The figures
In the England and Wales there are roughly 5000 suicides in roughly 60 million people per year. This would until recently have led to around 2000 hangings per year, 34 hangings per million people per year, 3.5 per 100,000 people per year.
Bridgend in South Wales has a population of 40,000. The greater Bridgend area has a population of 130,000. There should be 18 hangings per 100,000 people over a 5 year period, 24 per 130,000 per year.
In recent years however in both the US and UK there has been a rise in the number of hangings so that this mode of death now accounts for 50% of cases. If this applies in the Bridgend area, we might expect 28 hangings per 130,000 over a 5 year period, roughly 6 per year.
There were in fact 79 hangings in Bridgend between January 2007 and February 2012. The hangings continue unabated, so the true figure may be in the 90s. This means there have been 16 per year – an excess of 10 or more hangings per year.
Vanishing suicides
There have likely been a lot more self-destructions than this in Bridgend. Coroners have considerable discretion and recently a great deal of encouragement to use narrative, open or death by misadventure verdicts rather than to record a verdict of suicide. To record a suicide verdict they should be satisfied that the person intended to kill themselves. One of the primary indicators of intent is a suicide note. In the Bridgend cases, there have been few suicide notes. This has made it easy for coroners to manage perceptions of what might be going on.
Having a narrative or open verdict can be extremely important for families. I have written reports in over 20 inquests arguing that it would be appropriate to return a narrative rather than a suicide verdict, in the case of people whose suicide has been triggered by an antidepressant.
But this use of narrative verdicts has produced a situation where suicide figures are close to worthless. The British suicide rate is comprised of cases recorded as suicides along with a proportion of narrative, open or other verdicts, with the proportion chosen down to bureaucratic whim. We do not have a self-destruction rate and absolutely no idea as to how many verdicts, either suicide or narrative, are linked to antidepressant or other drug intake.
A website antidepaware was recently set up to track deaths by suicide or misadventure or related that are related to antidepressants. It has logged over 1600 UK suicides involving antidepressants of which 43% were recorded as suicides by the coroner, 26% as narrative verdicts, 19% as open verdicts, 5% as death by misadventure and 7% as accidental.
Hanging & kneeling
While the suicide rate has become ambiguous, it is not possible to conceal the number of hangings.
Bridgend has had an unusual number of hangings. An apparently odd feature is that these hangings have involved a lot of kneeling. The fact that many victims have been found hanging but with their feet on the ground or close to kneeling has given rise to speculation about internet or other cults, and about serial killing rather than self-destruction.
I had been exposed to relatively few SSRI suicide cases when Linda Hurcombe came to me telling me of her daughter Caitlin, who after 6 weeks on Prozac hung herself using her horses’ lanyard (see Let Them Eat Prozac).
Soon after that with colleagues I ran a healthy volunteer study designed to test how antidepressants work. In this study, two completely normal women while taking the SSRI sertraline (Zoloft) became suicidal. One of these two had vivid imagery of hanging herself.
Around this time too I got involved in the Miller case. Matt Miller was a 13 year old boy who had just changed schools and was feeling nervous. His parents prompted by the teacher brought him to a doctor who put him on Zoloft. Seven days later he hung himself in the bathroom between his parent’s bedroom and his bedroom.
Pfizer, the makers of Zoloft argued that this was not suicide but auto-erotic asphyxiation gone wrong. As evidence, they pointed to the fact he was not suspended several feet above the floor but had his feet on the ground, almost kneeling. They went so far as to scour the carpet in the bathroom to collect potential evidence for seminal stains.
It was Yvonne Woodley’s case in 2010 that explained the hanging issue to me – something that anyone with an interest in the area could in fact have found from Wikipedia.
Yvonne Woodley was a 42 year old woman who was having marital difficulties. She presented to her doctor with sleep problems. The doctor viewed her as being under stress, and as posing absolutely no suicide risk. She gave Yvonne citalopram. A week later the doctor noted that Yvonne was more agitated and there were fleeting thoughts of suicide – so she doubled the dose of citalopram. After a suicide attempt, she doubled it further and a short while afterwards Yvonne hung herself.
She hung herself in the attic of her house. Given the kind of person she was, the rest of her family found it unbelievable that she would have hung herself in the house with her two daughters downstairs but a common feature of SSRI suicides is the apparent lack of concern for the effect on others.
The fact that Yvonne was close to kneeling enabled the coroner to return a narrative rather than a suicide verdict. The pathologist explained that when people are weighing up the possibility of hanging themselves, wondering about it, they might put a rope in place and test themselves against it. If they do this, it is in fact very easy by putting pressure on the carotid sinuses that are in the side of the neck to slip out of consciousness and falling forward to end up asphyxiated. If you have begun with your feet on the ground you can end up kneeling or close to kneeling.
The first cases in bridgend
Dale Crole, 18 Found hanged, 5 January 2007
David Dilling, 19 Found hanged in his home, February 2007
Thomas Davies, 20 Found hanged from a tree, 25 February 2007
Allyn Price, 21 Found hanged in his bedroom, April 2007
James Knight, 26 Found hanged at his home, 17 May 2007
Leigh Jenkins, 22 Found hanged, June 2007
Zachery Barnes, 17 Found hanged from a washing line, August 2007
Jason Williams, 21 Found hanged at home, 23 August 2007
Andrew O’Neill, 19 Found hanged at home, September 2007
Luke Goodridge, 20 Found hanged, November 2007
Liam Clarke, 20 Found hanged, 27 December 2007
Gareth Morgan, 27 Found hanged, 5 January
Natasha Randall, 17 Found hanged, 17 January
Angie Fuller, 18 Found hanged, 4 February
Kelly Stephenson, 20 Found hanged on 14 February while on holiday
Nathaniel Pritchard, 15 Kelly’s cousin, found hanged, died 15 February
Reports in the media
Jenna Parry was the next person to die. She was found hanging, almost kneeling. Her death triggered the list above and this account in the Independent in February 2008:
“Bridgend was yesterday mourning yet another addition to the alarming number of suicides in the area, after a 16-year-old girl was found hanged in a wood five miles from the town.
Police insisted there was no link between the 17 deaths in the past 13 months and no evidence of a suicide pact or an internet cult.
Jenna’s death came just days after two cousins died after apparent suicide attempts. Kelly Stephenson, 20, was found dead in a bathroom during a family holiday. Hours earlier she had learnt that her 15-year-old cousin, Nathaniel Pritchard, had hanged himself. The two lived a few doors away from each other in Bridgend…….
Following the deaths, a suicide prevention strategy has been announced for Wales. The Welsh Assembly has said it wants a 10 per cent reduction in suicides by 2012. [As of 2012, the rate has in fact gone up despite the many abilities of coroners and bureaucrats to lower it].…
However, despite the spate of suicides around Bridgend – a county with a population of 130,000 people – police have said there is nothing to link the deaths….
[The coroner] Mr Morris criticized the media’s reporting of the deaths. “The media reporting is influencing young people in the Bridgend area.
“I have noticed an increase in sensationalist reporting, and the fact that Bridgend is becoming stigmatised. The link between the deaths isn’t the internet – it is the way the media is reporting the news.”
Death by coroner?
Fourteen deaths in Bridgend are logged on antidepaware. There are nine hanging verdicts in which antidepressants are mentioned. There are no hanging verdicts where antidepressants or other prescription medications are ruled out.
What’s happening? One contributory factor to these deaths is coroners. I have been writing to UK coroners for 15 years making the case that they should note where people have been on antidepressant or other drugs at the time of death. The list of drugs now linked to suicide and homicide up to and including school shootings includes anticonvulsants, weight loss pills, some asthma medications, some analgesics, some contraceptives, some medication for acne, a number of antibiotics, medications for malaria, in addition to antipsychotics and antidepressants. See below.
But coroners often do not record drug intake, unless the person has actually died from a drug overdose. In the case of Liam Clarke above he had had some cannabis, and alcohol and was on antidepressants. The coroner decided that the alcohol he had had affected his judgement. Coroners are under no obligation to explain their thinking on a matter like this and are rarely if ever challenged. There is little doubt that antidepressants can lead to a craving for and increased consumption of alcohol – did this happen in Liam Clarke’s case?
Many of the cases listed above were on antidepressants but we only know this because the police or families mentioned it at the inquest and reporters from the media then reported it. Unless the antidepressant or other pill was the cause of death by poisoning coroners typically don’t mention medication.
In Bridgend, the coroner seemed to play down the role of antidepressants. In one of the inquests involving antidepressants, he refers to “lack of anything in the system that would have altered his judgement”. In others he makes similar comments.
Gary Speed the former manager of the Welsh soccer team is Wales’s most famous recent suicide. A common feature in the extensive reporting of his death was that family and friends found it baffling. The coroner opted not to reveal if there were prescription drugs in his system. Why?
The role of the media
The idea that the media reporting of suicides might cause copycat suicides in Britain stems in part from the work of Keith Hawton in Oxford. As a result students in Cardiff University, which is near to Bridgend, are steered to regard the report in the Independent above as sensationalist. Other countries have more striking suicide cohorts – Japan being the most famous – and in the case of copycat suicides by pairs of lovers jumping into Mount Fuji there is a good case for thinking the media might fuel events.
But equally decent and proper media reporting may do just the opposite and bring to light what is going on. There is probably more chance that a good journalist, or someone who has lost a family member or a friend to suicide, is going to solve this rather than bureaucrats or experts brought in to work out what is going on. In this case neither the experts nor bureaucrats linked to this case seem interested to respond to emails from me.
Having coroners refuse to keep a public record of drug intake and browbeat the media into keeping silent seems like the worst of all possible worlds.
What’s happening?
We have an excess of 60 hangings to explain in Bridgend. The number is growing by the month. If some have happened by accident as outlined above, it needs a public education campaign through the media to alert people to the risks.
Some of these suicides may be copycat. In the same way school shootings may have a copycat component to them. But a copycat needs an original or several original examples to get them going. The distress that leads to school shootings or clusters of hangings needs an original exemplar to shape it into more shootings and hangings – an original event to open this door to others.
There are obvious factors to explain some clusters like a pair of well-known Japanese loves committing suicide together by jumping into Mount Fuji. In the Bridgend case, if we are going to invoke a chemical – a medicine – the scale of the problem almost suggests that some factory in the Bridgend area must be pumping out some chemical that is having the same kind of effect as drugs like Cymbalta or Pristiq. This might seem improbable. But looking at the list of drugs that cause suicide and homicide, below, the improbable begins to look possible. It almost looks probable that this array of drugs will give rise to a cluster like this somewhere if not in Bridgend.
What to do next?
The problem of drug induced suicide and homicide is not vast like climate change or famine in Africa. You can make a difference. As things stand your Human Rights are being infringed. The supposed rights of some unspecified group of people to use (doctors) or take (patients) without having to be deterred by warnings that these drugs can cause suicide or homicide are being used to justify the deaths of people that you know that could be avoided with proper warnings. This is a breach of the Human Rights Act.
The drugs listed below are not listed as a matter of personal judgement. They are either drugs that companies are obliged to state can cause suicide or for which there is convincing evidence that they have in fact caused suicide. There are likely many more drugs that some government officials and company personnel know cause suicide but about which they keep quiet.
- Some coroners are wonderful. Others are misguided. You do not want to assume your coroner knows what they are doing. You need to establish if they are bringing biases to bear on the issue. You have a right to interview them before an inquest.
- Drug regulators deal in the wording of advertisements. Public health is not their brief. If you are waiting for a regulator or a drug company to suggest a drug may have contributed to a death, you will be waiting for ever.
- These problems are rarely solved by outside experts. Communities need to take the issues into their own hands and to this end the media are their allies not the enemy.
- Contribute details of any deaths by someone’s own hand, accidental or on purpose, to Antidepaware. Contact brian@antidepaware.co.uk
- Be aware that the following drugs and likely many others can all cause suicide and in many cases homicide. The statement cause here is based on compelling challenge-dechallenge-rechallenge cases – see Doxycycline causes suicide – or clinical trial data or legal requirements for companies to agree their drug can cause suicide for instance
Drugs that can trigger & cause suicide or homicide
|
Anti-Infectives |
|
| Mefloquine | Lariam |
| Doxycyline | Doryx |
| D-cycloserine | Seromycin |
| Fluoroquinolones | Levaquin, Cipro |
| Oseltamivir | Tamiflu |
|
Contraceptives |
|
| Drospirenone | Yasmin |
| Drospirenone | Yaz |
| Cyproterone and ethinyl estradiol | Dianette |
|
Anti-Smoking |
|
| Varenicline | Chantix |
| Champix | |
| Buproprion | Zyban |
|
Anti-Asthma |
|
| Montelukast | Singulair |
| Roflumilast | Daxas |
| Zafirlukast | Accolate |
|
Anti – Acne |
|
| Isotretinoin | Roaccutane |
| Doxycycline | Doryx |
|
Antihistamines |
|
| Diphenhydramine | Benadryl, Sominex |
| Chlorphenamine | Chlortimeton |
| Cyproheptadine | Periactin |
|
Urinary Drugs |
|
| Duloxetine | Yentreve |
| Tamsulosin | Flomax |
| Finasteride | Propecia |
| Dutasteride | Avodart |
|
Anti-Nausea |
|
| Prochlorperazine | Stemetil, Compro |
| Metoclopramide | Maxolon, Reglan |
|
Antihypertensives |
|
| Clonidine | Catapres |
| Doxazosin | Cardura |
| Guanabenz | Wytensin |
| Guanfacine | Tenex |
| Hydralazine | Apresoline |
| Methyldopa | Aldomet, Aldoril, Dopamet |
| Prazosin | Minipress |
|
Statins |
|
| Atorvastatin | Lipitor |
| Fluvastatin | Lescol |
| Lovastatin | Mevacor |
| Mevastatin | Compactin |
| Pravastatin | Pravachol |
| Rosuvastatin | Crestor |
| Simvastatin | Zocor |
|
Stimulants |
|
| Methylphenidate | Ritalin |
| Focalin | |
| Metadate | |
| Concerta | |
| Amphetamine | Dexedrine |
| Adderall | |
| Vyvanse | |
|
Benzodiazepines |
|
| Lorazepam | Ativan |
| Diazepam | Valium |
| Alprazolam | Xanax |
| Chlordiazepoxide | Librium |
| Bromazepam | Lexotan |
| Oxazepam | Serenid, Serax |
| Cloabazam | Frisium |
| Medazepam | Nobrium |
| Clorazepate | Tranxene |
| Clonazepam | Klonopin |
|
Antidepressants |
|
| Citalopram | Cipramil, Celexa |
| Escitalopram | Cipralex, Lexapro |
| Duloxetine | Cymbalta |
| Fluvoxamine | Luvox, Faverin |
| Fluoxetine | Prozac |
| Paroxetine | Paxil, Seroxat, Deroxat, Aropax |
| Sertraline | Zoloft |
| Venlafaxine | Effexor |
| Desvenlafaxine | Pristiq |
| Mirtazapine | Remeron |
| Trazodone | Desyrel |
| Buproprion | Wellbutrin, Zyban |
| Amitriptyline | Tryptizol, Elavil |
| Imipramine | Tofranil |
| Nortriptyline | Allegron, Aventyl |
| Desipramine | Pertrofran, Norpramin |
| Clomipramine | Anafranil |
| Dosulepin | Prothiaden |
| Lofepramine | Gamanil |
| Doxepin | Sinequan |
| Trimipramine | Surmontil |
|
Anticonvulsants |
|
| Phenytoin | Epanutin |
| Sodium Valproate | Epilim, Depakene |
| Divalproex | Depakote |
| Carbamazepine | Tegretol |
| Oxcarbazapine | Trileptal |
| Lamotrigine | Lamictal |
| Gabapenin | Neurontin |
| Pregabalin | Lyrica |
| Leviracetam | Keppra |
| Topiramate | Topamax |
| Tiagabine | Gabitril |
| Felbamate | Felbatol |
|
Antipsychotics |
|
| Chlorpromazine | Thorazine, Largactil |
| Perphenazine | Fentazine |
| Trifluoperazine | Stelazine |
| Haloperidol | Haldol |
| Flupenthixol | Fluanxol |
| Pericyazine | Neulactil |
| Sulpiride | Sulpitil |
| Molindone | Moban |
| Aripiprazole | Abilify |
| Olanzapine | Zyprexa |
| Risperidone | Riserpdal |
| Ziprasidone | Geodon |
| Quetiapine | Seroquel |
| Paliperidone | Invega |
| Zotepine | Zoleptil |
| Iloperidone | Fanapt |
| Amisulpiride | Solian |
| Tetrabenazine | Xenazine |
I have two comments. On kneeling/hanging, the experience of prison guards is that this is a common form of suicide. The prisoner will often tear strips of clothing to make a rope and, purely because there is no way in a prison cell for this to be attached to the ceiling, the rope is tied around the neck then around the bars so that asphyxia occurs when the prisoner leans forward in a kneeling position. In the cases cited here, did anyone investigate whether or not it was possible for the person to attach the ligature to the ceiling?
The second is autopsy findings. An important study is post-mortem vitreous chemical analysis. Unfortunately, after death, the blood is a poor choice for analysis due to the rapid breakdown of cell membranes. Time of death is estimated by potassium levels in the vitreous fluid of the eye. Chemistry abnormalities that were present in patients before death are often more accurately reflected after death in vitreous fluid instead of blood. This increased accuracy makes vitreous fluid the specimen of choice for many chemical analyses after death. Drugs, such as cocaine, morphine, heroin, and tricyclic antidepressants can be detected in the vitreous. Vitreous humor provides one of the best samples for postmortem chemical analysis because it comes from a closed space and postmortem values often approximate the antemortem levels. Let us suppose that we were to require/encourage medical examiners to test vitreous fluid for antidepressants or their metabolites and report these as a required aspect of the post mortem findings? As far back as 1989, it was possible to identify amitriptyline, doxepin, and imipramine and their desmethylated metabolites from vitreous fluid. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2558256
All of the following have been identified in vitreous fluid which remains stable even after storage, unlike blood: Acetaminophen Alimemazine Desmethylalimemazine Amphetamine Amitriptyline Nortriptyline Carbamazepine Citalopram Desmethylcitalopram Clomipramine Desmethylclomipramine Clozapine Codeine Dextropropoxyphene Diazepam Desmethyldiazepam Diltiazem Ethanol Flunitrazepam 7-amino-flunitrazepam Fluoxetine Ketamine Ketobemidone Lidocaine Methotrimeprazine Desmethylmethotrimeprazine Mianserin Desmethylmianserin Mirtazapine Morphine 7-amino-nitrazepam Orphenadrine Phenytoin Propiomazine Dihydropropiomazine Sertraline Desmethylsertraline Theophylline THC Thioridazine Tramadol Venlafaxine O-desmethylvenlafaxine Verapamil Zolpidem Zopiclone
http://library-resources.cqu.edu.au/JFS/PDF/vol_49/iss_4/JFS2003433.pdf
Should we not then, be requiring investigation into the identification of all antidepressants and other prescription drugs at autopsy?
Hello – I Just saw this post. I saw a documentary about Bridgend last night. It seems as if all of the victims has access to be able to hang themselves in the traditional manner, but chose to hang themselves while kneeling. Very strange and sad cases.
If a significant number of suicides were accomplished by hanging when kneeling, this may indicate a collective decision for the following reasons. When kneeling, it takes very little pressure by the ligature to cause loss of consciousness, the weight of the head being the main force followed by the weight of the body. At this point, the person can do nothing to help themselves even if they wanted to. There soon develops coma and this method of hanging is regarded as painless and somehow more acceptable than typical hanging because death is caused by interrupted blood flow not asphyxia by compression of the airway. There is actually a website (or probably more than one) describing what happens and how to do it ). One may infer an exchange of information about this method among the young people of Bridgend but the reasons for suicide remain a mystery.
Robin Williams was found nearly seated on the ground after he hanged himself from over the door in his home. How strange. You’d think the survival instinct would kick in and make you stand and/or fight the impulse to just stay put.
Why is everyone afraid to tell the exact number of suicides of young people in the Bridgend area in 2014 because its very important that the exact figure is told, I ask many health care officials and police officers about the numbers of young people who have suciided in 2014 because something must be done about these sad things going on. If something far worse is going on in that area then it needs to be sorted sooner or later .
The rapid loss of blood flow to the brain makes it unlikely that the individual can change his/her mind even if they want to.
the utter agony of the akathasia will take all reason away and death seems like the only escape from it
Robin Williams had been medicated with certain drugs that, upon withdrawal, are known to cause a syndrome called d a w s. There are some stories on one of Dr Healy’s blogs about this syndrome. It’s an unrelenting unbearable, or nearly so, deep depression that would be expected to increase suicide rates. It is seen most often in people who were taking drugs for Parkinson’s some of which overlap with drugs that they were trying on Mr Williams for what they thought was Dementia with Lewy Bodies. His wife had an essay about his illness and death published in a neurology journal. I saw when reading it that he had been on a certain drug and that the drug had been withdrawn a few weeks before his death. The medical researcher who has written the most about the syndrome wrote a letter to the journal and it’s published as a comment beneath the essay. She explained that his death was very likely caused by the syndrome. There was no feedback after her letter.
You’re talking sheer nonsense in regard to bridgend suicides. Ask yourself a question why did Justin Beecham state on film With all these murders going on there will be no one left before very long.
Great post. Just a few points, most of the original cases were teenagers with few adults in the same series of instances. Most of the children were not even on anti depressants. The were mostly well adjusted children with no problems of any real issue. There was no cult. No peer pressure. The Corener stated that no anti depressants were found in the original 17 victims. No illicit drugs except marijuana in a few. The Welsh government at the time out a cap on the press from blowing this up and that has lead a standstill in research and investigation from official sources. The government is of the mind to say that the press is what is making this situation worse but I think it is making it worse by not reporting it. There is still lots of research to be done.
The fact that several persons committing suicide were in their mid to late 20s doesn’t make them neurological “adults”. They may still be within the adolescent group. The development of the prefrontal cortex and, therefore, the ability to increase self control, reduce risk taking and make appropriate decisions can carry on well into the third decade.
Peer pressure need not be overt. Steinberg and colleagues found that adolescents perform differently when they believe that they are being observed by peers, without any pressure, encouragement, ridicule etc. Risky driving occurs more often when there are similar aged passengers in the car.
In 2006, the FDA expanded its public health advisory to include anyone 24 or younger, i.e. children and adolescents in whom the central nervous system is incomplete. .
It must be acknowledged that knowing more about the structure of the brain does not necessarily tell us any more about its function. There is fairly widespread agreement that adolescents take more risks at least partly because they have an immature frontal cortex, because this is the area of the brain that takes a second look at something and reasons about a particular behavior. However, moving from structure to function, deciding what behaviour is caused by what part of the brain is much more complicated.
At the same time, there has been a great deal of research into the abnormalities of the effects of serotonin on the prefrontal brain. In my heretical view, the suicidal behaviour found in adolescents is closely tied to the ongoing development of the PFC. In some, the combination of immature reasoning and risk taking may be found to be due to a combination of abnormal serotonin effects on the PFC and the common aspects of adolescence.
I do not process to be an expert in neuroscience, but in regards to the suicides that were committed by the people in their mid twenties they were covered in the documentry. It was also independently verified by the Corener of Bridgend County, the first one not the second one that falsified records by stating that all suicides after the first 17 were not suicides although they all had the same exact conditions of death. The 20 something year olds committed suicide the same exact way as the teenagers, they also did not know each other directly; although some may have know each other by distant 3rd party affiliation. By the time the media reported the teens deaths the 20s something’s had committed suicide. In the documentry the families of a few 20s something’s year olds they had no prior mental health issues nor were they on any kind of medication.
Quite true but my comments stand. Please see my previous comment on the way in which medical examiners tend to treat suicides.
And still the suicides continue in 2017 ??? There’s a coverup by the corrupt so called Welsh Assembly to stop these sucides being reported to the general public , for what reason i cant imagine but its not nice . Even the south wales police won’t or cant talk about what’s going on because as one officer said its nore than my jobs worth to talk about because we’re not allowed and have been warned that our jobs are at rish if we do .
Look I understand that the problem continues. There are records I can’t get my hands on due to not being a citizen of Wales in which I might be granted access to them through some sort of freedom of information act the we have in the U.S.. If you are willing and able I will accept a linknto a google sheets page that you make for uploading any documents that you could get your hands on. I need physical proof to order to file a complaint with the U.N. to get the funding I need to do an investigation in Bridgend and the surrounding area. Basically the proof needs to state that a non suicide narrative was assigned as a cause of death in an otherwise obvious suicide. That would allow me the lee way I would need in order to have a non associated group that could apply pressure to The U.K. to force an investigation. Lime what was done in Japan in the 1980s when there was occurences of madd suicide there. Please Derek G I am just as passionate about figuring this out as you are.
What can i do for you ??? There was a so called investigation by an american company with film crew which did an investigation lasting 2 yrs which was funded by Mr Darlow so ask yourself a question why would someone fund a film crew and others for 2 yrs from usa when anyone else were not allowed here in wales to even ask questions in regard to bridgend suicides . Theres something going that the authority’s are not telling the public . Wharever it is it’s sinister .
Still a lot of research to be done huh ? While the suicides deaths still continue in 2017 more research to be done my foot the welsh assembly knows why these deaths still continue but instead sweep it under the carpet and so does the MP for Bridgend Madeline Moon
I would still like to Work with you on this problem. If you could reach out to me via this webpage and link me a Google sheet with uploaded documents of any information about this topic, the people, numbers of people to call etc… I am still being blocked by rule of law from the Welsh Government. I need insiders of the Wales to get me undoctored information that has not been sanitized for public viewing.
Great post. Top marks to Brian too for his research.
In my experience with severe Paxil withdrawal, the symptoms were so obviously in my head that I developed an antipathy to it. As I live in the US, this evolved into fantasies where I destroyed my head with a gun. (I had never had such thoughts before.)
In places where guns are not available, I might guess other head-injuring fantasies, such as hanging, might be more prominent.
Eventually, such ideation went away, as other withdrawal symptoms abated.
I have a question.
I know that abrupt withdrawal from Seroxat led me to ‘almost’ hang myself after six weeks of the most agonising, most horrific, most terrible place that I could ever go.
But, why hanging.
And why, me, totally sane one minute, but after six weeks off Seroxat so horrendously slayed by a drug, did I choose hanging.
Hanging is terrible, no-one wants to hang themselves.
I did not want to hang myself, I would never hang myself……
A drug induced me to almost ‘hang’ myself.
If I ever wanted to end my life, which I didn’t, I wouldn’t ‘hang’ myself’.
I was forced into a corner by a gp who hadn’t met me before. She took me off Seroxat, I was screaming at her to send me to a hospital, she sent me to a mental hospital and when I came out, none the wiser, I almost hanged myself.
Why ‘hanging’?
Why does deranged, psychotic and manic from withdrawal from a prescription drug always lead to ‘hanging’.
What is it, in these drugs, to choose ‘hanging’ as the demented choice to end ones life.
I wanted to be alive, I have always wanted to be alive, but suffocating idiocy and complacency and incompetence led to ‘hanging’.
This is the stuff of nightmares…it is hallucinating, sleep walking, waking up to ‘hanging’.
It is something I will never get out of my mind…..ever……
and despite the pure horror of the six week withdrawal and pure horror of an hour of manic suicidality and pure horror of people talking to me as if I didn’t really exist……I am still here…..yup…..I am still here……..
But, why, why, do these ‘drugs’ lead to a ‘hanging’ scenario….
I am not sure I will ever get an answer to this question…..
Annie – my good wishes to you for surviving and you will keep on surviving…so many haven’t….so many never “woke up” to the “assaults” on their bodies/minds by “trusted” medicines…so many lives gone…the stories continue year after year, the repeats, the headlines where many of us don’t even bother to read anymore because we know the tragedy within…and governments continue to shake hands on deals/lives of the innocent…whilst those manufacturers of poison shake hands on promises of jobs…economical murder that is never investigated because corporate murder is protected by the State, Police and Army…the abduction of lives continue…many of us have literally being force fed medications that will torment our bodies and minds forever…how they do their best to “force suicide” when many of us refuse to succumb to it through the evil side effects of poisonous medication…Vindication in Forgiveness, Reconciliation in Safety, Freedom in Truth – is all many of us ask…Teri
these doctors are prescribing bad medicines and getting a way with it i feel like crap can’t do a damn thing and the doctors are responsible
For some years, it has struck me as beyond coincidence that, as shown in the current post, suicides on antidepressants particularly the SSRIs occur, as the black box warning indicates, at the stage in life in which the endogenous “atypical” melancholias first appear. The same applies to schizophrenia. Is it possible that the wrong medication is exacerbating a condition that is also not being adequately recognized?
Yes, Irene, it is called worry.
I was worried, I was anxious. I was in a relatively serious situational crisis.
If ‘worry’ is not adequately recognized, then, yes, medication will make the situation worse, much, much, much worse.
To give a normal brain some kind of shot of adrenalin, which occurs when sudden violence takes place after a few days on one of these drugs, usually, or, when the problems start on cessation or restarting after cessation, then obviously the ingredients in the capsule are interfering with normal emotional functions.
It is not rocket science.
GSK thought they could jump on the Prozac bandwagon with a slightly different recipe from Prozac.
How many times has Sir Andrew Witty denied murder.
How many fines has Sir Andrew Witty paid out, in the United States of America.
How many thousands of people are having to ‘reconstruct their lives’ after suffering putrid withdrawal and monumental abuse from GSK’s denials of ‘the wrong ingredients’ in the bake-off.
Tarting up a cake into a gateau takes a great degree of skill and this time, it went so badly wrong, for GSK, it ended up as a ‘rock’ cake.
Getting into the head of Sir Andrew Witty is an interesting exercise.
Is he brain-washed by his own company or is he a criminal??
Will he fall into this like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory or will he come out brand new…….
Food for thought…
Why hanging? I would think the common thread in possibly-drug-induced suicides would be impulsive action. Hanging is an understandable “choice” because what do you need? Just a rope, a sheet, a belt … things that are at hand almost anywhere. Here in the States many people have easy enough access to firearms that impulsive shootings are more common. Guns are still the number one means of suicide, at least for adults. Yet hanging is on the rise as a method here as well … and the fastest growing group of victims is not teenagers but women aged 50-54. Their overall suicide rate is up 39% (9.41 per 100,000) but hanging rates are up 138% (1.57 per 100,000).
An article from Australia looks possibly relevant to the tragedy in Bridgend. It finds that the decline in suicide rates there is entirely due to the lowered “success rate” of suicide attempts — especially hangings, which have increased over fourfold:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0044565
The authors feel this must reflect many more impulsive actions, and perhaps less “determination to die” among the victims. They raise the possiblity of an outbreak of “choking games” among teenagers, but could not test this theory because the hospitals which provided their data would not give age rates.
It might explain some hanging attempts, but by no means all. And I think it an unlikely cause of the hanging rates in Bridgend for two reasons. One, this sort of dangerous fad usually involves younger kids, 15 and under, much like the fads for sniffing glue and household solvents. And it does not usually fly under the radar. A couple of years ago in Chicago, a public outcry and huge educational campaign in the media was launched after just two deaths. If this fad were taking hold in Bridgend it would have come out long ago, I think.
Were the “healthy” in the clinical trials really healthy? I remain deeply concerned by the rate of missed diagnoses.
Irene – if we’re talking about the healthy in the healthy volunteer study I ran then yes they were perfectly healthy. The drugs can cause suicide in perfectly normal people – this is the message I take from the doxycycline post on Rxisk stories
This is coming two years after your post, so who knows if you will ever see it?
I did try Chantix several times, and while my temper grew short, I did not have violent nor suicidal thoughts, I was just not so nice to be around. I’m still smoking (that in itself is probably suicide). I did not have dreams any more vivid than normal. So most of the side-effects, thankfully, did not cause those things in MY chemical make-up.
But I did want to mention something, and I will set the scene for you: We are an older, retired couple. Married, at the time, 45 years. At long last our son, the youngest and last to go, was getting married to a woman we really were happy about. It was a destination wedding, a cruise so they could exchange vows on a beautiful beach on the Virgin Islands.
We had to take a jet to get to the ship, stay in a hotel overnight…we had a party with her family that night…and then board the ship the next day. But the very morning of boarding the ship, my husband started to cough, and they were terrible, terrible deep coughs. We told everyone to stay away from us until we knew what was going on. We had attempted, first night aboard, to have dinner with the family, but had to get up and leave because by now just looking at the food was bad…for both of us.
We made a conscious decision to stay away from everyone, including the ship’s personnel, by staying out on our little balcony overlooking the sea, for at least 72 hours. That first night my husband had a fever. By some incredible forward-thinking, my son, cop and EMT, had brought along a supply of Cipro. He brought a bunch down the hall in a small zip-log bag and slid them under our cabin door. In total, my husband had fever two nights, I had fever four nights. But we did keep it to ourselves, opting not to have contact with others. We even had to get a refund on our wine package (first time ever, and we cruise a lot).
The most notable thing here is that we discussed how we felt, emotionally, because we surely didn’t feel like ourselves. We actually hated the world and everything in it. Hated everyone. Including ourselves. But this was NOT caused by the Cipro, it was relieved as the antiviral or antibiotic helped our own bodies to fight the invaders. The hating feeling came with whatever it was that we had come down with. Incredible anger! Along with whatever this was came the most dreadful cough you could imagine. In another streak of luck, the mother-in-law of my son had brought along over-the-counter cough medication. She gave it to me. Thank goodness!
When I got to be 64, I finally agreed to flu shots. I had not been sick in maybe 15 years. Not even a head cold. Airborne allergies, yes, some. But not sick. We had just had our flu shots in November, 2013, and the illness I describe happened in January, 2014.
This year we searched for, found, and were injected with the triple-strain flu shot, and we got the flu…twice. Had it for two weeks, went away just in time for us to make a 1200 mile drive, and hit us again (me, especially) on the way back. Sick for three weeks.
I give you that whole scenario because it is important to note that the abrupt change in attitude was not caused by any drug, but by whatever had invaded our bodies, and we did feel the angriness leaving us as the Cipro did its work. It was important and wonderful that we did discuss how we felt as in “Listen, you really don’t want to even look at me as I feel murderous!” “Yes, wow! I feel the same way!” So in that tiny cabin, on that tiny balcony, we tried to focus on anything but how we felt. We looked for porpoises, dolphins, whales, anything at all. I don’t know what would have happened without the Cipro, as I gauge my fever at about 103F per night. I know my body. We wanted to see our son marry this lovely girl. By the day of the wedding our whole attitudes were almost back to normal, and the fevers gone, the coughing dissipated enough for simple cough drops to work, but we were not contagious. We were, however, exhausted from the days and nights just prior.
Since we both had the flu shots on the same days, and since we both came down with whatever it was simultaneously, or nearly so, I cannot help but wonder if it were not the flu shots themselves. As I’ve said, it was perhaps fifteen years since I had even had a cold, probably longer.
If that illness made us turn into angry beasts, who knows what else is going on? Maybe if I had a blood test as it was going on…but I didn’t even want to get the doctor sick. These flu strains seem to be mutating and doing all they can to avoid being destroyed, but mutating into what?
In my non-medical mind, it seems imperative to do thorough blood and body-fluid work on the remains of these poor individuals. The biggest problem…as far as I can see (I’m not a scientist), is that…they don’t know what they are looking for!
Taking this a step further.
When I was in a city hospital following on from an attempt at ‘hanging’, then lacerations and then an overdose from abrupt Seroxat withdrawal four days after leaving a mental hospital when nobody bothered to check on my medication..
The short, sharp response from the city hospital said I had had an ‘impulse’
There was no investigation as to why I had had an ‘impulse’.
Nobody, again, checked on my medication.
I was educated to not make statements unless they are substantiated.
She had an ‘impulse’ because…………………………………..
There was no ‘because’.
The gp, the psychiatrist, the city hospital, the mhra, the government have all let me down. But where did it start….with idealogical drugs and a mantra of drugs will do no harm….
We have the fight of our lives to get through the endless list of ‘persons’ masquerading as ‘knowing what is best’ and not knowing anything at all……..
Would that just one of them would have stuck up for me.
It was a Fait accompli, a done deal, another case of an ‘accident’ with no ‘one’ accountable……how many ‘ones’ were accountable and were accessories in the biggest fraud case in the history of the UK..by GSK.
Changing the subject slightly…….
Let’s talk about UK regulators.
NICE National Institute of Clinical Excellence
Recommend changing from Paroxetine to Fluoxetine due to it’s longer half-life.
Recommend a four week taper, at least.
MHRA Medical Health Regulatory Agency
Issued SSRI Learning Module: Introduction to SSRIs in 2011 to prescribers
It contains 18 pages.
The opening para says:
‘The learning module is derived largely from summaries of product characteristics(which, in turn, are based on rigorous evaluation of submitted evidence.
Supplementary sources such as guidelines from NICE are used to expand on advice or managing specific risks of ssris; however, general advice on the management of depression and other disorders is not covered.
While the module introduces important general points to promote the safe use of ssris, all clinical decisions should be made on the basis of up to date therapeutic guidance and other authoritative sources of evaluated evidence.’
This can be downloaded from the MHRA website.
MHRA suggest:
“for severe and distressing symptoms, use of a benzodiazepine early in the treatment may be considered, not exceeding two weeks.
Serotonin syndrome is often overlooked or misdiagnosed and specialist advice is recommended.’
And the specialist advice is what exactly…..and where exactly does it come from…
Back to NICE…is it…
Passing the buck is a great way to run a Medical Health Regulatory Agency….
GSK have not talked about switching to drugs with a longer half life.
GSK have not talked about taking a benzodiazepine.
So, the system is wreaking in confusion from the top.
Will any of them get their story right…. and explain it to Joe Bloggs.
Secret advice to prescribers from NICE and the MHRA which doesn’t get a look in to poor old Joe Bloggs.
Shouldn’t the NICE and MHRA leaflets be put in the small packet along with the GSK leaflet.
Shouldn’t it……three leaflets and let the patient decide…..
Or, will he then go off the whole idea because he is now confused and overwhelmed…and get a life without medication which seems to be confusing, even to those who are trying to undo the calamitous nature of manufacturer’s withdrawal propoganda in their own leaflet which basically says ‘my drugs might cause distressing withdrawal and maybe even suicide.’…………
Wished I’d seen the *three* leaflets ten years ago…….
Although, saying that, you would need a box the size of a coffin to put in all the paper that has been produced regarding a drug with as much controversy as Seroxat…..
Peter Haddad, who contributed to the MHRA guidelines on withdrawal, admits all the evidence is anecdotal and merely opinion.
I have experienced suicidal ideation from Seroxat first hand- as have many others unfortunate enough to have been prescribed SSRI’s. Why can’t we see the ‘healthy volunteer’ studies? Can they be accessed or requested under this new ‘transparency’ agenda? Or is this just another smoke and mirrors tactic on the part of GSK- with no substance to it whatsoever?
What I have tried to get across, so far, is not just that Seroxat, obviously causes suicide, in a few, but that the chain of abuse caused by Seroxat, get’s so long.
From the first instance of my distressing withdrawal, I was abused so badly, by so many, that I was reduced to not only having all the symptoms in the leaflet, but actually it was the ‘reaction’ by people, I trusted, that actually reduced me to ‘nothing’.
I was fine, I was great.
It was the sheer abuse from my gp, by the psychiatrist. who put me on it, that actually turned my head into being a substandard human being.
It has stuck because it went on for so long.
I was passed around like a sack of potatoes for two years by people who knew nothing about anti-depressant withdrawal and didn’t want to know….
It stuck. I had never been on the receiving end of abuse like this in my life and this is what GSK have done. This is worse than the drug.
It is being punished ‘because of the drug.’
This is the worst part of all this.
To go through the worst trauma in the history of drug abuse and then be abused by those who gave it to you is like being shot through.
And then, for your regulators. to start coming out with alternative treatments which is not available…….
Come on…..
How many have abused me so far…..the list is endless….
This is the real crime.
It is not so much the drug.
It is GSK allowing the patient to go through a chain of abuse which is so long, that you wonder how you ever came out the other end….
This is the problem, that GSK caused us….to be so abused by so many….
It is a truly terrifying scenario…..I was so abused by so many that I just almost lost the plot entirely….
I know better now……but abuse lingers long after the abusers have departed.
I shake and I quake every day. Nobody has ever talked to me, like those ‘persons’ did and it stuck…..
Time for a change of direction. This surely cannot go on like this…..
My daughter who has been on 14 of these mind altering drugs is currently sectioned and has been sent miles away from home and family to Wales. However I have seen a mixture of emotions in my daughter. There is no doubt that the drugs have made her worse and being in hospital leaves someone to become more and more dependant on the team. I feel the drugs are terrible – the way she was treated at the Maudsley was appalling and Professor Murray distanced himself – he promised a drug free period. They put her on Clozapine and Metformine – supposedly off label for weight loss. None of the drugs have worked. The most serious reactions have been on Cipralix and Seroquel but I happen to know that the Clozapine to begin with caused my daughter severe illness – palpitations and dizziness. She still suffers dizziness. The Seroquel led to adverse behaviour and Akathisia. I just wish there was somewhere where she could safely come off these drugs as they are not working in my opinion and neither is the care but the drugs have made her unstable to the point she could not live at home. If only something was done – no one seems to know in the UK or cares to know how to safely take someone off the drugs and Dr Ann Blake Tracy has given full instructions. I passed these on to the Bethlem and they just ignored the proper way to do this and took her off 150mg of Seroquel, mixed it with Olanzapine and then she did not even know they had put her on Clozapine and Metformine – against her wishes. Now I am demanding a proper assessment by Dr William Walsh and at long last this has been agreed. I am also demanding the Tribunal as it is disgusting that my daughter has been put on a section. Then I wish to get her out of that private sector hospital and hope to provide the accommodation, live in care and orthomolecular treatment myself.
Not one of these drugs have worked and I am having this assessment done according to Dr Walsh’s research in his book Nutrient Power – it is no wonder my daughter is diagnosed with Chronic Treatment Resistant. This is ridiculous – this is because the drugs do not work and yes they cause either severe aggression or suicide – this is 100% true.
You missed a chap called Anthony Martin who hung himself on April 26th in 2007, in Bridgend. He had been depressed and receiving treatment from his GP for depression. For some reason, he is often ommited from the list of people who commited suicide in Bridgend, but sufficient information on the circumstances of his death is out there.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01rfr0r/The_One_Show_18_03_2013/?t=1m42s
Not often GSK is implicated in fraud, on a family show on the British Beeb.
It didn’t quite spoil ‘normal doctoring’ on Jura, which followed afterwards……….which is my ‘neck’ of the woods….
The trouble with the Bridgend suicide is there is a media blackout on this subject and during my research to date October 29 2013 there are 128 young people in the Bridgend area that have committed suicide and continues to the above date . There it seems to bea media blackout on these tragic deaths so that there will be no one asking questions.
I have never read so much propaganda in all my life as I did read this article . And by the way there is no drug making facility in Bridgend because if there was everybody would be included in the death list of all ages and not just under 30 so perhaps you should look at the TETRA system belonging to the police communication system then you may well be on the right road.
With all the child abuse cases from celebrities like Rolf Harris, Jimmy Savile, Cyril Smith and Stuart Hall, how do we know whether or not some of these suicides were triggered by some form of child abuse.
Could there be some paedophile operating within society and be connected to people in positions of authority who have control of the lives of the vulnerable such as care workers or Social Services?
Back in the 1970s I nearly took my life due to being emotionally abused by people in authority within the Bridgend area and ended up in Penyfai Adults Psychiatric Hospital for five months at the age of twelve years.
If people in authority could do that to me in 1973 what are others doing to the vulnerable today?
Let me firstl state that since 2007 when the alledged hangings began there has been 134 hanging of young people in the Bridgend area but the official figure is 79 stipulated by the welsh assembly. Madeline Moon the MP for Bridgend suggests that these deaths of young people were because of websites and she stated that these evil websites must be closed down to stop people committing sucide and she said that without any evidence that it was indeed website that were the cause of these tragic and sad loss of life. She refuses to talk to anyone asking questions in regard to the mysterious deaths of these young people including . There is something going on to cover this up by the welsh assmbly police and Bridgend corupt council . Can anyone give me any information on how many young people have commited sucide this year 2014 in the Bridgend area . derekgoughg@googlemail.com.
hi-
my question is; what are the alternatives to those of us suffering from severe depression? i have tried meds, ect, ketamine infusion, lot’s of talk therapy, time,,,
i have basically been lying in bed for 4 years now. ‘it’ never leaves me. i have days where i am somewhat ok; shower, get out of the house, even socialize. i lost my career of 28 years and many many family, friends, and a desire to live.
people tell me to exercise, do yoga, get some sun, fight! sigh…
i am only on a small amount of klonopin now. trying to reduce and get off. then what?
dr healy; i never would have believed i would end-up like this at 50 years of age. i respect you attack on pharma. but, where are the alternatives that work for those very severely depressed?
They do know BioTec is in that town right?
Bridgend Industrial Estate
Bridgend
CF31 3RT, UK
Dear Dr. Healy,
I watched the documentary last night on Bridgend. It struck me that something that might be of assistance, and I am wondering if you’ve thought of it, is to hold a Community Constellation, after Bert Hellinger’s work, Family Constellations. I can imagine, as someone who works with Constellations , that it might be a good fit. Just curious if you’ve have tried this and what were the results.
I hope this resolves for them sooner rather than later.
Take good care and if you can let me know.
Ria Swift
I have been researching the Bridgend suicides since they first started and I have spoken to many people in regard to these sad events some I have spoken to including police officers have called Bridgend THE TOWN WRAPPED IN SECRETS I know myself that the number of suicides is now over 100 and what I would like to know is how many have committed sucide in 2014 . When I have asked police officers how many have committed sucide in 2014 the reply was its more than my jobs worth to tell you the exact number so my question is WHY THE SECRECY by officials to even speak about it and does anyone know the true figures of sucide of people in Bridgend area since 2007 and before any of you reply its over 100
Documentary are a way of making people believe in the evidence suggested in any documentary because documentarys are a way of brainwashing people into believing the official line. When we talk about Bridgend Sucides then let’s talk about other town in the south wales valleys where young people are commiting sucide like Pontypridd where young people are doing the same as the young people are doing in Bridgend . As far has I’m concerned there is absolutely no evidence that all or any of the Bridgendyoung people were on anti depressants one or 2might have been but not all of the over 100 that have committed suicide since 2007 there are far worse places in the south wales valleys to live other than Bridgend and I mean far far worse places . Yet in these far worse places there are none to my knowledge NOT ONE so it beggars a question why the area of Bridgend ?? And why do police officers refuse to talk to me about what the true figure is of young suicides in Bridgend stating its more than their jobs worth to talk about it so why . I don’t know why TPTB keep stating that its 79 Sucides since 2007 up to 2012 which is total and utter fabrication of figures , so why then cover-up does anyone know ?? . What else is going on in that area of Bridgend county. Answers on a postcard . It makes me sick to my soul that there are some of you keep repeating the same old story of antidepressants being the problem when its not because why the cover-up of official story’s and police officers refused to answer my questions had do other official bodies like Carwen Jones and Madeline Moon .
Does everybody realise that the secrecy and cover-up behavior experienced in Wales is the common experience in every country in the world?
The power of the pharmaceutical industry and medical mafia should never be underestimated. Killer drugs are invariably prescribed, cancer cures are routinely made illegal, and toxins involuntarily ingested by humans, are protected by Law.
Get the picture?
Prescription drugs as nothing to do with the bridgend suicides people should try doing some serious research instead of copying the bullshit about prescription drugs from other outlets of information because there are those who want you to believe that these tragic deaths in bridgend are to do with prescription drugs , the coroner of bridgend did not find any drugs in anyones body .
Derek is correct. This not a conspiracy theory about big pharma. Most of the suicides, the people had no track record of any mental instabilities or being medicated for any said instabilities. The coroner’s reports for the first 17-32 were called suicides officially. The 100’s+ since 2007 have all been exactly the same way, the only difference is the coroner’s reports state a “narrative” cause of death as opposed to a declared suicide. Part of it was to keep it out of the media at first, to prevent copycat incidences. Although that was eventually proved wrong by a study by Samaritans group. The police and the coroner’s office are complicet for some reason, they are hiding something. Just don’t know what or why. Yet…. As for the reason all these suicides are occurring is the bigger question. Why…. It still alludes me Derek G. Trust me I am trying to figure it out.
It seems to me that the Welsh Mp for Bridgend Madeline Moon is threatening anyone looking into the Bridgend suicides with legal action if anyone should use her name or mention her with the strange deaths of young people in Bridgend and it also seems that Carwen JONES the leader of the welsh assembly also knows what seems to have gone in with the deaths of young people in the area of Bridgend but is keeping it to himself for some unknown reason .
Derek, I have a colleague that is a Welsh Citizen. He has been discreetly looking into issues for me. He travels frequently back and forth. I am already making headway into understanding (hopefully)!the reasons for assigning narratives as cause of death instead of listing suicides.
Thanks for that informationit will be interesting to find out why they are doing this as it still seems to be hush hush to whats being going on . Thank you .
Where do you idiots get the idea that those young people in the bridgend area were on antidepressants where there is no evidence that they were or is it that some of you are trying to make others think that’s the reason why these young people killed themselves when in fact its much worse that that on why the killed themselves . I’ll shall ask the question that I have asked many times before without any of you bothering to answer . How many young people in the Bridgend area have killed themselves since 2007 and how many have committed sucide in 2014 ?
I don’t know about Bridgend but sure as hell – psychiatric so-called “treatment” made me suicidal.
Why are you people who read these post still are afraid to mention the exact figure of young people who have ended their lives from 2007 till 26 December 2014 , what’s wrong with you people what are you afraid of .??????
I am a Socio-Anthropologist from the U.S.. I intend to study this systemic problem that has occurred and keeps occurring in Bridgend, Wales. I intend to confront the Sociological structures while looking for the possible root causes of this tragic series of continual events. I will do my best to look for any and all causes to include the use/misuse of prescription/non-prescription medications; most importantly I will leave behind any biases towards any one particular opinion(s) generated on the internet. I will most likely travel to Wales to investigate in a scientific process that differs from that of a police investigations or public speculation. Using the scientific process instead of a journalistic approach should allow me to avoid engendering the suffering people feelings of “being media blitzed”. I am NOT trying to get “just a story” as a journalist might go about getting. I am trying to find the root cause and to generate a list of solutions that will hope to prevent further suicides.
I have written numerous times on this blog and It’s like talking to myself because theres too many gutless people not willing to give the exact figure of How many young people have committed sucide since 2007 I know the figure and its not the alledged 79 that the corrupt bridgend council kps harping on about . Pk don’t bother coming to wales you will only tell what you have been told to tell us and your not wanted .
It is not a matter of being gutless as you put it. It is a matter of empirical data on which science relies on getting to the entire truth. Raging about it and trying to force your opinion on others is the exact opposite of competent process.
I can tell you this, there are Empirically 79 dead as a result of suicide by young adults between 2007 and 2012. There are at least 21 more suicides that have been classified as “Narratives” with even more classified as others. We can’t prove the latter with any official documentation, because sometime after 2012 the local government decided to try to prevent media sensationalism by giving related deaths of similar circumstances a generic listing. They do this for a couple of reasons: one reason is to leave the COD (Cause of Death) to remain open for later determination, Two, they list conditional narratives when trying to determine the connection with other possible suicides/homicides. Then the third however unlikely for it to occur is, Criminal Conspiracy involving members of the investigative team which an outside investigation would be required to investigate the investigators. Thereby anything they have investigated.
I live quite near to the area and it seems that the people in the area affected by the suicides sarny speak of these allegded suicides because of ridicule from friends and neighbours to suggest that there’s more to these death than what’s being told , I’ve been in contact with the coroner and police officers in all these area’s and they all come out with the same story and tenough people enough times they will end up believing it .
I have contacted the police in the Bridgend and the central Coroner’s office Cardiff. I am getting many different stories about the causes and none are to my satisfaction. The major suspicious activity is coming from the Bridgend coroners office because they are the ones using narrative declaration of death instead of suicide even in cases where the person obviously committed suicide.
so what is your theory? why are you so interested? being from bridgend myself i dont even know how many suicides there are up to date. i cant see it being a police cover up either. the police probably wont speak to you as some of them may have been affected by the tragedy themselves or maybe they dont like people asking questions as its not made for public information. people commit suicide for so many different reasons. relationship problems, bullying, drug/alcohol abuse, sexuality, health problems etc etc. im 25 years old and i suffer from anxiety and depression but id never commit suicide but yet i totally understand how some of these people might have felt. the NHS for mental health issues is a discrace. i personally know someone who has attempted suicide 97 times and thats no joke. yet not once would the hospital help them because they had alcohol issues ontop of mental health. they would blame the alcohol instead of the mental health problems. they would send her home the very next day without even seeing a phsyciatrist. i begged them to help but the only one person who spoke to me from ward 14 at princess of wales hospital bridgend, was a family liason officer who said take her home she wont do it again. A FAMILY LIASON OFFICER. NOT A PHSYCIATRIST. i could have grabbed her around the throat for her insensitivity. she knew it was a total of 97 suicide attempts yet she didnt care. the fact she said ‘she wont do it again’ made me so angry thinking she dont even know this person like i do. that was over 6 years ago and the only person who helped this woman was herself and of course me. she has now turned her life around thankfully but my point being, nobody cares about anybody anymore. we are all just statistics. mental health may not have been an issue in these peoples lives but i bet even if they asked for the help, they were most likely turned down. now people face bigger issues like these atos medical exams which are done to score points if your disabled etc. them people are a joke. i even secretly recorded my interview with them and when i learned i failed and had the report copy in my hand stating they said i watch eastenders and i do this that the other yet my tape recording i told them complete different. them people are so currupt they make up stuff just so they can get a payrise probably and i know my disabled neighbour failed a medical herself and overdosed over it. she was so scared to appeal and go to court that she felt so low to overdose. she was saved just in time thankfully.
I am not here to ridicule anybody. My theory is that there has to be some sort of sociological overlap in a variety of different areas that are leading to these suicides and not any one particular thing. One good starting point would be the very thing you stated, “Why don’t these health care providers not care?”. “Why is British Parliament or That of Welsh local government not investigating?”. At some point it will draw attention to the problem from a scientific point of view. Samaritans’.org have compiled some sort of explanation but it is not to my nor to the satisfaction of any of my colleagues. Thank you for contributing I intend to keep up with this investigation Claire. These people should not die in vain.
Here are far worse places to live in South Wales than bridgend and I mean far worse places like Porth, Pontypridd, Aberfan in Merthyr Tydfil, plus Maerdy, Treherbert, Tredegar, Ebbw Vale. Yet there are no suicides in these areas like there are in the bridgend. Why doesn’t the Welsh assembly look into these tragic deaths, what’s puzzling is that nearly all of these tragic death have been mostly hanging by kneeling which is bizarre especially the females.
You guys are being extremely helpful. I now have a very large area to map. It should give me more stats which to overlay to find a root cause.
By far my most “scary” depressive time is sundown.
Being in Wales it should be a school requirement that all teens get the light lamps
because the lack of sun leads to a low vitamin D, then to low testosterone, than to very low DHEA numbers. All three I am near zero in….hmmm maybe not enough sun?
Finally all those struggling get the latest and the best thyroid testing. Remember the time to really watch someone is if he seems he is coming out of the HOLE, gets exuberant, WHy/ Because he knows that he has the wherewith all to end it, stage it, etc. knows
Just a quick question as it may be important as in my experiance ive been treated by bridgend mental health services regarding my state of health and heart problems and my housing conditions which are being ignored by all bridgends services my question is HOW MANY OF THE VICTIMS WERE FROM HOUSING PROVIDED BY VALLEYS TO COAST HOUSING
The reports ive seen suggest these areas
Wild mill bryntirion waunscil avenue bettus
Etc etc
I find the council and social services gp treatment of my situation barbaric and nothing less than torture
my 13 yr old son hung himself in Bridgend 2010 no drugs drink or family issues still can’t get over it everyday I think about ending it but can’t it’s not all related even though I personally know quite a few of the people who passed away the biggest problem is rumours and cover ups people like to have answers it’s not always conspiracy and cloaks and daggers
It’s extremely sad that all these people have ended their lives this way in Bridgend and that there is no official investigation by bridgend borough council nor by the worse than useless welsh assembly because it seems these alleged official bodies really don’t care enough to know why their population are doing this ‘or is it that they do know but don’t want it coming out,because they might be someway be mixed up in this sordid affair. I lost a son of 16 many yrs ago through leukemia and I was devastated for over a year and my life wasn’t the same anymore. But to lose your child through sucide by hanging must be the worse moment any parent can imagine and for that I’m sorry. But for me to think there those in the know and are doing or saying nothing about makes my blood boil. This has to be sorted one way or another sooner rather than later.
I have been following this article since I first saw the Bridgend documentary on Netflix. I decided to follow up with my own research and made a few phone calls to Wales. I spoke with the county coroner, I spoke with local authorities, and that includes the Bridgend Chief of the Constables. They all come up with extremely differing explanations as to the cause of the suicides/deaths. All of which were either dismissed due to lack of evidence or causation. The things that bother me the most is your constant target of prescription medication as the primary cause that lead to the suicides. You point out 9+ specific deaths that you believe were a result of improper use of medication that lead to suicidal ideation then self-inflicted death. While it is extremely hard to acquire death records when your not a.member of said society the freedom of information stops at your national standing with said country. There have been to date over 100+ suicides by hanging and none except the 9 or so you point out have even bad the need to see a doctor before their sudden and unexpected suicide. No previous record of any mental health problems prior to the suicides. None of them except the 9+ previously mentioned were on no such medication that could have lead to their suicides nor was there any concern or need to be evaluated prior to their deaths. As for the definition of assigned category by the coroner some of the deaths were listed as “not suicide” to avoid a scandal in the already over publication of this matter. The more current suicides are being relisted and past ones are being reinvestigated. And for the record Doctor Healy, any good scientist know that correlation is not always causation. Sometimes a pen is just a pen. However tragic this situation is, I believe that is in in no way the fault of prescription drugs given by doctors. If that were the case as you describe it at least in the way of Bridgend county is that because 9+ people had medication in their system at time if death is a direct correlation to why they committed suicide. By that measurement at least nine similar suicides were all a direct cause of their medication?! If that is the case then why did not more die this way? Stats show that the mental health system in Wales is atrocious at best, meaning that it is more likely that due to a poor system either medication is being given out in a willy-nilly like fashion? (still no proof that 90% of them were ever on any kind of psychological meds at all) Or the people are self-medicating via street drugs (therefore no record of drug use), and/or it is more likely that due to an underfunded system they are like killing themselves due to a lack of agency within their own community that suicide is the only practical means of doing said job.?!
It’s nice to see that someone like yourself is giving out the real numbers of suicides in Bridgend and I can tell you catagorigly without question that the 100 plus you mention is real and I’m talking over 130 plus which some organisation mentions. What I also have to state is the fact that some people men and women along with some teenagers who were not from Bridgend but who worked in the borough of Bridgend but actually lives elsewhere up in the valleys such as Porth, ynyshir, Maerdy who also hanged themselves. It seems that most of them were within the RCT Rhondda canon taff authority.
You all have your conspiracy theories maybe most of them were asking for attention and didn’t realise how quick you can pass out I knew a few of the poor people involved and I found my thirteen year old son and don’t think for one minute he knew the consequences of his actions as I believe many of them were the same
Let me ask any of you this simple question. How many other young people have comitted suicide in the bridgen area in 2015 the number will surprise you .
A recent decision by the United States Supreme Court may have something to contribute to the Bridgend suicides. The court stopped the death penalty for individuals below the age of 18 because of information it accepted on the functioning of the adolescent brain. “Jay Giedd, a researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health, explains that during adolescence the “part of the brain that is helping organization, planning and strategizing is not done being built yet…. It’s sort of unfair to expect [adolescents]to have adult levels of organizational skills or decision making before their brain is finished being built.” This, of course, applies equally to the effects of psychotropic drugs on a developing central nervous system.
Without making a parallel, we may consider that the hanging by kneeling and the sometimes apparently impulsive acts may represent an “I’ll show ‘em” attitude or a desire to experiment or an as yet unidentified reason but, as has been pointed out before, this particular method of hanging does not allow one to change one’s mind. The ligature cuts off blood supply to the brain, stopping any ability to raise the head or loosen the ligature. Suicide by accident, perhaps, by many adolescents who may indeed be unable to formulate appropriate decisions or consider consequences.
See:http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publishing/criminal_justice_section_newsletter/crimjust_juvjus_Adolescence.authcheckdam.pdf
Has toxoplasmosis been ruled out? Maybe the parasite toxoplasma gondii is unusually common in the area. I’ve heard that it can cause infected individuals to have suicidal thoughts, aggressive behavior, etc. It has been found in people suffering from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. There are so many theories being discussed about the Bridgend suicide cases, but I haven’t seen any reference to this possibility. Often very strange occurrences have simple medical or scientific explanations.
Lynn, although I am not a medical doctor. It is unlikely that the cause of these suicides are caused by toxoplasmosis. Toxoplasmosis is a virus that can be screened for in a basic blood test. The effects of toxoplasmosis are not subtle and can be cured with antibiotics or other such anti-virals depending on the type of infection. I also do not subscribe to Dr. Healy’s view on this problem. Most of my research has discovered that over 90% of the victims were never medicated in the first couple of years. The latter victims may very well have been medicated in response from the health department of Wales and Great Britian trying to stem the cause but that may have been to late. I believe that the domino effect has occurred from the original suicides to the lack of response by the government to pushing inquiries by the press as to the cause, finally the the government steps in to stem the cause only to make it worse by rushing prescriptions without the proper evaluation time and medication adjustment time to cautiously allow the medication to take effect with out causing problems. In fact part of my research points to the total lack of mental health care in Bridgend county altogether. I will continue my investigation, on a side note I have also made a connection to the factories that were in the area that belonged to outside companies that polluted the areas with heavy metals that could have damaged the eco system; The water table etc… I do nit want to speculate I just want to show that I am looking into plausible causes other than just medication. In theory it has been postulated that the American tobacco companies use false science results to cloud the health issues so they can continue to sell poison to people. It may very well be that the tech companies that thrived in Bridgend during the first decade of the 21st century contributed the pollution that caused the problem but then blamed pharmaceuticals companies for bad drugs to deflect the bad press. Orbit could be a combination of several events that culminate in this tragic set circumstances. I will report when I know more.
I have never read so much shite in all my life as I did reading a virus may be causing the sucides in Bridgend. I attended the Sir William Stewart inquiry into effects of electromagnetic radiation on the human body and let me say this try looking at mind control instead of looking at fictions viruses.
It is the SSRIs causing it. I was on them for 10 years and prior to being on them not one thought of suicide. Took them and it was every other day was like a fight. Then found a program to help me detox off them and it took about 2 years to ween off them. Then I no longer had the thoughts.
I still can’t believe that over 150 young people were on meds to make them comit sucide. There is hardly any evidence that but a few were on meds of some kind and it was the police who stated that they believed that some were on meds. I’m not buying it no way.
Derek Gough, just read through this very interesting article and then to follow, all the posts. Wow, why are you so aggressive towards just normal people posting on this thread, but creepy! Instead of abusing everyone for not answering you (clearly people do not know the actual figure) maybe use your time wisely to research instead of trolling! The families and friends and people who have been directly affected read these articles and your threats of conspiracy are not helping in any way. I agree with you that there is more to this than has been revealed but telling people who are just researching “you’re not wanted here” is embarrassing.
I am a young person from the area and knew someone personally who hung himself last year (2015) whose best friend also hung himself in addition to another friend who also hung himself too, so I believe the after effects of these suicides are still very much having a snowball effect (I believe it is called the Werther effect) on people’s friends, and friends of friends, long after 2007.
Firstly I must apologise for being the way I was with my wording, but it seems that no one is taking any notice of what’s going on in Bridgend and I may add further up the valleys away from Bridgend places like Porth, ynysbwl, Tonypandy, Ferndale but these tragic deaths are not being told and it seems that what ever is going on its creeping up through the valleys. I definitely don’t believe it’s the werther effect that idea is totally out of the question in my mind. Perhaps you should try talking to the Bridgend MP Madeline Moon as I have done to no avail and the Welsh essembly minister Carwen Jones again to no avail because these people will not talk about it and this also is the case with south Wales Police who have been ordered not to speak about it because if they do it would be instant dismissal from the force.,so now try to tell me it’s the werther effect. I’ve been researching these tragic sucides since they started in 2007 and when I ask questions from official sources I hit a brick wall of silence and don’t try to tell me no one knows the true figure because they do after speaking to ambulance staff who have stated it’s Way over 150 and I mean way over and indeed continuing to this day so continue your delusions with this werther effect and I suppose it’s like this with people like you IF YOUR TOLD ENOUGH TIMES YOULL END UP BELIEVING IT. I suppose you read about the werther effect from the net or from some fairy story you read in a newspaper so try yourself to do some research instead of coming on here telling me my views are not wanted too close to the truth huh, and unless I woke up in Russia this morning I still have freedom of speech in this country so far
I did not do research before hand and thinking that Meds were they only way to help my 17 year old son 4 weeks to the day after starting Citalopram he hung himself in the garage. Left him alone for 1/2 hour. He texted his ex girlfriend at 5 am the he was having suicidial thoughts and he hoped the Meds kicked in soon. I believe after 11 months of research since his death that he had PTSD as a result of childhood trauma (domestic violence against me, his mother). 9 hours from ideation to death. There needs to be more education about depression, effective alternative to Meds, and generally how to help children through CBT therapy, regular talk therapy but most importantly how to overcome hopelessness, helplessness and isolation. Yesterday I found an article published by your uk newspaper about a review of 70 clinical trials and the conclusion was that in young people antidepressants more than double the suicide risk and the pharma companies didn’t report the adverse risks. I can say I know my son didn’t want to die. He was getting better before starting drug as there was a month and 1/2 delay from bad episode crying for two days before he actually started. He needed a calm safe home where he was free from any conflict. Nobody bothered to explain much and really lied about these suicide risk and the efficacy of the drug. No mention of the withdrawal situation at all. I do realize that they work for some but I now think that ssri’s should be the last treatment after all others have been tried. I can say that I am completely devastated and must speak up now and going forward. Since when did it become acceptable to subject the population to suicide. I can attest that the benefit didn’t outweigh the risk. I know he could have worked through this instinctively. He just wasn’t able to because of this drug.
I’m so sorry for your loss of your son and I’m sure he didn’t want to end his life that way. I’ve been looking at these tragic deaths since 2007 and before 2007 where there was over 60 sucides by hanging since 1999 up to 2007 and which have continued unabated since. Did the Welsh assembly know what was going on and Did the MP for bridgend MADELINE MOON also know what was going on, and why if they knew what was going on why did they put a news blackout on TV and media about these sucides and why did Madeline Moon state we must shut these evil websites down if she knew it was antidepressants and indeed why have the South Wales Police refusing to speak or make a statement to those if us who have asked questions. The police officers have been forbidden to speak about these tragic deaths because they will lose their jobs if they do. I’m not buying any of this story that antidepressants were the cause of all these deaths because there are other places in South Wales far worse to live in than bridgend and who are on antidepressants yet no hangings why???
Derek Gough, it seems your instincts were correct. Mystery solved? http://www.southwalesawakening.org/?p=307
Lmao you people believe anything and everything.
What next…..’vampires are made after people watched twilight’
Get a grip. There is no conspiracy. So dumb
Oh and btw the media took a step back along with the police because the more attention things get….. the more people react to it. Don’t need to be a genius to know that
Thank you for your research and report. Reports like yours may help years down the road, but the pharmaceutical industry is much too powerful for your findings to have any effect in the near future. I am a retired homicide investigator. Seven years ago, my youngest son was in college when he experienced depression. His counselors recommended him to a doctor, who put him on SSRI medication. Within six months, he had quit his job and dropped out of college. It got to the point that this once outgoing person isolated himself in his room. Once he discovered that the medication was causing his problems, he called and begged his doctor to take him off the medication. The doctor gave him an appointment two months from his call. A week later, he killed himself. I changed the way I investigated suicides. In our small town, within the following year I investigated six suicides, all taking SSRI drugs. In these cases, I asked the pathologist to list the cause of death as suicide induced by drugs. He looked at me and said, “Are you trying to get both of us fired?” This the bottom line. Money supersedes the lives of our children. In history, our current time will read more devastating than the witch hunts of the 1700’s, but that doesn’t help our children today. For now, I have given this issue to our Lord.
My deepest condolences. A Chief medical examiner of my acquaintance told me that they try not to list suicide as cause of death to spare the feelings of family. They will often list something like “asphyxia by ligature” and manner as “accidental”. While this shows compassion it is poor science and alters the figures drastically, reducing the ability to identify cause.
There is not enough supporting evidence to suggest that SSRI’s are the direct causes of these suicides. Most of the poor victims were not being medicated for any reason as the tixicology reports had stated in the past. The real injustice is in the fact that they stopped investigating these incidents. A lot ofnthe reports hat camebfrom the original parents ofnthe cluster suicides
There is not enough supporting evidence to suggest that SSRI’s are the direct causes of these suicides. Most of the poor victims were not being medicated for any reason as the tixicology reports had stated in the past. The real injustice is in the fact that they stopped investigating these incidents. A lot ofnthe reports hat camebfrom the original parents of the cluster suicides have stated that thier children were not being seen for mental health problems or being medicated. Most of the children and teenagers that committed suicide were perfectly normal the weeks prior to committing suicide and in some cases days up till. None of the victims ledt final notes gave no indication whatsoever. Also since the press has backed off covering these unforunate events they have continued unabated with the exception of a few per 100,000 residents of Bridgend County.
The press didn’t back off at all they were ordered by the corrupt Welsh assembly not to report any more suicides which included the south Wales Police. ONE SOUTH WALES POLICE OFFICER FROM BRIDGEND TOLD ME ITS MORE THAN MY JOB’S WORTH TO SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THE STRANGE SUICIDES because we will have instant dismissal from the force if we dare talk to anyone about the the sad suicides. PHIL Bright knew too much about what was going on with these sad deaths yet he was found hanged, did he jump or was he pushed???? Also the corrupt assembly definitely knows what’s going onwith these deaths including Madeline Moon the bridgend MP. Don’t forget people some of the Welsh assembly members were sent to GCHQ for training in Mind control and hypnosis along with Phil Bright.
I am not investigating or even looking into conspiracy theories. This is clearly not that. I will only look at the facts and only report facts. These poor people do not need conjecture and summary dismissal of famiail concern.
Well it’s about time someone investigated this sad goings on. I been looking at this sad story since 2007 and have constantly hit brick walls even from police officers and the bridgend MP Madeline Moon who it seems can’t or won’t talk to anyone in regard to these sucides which I found bizarre to say the least also the officials which includes Carwen Jones of Welsh Assembly are keeping tight lipped. Oh and by the way the official figure of 79 deaths from the Welsh assembly is total rubbish because from 1999 to 2007 there were a further 90 sucides up to 2007. So it total the number is well over 186 of people who committed suicide in the county of bridgend.
Accidental my arse you know whats going on so why not bite the bullet snd tell us whats going on before we find out for ourselves and do something sbout it including the corrupt south wales police and the equally very corrupt welsh assembly.
There is no conspiracy. There is no play/satire that is making them commit suicide. It has nothing to do with SSRI’s. 90% of all the victims were never medicated for any mental health problems. The toxicollogy reports confirmed that in the first several victims. Plus statements from family members. It only get weird after the police and coroner’s office stop talking about it to public and then make all future suicides a listed as a “Narrative” instead of suicide. The reason for these deaths is a Community Theater, SSRI’s., It is something that the police and the MP don’t want to talk about.
I have not used conjecture in this sad event which is going on in Bridgend. If you have done any real research you will find that there is a cover up of grand propotions from everybody involved. The film Bridgend the English version was financed by the guy who use to own durbins estate agent who still lives in wales, the American filmmaker who did the film and hired camera people and reporter and who also hired the parents and friends those who lost their children in Bridgend to sucide this film had taken nearly 2 yrs to make so ask yourself a question why would anyone bring people from the USA to investigated the sad deaths of young people it smells to high heaven.
I am not just researching Bridgend. I am also studying many other instances of mass suicides and cluster suicides. I am looking for corroborating evidence between the instances looking for patterns.
These hangings in Bridgend were not cluster suicides or mass suicides. Why would someone like a man that use to own a big company in South Wales like Durbins Estate Agents but who sold it but the new company decided to keep the name durbins Fund a reporter and film crew from the USA for nearly 2 years setting the crew up in expensive hotels AND pay all those parents who lost their kids to hanging in Bridgend and their friends and many others costing 10s of thousands of pounds??????? And for what I ask??? What was in it for the guy called durbin and why drag 5 people all the way from the USA who were not qualified in sucides but rather only qualified in story telling for kids and writing children’s books , there’s more to this than meets the eye it’s sinister and down right frightening. Do some decent research before you comment as I have done.
Suicide in Bridgend: The Influence of Age.
It seems logical to assume that the group of suicides reported in Bridgend, Wales consists of individuals who have something in common. So far, investigations have reported finding nothing linking the individuals while missing the most obvious – their ages, almost all within biological adolescence.
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) receives input from all other cortical regions and functions to plan and direct motor, cognitive, affective, and social behavior. It has a prolonged development, not complete until at least age 23, which allows the acquisition of complex cognitive abilities through experience but makes it susceptible to factors that can lead to what is regarded as abnormal functioning, but may simply be the manifestations of the developing prefrontal brain.
The many distinctive characteristics of the adolescent brain are described by psychologist Laurence Steinberg in his book, Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence. His testimony has contributed to American Supreme Court decisions abolishing the death penalty for juveniles and life without parole for juvenile offenders.
This case was argued on October 13, 2004. The appeal challenged the constitutionality of capital punishment for persons who were juveniles when their crimes were committed.
The opinion of the court was as follows:
“Under the “evolving standards of decency” test, it is cruel and unusual punishment to execute a person who was under the age of 18 at the time of the murder. Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy cited a body of sociological and scientific research that found that juveniles have a lack of maturity and sense of responsibility compared to adults. Adolescents were found to be over-represented statistically in virtually every category of reckless behavior. The Court noted that in recognition of the comparative immaturity and irresponsibility of juveniles, almost every state prohibited those under age 18 from voting, serving on juries, or marrying without parental consent. The studies also found that juveniles are more vulnerable to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure. They have less control, or experience with control, over their own environment.”
It is, at the same time, interesting to note that the military prefers persons in mid to late adolescence. One might infer an awareness of the extreme malleability of adolescents, especially in circumstances of clear reward and punishment and the usefulness of adolescent risk taking behaviour in combat.
Steinberg’s experiments have shown that adolescents respond differently to rewards, are more likely to take risks and are more sensitive to peers than adults. He writes, “We’re hard-wired to be risk-takers as adolescents. The dark side of this is why societies from ours to ISIL recruit people this age to do the dirty work. [Young adults are] more interested in the immediate rewards than the long term consequences.”
It might be more accurate to speak of “approval” rather than “rewards.” We know that brain systems comprising the social brain are undergoing extensive development during adolescence. They are particularly attentive to the behaviors of other people, and especially peers.
“It’s not so much that peers influence kids to take risks,” he writes “ It’s that by activating their reward centers, peers make adolescents more sensitive to rewards/approval in their immediate environment. “
Adolescents are aware of the consequences of risky behaviour but seem not to care as much as do adults. The common method of suicide in Bridgend – hanging by kneeling – may have been an attempt to gain peer approval with the erroneous belief that one can change one’s mind in the middle of the act. This, unfortunately, is not so as the pressure on the carotids quickly reduces blood flow to the brain to the point of unconsciousness and tragic results.
I would suggest that the age range of the persons committing suicide, combined with social, economic and sensory experience should be more carefully considered as a cause.
I just found out that efavirenz maybe linked to suicide. It is a commonly prescribed HIV treatment. The list of drugs in the article is therefore imcoplete and leaves me wondering how many others have this or similar effect?
http://www.catie.ca/en/treatmentupdate/treatmentupdate-204/hiv-and-brain-related-issues/efavirenz-and-suicide-risk
I have read through these comments and according to the list of meds it says homicide. Have any of these actually caused someone to commit homicide???
Maybe if we all relied more on ourselves and not on drugs. Society has been brainwashed. Big Pharma and Government want you relying on them for medicine to get through the day. Unless you are truly ill you should NOT be on pills of any kind.
Think about it….what does religion tell us? That we are born into this world of sin. Well that is NOT true. That is a control technique. A more modern technique is taking hold…you MUST HAVE preventive medicine. You are sick BEFORE you are sick. It is control in it’s most modern basic form.
We need to wake up. Preventive medicine to THEM is removing your breasts, relentless screenings and tests that cost ALOT of money. They want you thinking you are sick before you are sick. This is their way of controlling YOU. Do not allow them to trick you. Do not think for a minute that you know less than they do when it comes to your health and mental well being. Yes, there are many many very ill people out there who require the best medicine can offer however for the majority of people…. just suck it up. Take back control.
I feel so sorry for the young children who have died. They did not deserve it.
I had my first suicidal thought about a year after starting two of the drugs above. The thoughts have persisted and I even overdosed—but my husband found me—while I was on even more of them as my health deteriorated.
I still struggle with ideation, despite counseling, which proved to be too physically challenging, given my physical state. It’s been 5 years and my medications have changed, but I currently take 4 drugs listed above—one as needed. And no anti-depressant.
I have so many neurological problems. It’s interesting what they use to treat them.
Suicide rates have increased in the UK (by 3.8%), England (by 2%), Wales (61.8%)
and Northern Ireland (18.5%) since 2014 – however increases in Wales
and Northern Ireland may be explained by inconsistencies in the
processes for recording and registering suicides in these countries. Coroners (Medical Examiners) are allowed to register results as “accidental”. “excessive self harm” etc. rather than suicide. Keeping that in mind, the 61.8% increase in Wales becomes all the more remarkable,
Dear David,
There is an aspect I am most surprised you have not mentioned and then on reflection I am not surprised.
You make no mention of what the local Child Death Overview Panel [CDOP] did in response to these most distressing child deaths and to meet their statutory obligations to investigate and report to prevent future child deaths.
A normal person who knows what the local CDOP is meant to do as a matter of law would be most surprised. A normal person who knows what CDOPs in fact do would not be.
A child death is a death of a person aged less than 18 years old.
However, if you did mention CDOPs that would then lead to a review of an industry: the UK’s child protection industry.
CDOPs and Coroners are just the first and second levels. I cannot address all levels here. Some are mentioned.
At all levels this industry does not do the job required by Acts of Parliament to protect children. The practical focus in my experience appears to be on finding evidence to blame parents if they can. This is despite all the fine words by politicians and the great and the good in official publications and reports.
It is a symptom of the sickness in politics today. “Duty” is a four letter word. “Integrity” is too long and difficult. Voters have no confidence and don’t vote or participate in a political system which over centuries many in our islands died fighting and striving towards for our benefit today.
CHILD DEATH OVERVIEW PANELS
I have experience of the inquests into the deaths of two unrelated children in different parts of England. Both deaths occurred within seven days of the administration of pharmaceutical products.
No one at either CDOP reported the deaths as possible adverse drug reactions under the Yellow Card system and nor did any other medical or other professional including the pathologist from Great Ormond Street Hospital.
One might summarise this by asking: do CDOPs only check to see if the parents can be prosecuted, but do nothing if the drug industry, a doctor or anyone else might be?
A BRIEF NOTE ABOUT THE YELLOW CARD SYSTEM
The Yellow Card system is negated by the internal procedures of the MHRA making the entire Yellow Card system useless for identifying signals of possible adverse drug reactions.
I have studied two drug safety analyses produced by the MHRA. These were produced following their internal procedures for analysis of Yellow Card reports so will be typical of the MHRA’s approach to all analyses.
The analyses were manipulated to ensure any underlying condition could not be identified.
It appears the MHRA routinely split up reported Yellow Card symptoms into separate groups: eg all headache symptoms are reported together as if the headache is the reaction and any related symptoms are also reported separately as if not part of the same condition which caused the headache. This prevents anyone identifying the underlying condition or syndrome the symptoms indicate the person concerned might have had.
THE CORONERS
Neither Coroner at the inquests I attended reported either child death to the MHRA under the Yellow Card system as possible adverse drug reactions.
At one of the inquests the Coroner invited comment on whether he should make a statutory report to the Chief Coroner recommending all deaths associated with recent administration of pharmaceutical products be reported as possible adverse drug reactions. It was mentioned this would help identify pharmaceuticals which might be associated with death. A possible causal association could then be investigated and lives saved.
The Coroner’s expert whilst giving evidence asked in effect that this was not done as it might affect public confidence in the pharmaceuticals.
The Coroner obliged. The suggest report was not made.
CHILD DEATH OVERVIEW
The system of oversight of child deaths in the UK was meant to have been overhauled in 2009. This followed a number of fig leaves for the political Establishment following a long line of prior ones. Some of the more recent examples are mentioned here.
The 2004 Baroness Helena Kennedy report on Sudden and Unexpected Death in Infants (RCPath and RCPCH, 2004) followed the wrongful conviction of mothers for child deaths including the case of solicitor Sally Clark following two infant deaths in her family. This fig leaf makes it look like the Establishment cares and acts to make changes but we can see it did no such thing. What it also does is bring into focus the roles of the Royal College of Pathologists and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health as part of the child protection industry.
The Kennedy Report recommendations were extended to the processes to be followed when any child dies as put forward in Working Together to Safeguard Children (2006).
There is no point having processes which do not do what the public are told they are there for nor achieve what is claimed for them.
The Labour politician Ed Balls as Secretary of State wrote the foreword to The Department for Children, Schools and Families May 2009 action plan “The Protection of Children in England”. This was billed as the response to Lord Laming’s report.
Balls wrote a lot of fine but worthless words typical of the political establishment. Nothing much has changed. Does he care?
Balls wrote:-
“This country has one of the best child protection systems in the world. Every day, thousands of people at the front line – social workers, teachers, police officers, doctors, nurses and many others – work tirelessly to support children and young people and help keep them safe. But good practice is not yet standard practice everywhere – and we should not rest until it is.
That is why, last November, I asked Lord Laming to prepare an urgent, independent report of progress on safeguarding arrangements nationally. His report, The Protection of Children in England: A Progress Report, was published on 12 March. The Government welcomed Lord Laming’s report and responded immediately, accepting all his recommendations and taking urgent action.
Lord Laming’s report confirmed that robust legislative, structural and policy foundations are in place and that our Every Child Matters reforms set the right direction and are widely supported. He underlined the progress that has been made and the positive difference that people working with children, particularly those most at risk, are making every day. But he was also clear that there needs to be “a step change in the arrangements to protect children from harm”. He challenged us all – central government, local government, national and local partners, and the public – to do more.
Lord Laming’s report set out a compelling analysis and a comprehensive set of recommendations to ensure best practice is universally applied in every area of the country, to strengthen national and local leadership and accountability, and to provide more support to local leaders and for the frontline workforce. We have already begun to act on his recommendations. We have appointed Sir Roger Singleton as the first ever Chief Adviser on the Safety of Children to advise Government on strategic priorities and the effective implementation of safeguarding policy.
We have taken immediate action to start to transform the social work profession. We are clarifying and strengthening the key role of Local Safeguarding Children Boards. And we are establishing a new National Safeguarding Delivery Unit to ensure a co-ordinated approach across Government and to support and challenge Children’s Trusts and local authorities to drive up standards and the quality of practice.
This document sets out the Government’s detailed response to Lord Laming’s report and our plan of action to deliver the step change which he has called for. It is an action plan to which I and my colleagues across Government are firmly committed but one which we know we cannot deliver alone. Keeping children and young people safe must be the responsibility, every single day, of us all.
Nothing we can do will bring back the children who have died at the hands of their abusers or relieve the suffering of those children who have been deliberately harmed. But we have to be determined to learn the lessons and to act now to make a lasting difference so that more children will be protected in future.”
And so the cycle of children dying with their deaths not properly investigated goes on, and on, and on, and on ………..
………. and the establishment continues to produce lots of fine reports and words to make it sound like they are doing something and care … but nothing changes.
Thank you all contributors, its been a fascinating read.
So sorry for those who have lost loved ones.
Maybe one day we will did over for sure what the cause/s are.
Much love from Carmarthenshire.
I have not given up on the work. I will find answers and keep working until I do.
Fluroquinlenes. Drs have gaslit so many patients that they can’t cause serious side effects. Nerves
Neurapathy tendons seizures even with FDA warnings.
Including myself.