Far More Youth Now Prescribed Dangerous Psychotropic Cocktails

     Last week the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania published findings that one out of every four young people taking psychotropic medications is taking them as part of a dangerous cocktail of medications which can lead to “serious drug interactions.”

     “Interactions” like those of Jesse Van Rootselaar? 

     She killed five others and herself the week before in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, after taking what she said were several different kinds of prescription antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs after spending time in a psych ward.

     The Perelman study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that psychotropic medication prescriptions increased from just over five percent to just over eight percent of the population from 2001 to 2020. The greatest increase was among children 6 to 11 years old and young adults 20 to 24 years old. The use of stimulant medications for ADHD, which have the most severe Black Box warning for risk of violence to self and others, almost doubled during that same time period from 2.7 to 5.4 percent.

     During he same time, the number of youth taking more than one of those dangerous medications doubled. One quarter of the youth surveyed were taking multiple medications that have the potential to cause serious harm when combined. These cocktails “require close monitoring, dose adjustment, or avoidance in the first place,” the article notes.

     The researchers said that half of those youth taking antipsychotic medications were at risk of a “potentially dangerous major interaction” as a result of taking another medicine. In fact, just under half of those youth taking antidepressants had already had at least “one major interaction.” As in the “one major interaction” Jesse Van Rootselaar had with those five Tumbler Ridge residents she murdered.

     Is it really only a coincidence that the increase in mass shootings in America over the last two decades parallels the statistical rise in the number of our youth who have now become part of these “major interaction” minefields?

     At least RFK, Jr. thinks it’s worth investigating.