro. He soon became withdrawn and anxious, his parents recalled during a recent visit to Charleston. Matthew committed suicide just nine weeks after starting on the drug. Only later did his family learn that antidepressants carry a heightened risk of suicide in children, the Steubings said. The Steubings have made it their mission to warn other parents about the hidden dangers of psychiatric drugs. To that end, Celeste Steubing was featured in the recently released documentary, “Dead Wrong,” produced by the Los Angeles-based Citizens Commission on Human Rights.

Forest Labs settling wrongful death & personal injury lawsuits from parents of kids who took Celexa & Lexapro

Fifty-four lawsuits, mostly involving suicides and attempted suicides by teenagers in various parts of the country, accuse the New York-based pharmaceutical company of concealing a negative pediatric study on Celexa, duping physicians about the drug’s clinical trials, and targeting children in aggressive promotions of Celexa and a sister drug, Lexapro. Four of the cases were settled Friday, and two additional cases were settled in recent weeks. A surge of related settlements, which could total millions of dollars, is expected in the months ahead as the pharmaceutical company attempts to move beyond the controversy surrounding its marketing of antidepressants to children.

Johnny Got His Pills

The military-pharmaceutical complex is making a killing or, more specifically, making a fortune off the folks we’ve asked to do the killing — and off the rest of us. They dope our unruly kids, they dope the young men and women fighting in and returning home from the war, and they dope the rest of us right here at home for being sick of wars overseas and fearful of war on the middle and lower classes and dreading the reckonings to come and being ashamed of our own sad national shadow.

Carrollton Mother In Murders-Suicide Took Depression Meds

The Carroll County coroner said a woman who police said killed her two young children before taking her own life on Wednesday had been taking medication for depression. Coroner Mandal Haas said Thursday that 24-year-old Madison Hallett hadn’t given any indication that she would kill her children. Police said Hallett first shot and killed her 6-year-old daughter, Natalya Marie Carosiellie, while the girl was in bed. Hallett then went to another bedroom, where police said she shot and killed her 18-month-old son, Drayden W. Hallett-Warnick, while he was sleeping in his crib. Police said Hallett then turned the gun on herself, and her body was found next to her son’s crib.