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Rob Levine

Minneapolis, MN
Commenter for
5 years 27 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 08/01/12 at 08:30 am in response to AG Swanson pushes North Memorial on Accretive contract

It's truly a post-shame world at the Strib. This is the second creationist piece in less than a week.

Posted on 07/30/12 at 09:12 am in response to Property forfeitures double in Ramsey County

Re: James Holmes. We now find out that he was under the care of a psychiatrist. How long before we find out he was operating under the influence of SSRIs or other personality altering drugs? Hard to find anyone outside alternative media interested in the soul-killing effects of powerful brain altering chemicals. Read this list of violence perpetrated by people on these drugs.

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Posted on 07/30/12 at 10:10 am in response to Property forfeitures double in Ramsey County

There is a plethora of evidence, including the warning pamphlets that come with the drugs. If that's not enough, here's just one peer-reviewed study:

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0030372

Posted on 07/30/12 at 10:32 am in response to Property forfeitures double in Ramsey County

Here's another one, based on FDA research:

"These data provide new evidence that acts of violence towards others are a genuine and serious adverse drug event that is associated with a relatively small group of drugs. Varenicline, which increases the availability of dopamine, and serotonin reuptake inhibitors were the most strongly and consistently implicated drugs."

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Posted on 07/30/12 at 02:00 pm in response to Property forfeitures double in Ramsey County

I'm not sure what the actual rates are, but it's troubling to me that these drugs cause a certain degree of suicidal ideation, reduction in inhibition, and some degree of proclivity to inflict violence. This is especially troubling given the rate of prescribing these drugs for people with mild to moderate depression, which is treated equally well with placebo, and have other negative side effects. In addition, the rate wouldn't have to be very high to have severe consequences given the huge...

Posted on 07/30/12 at 02:19 pm in response to Property forfeitures double in Ramsey County

Point being, if its true that psychiatric drugs reduce inhibition and make it easier for some patients to commit violence, and we know that the Colorado shooter had been seeing a psychiatrist, and, as the editorial says, we want to know what really happened, then at a minimum we should be seeing if psychiatric drugs played a part.

Posted on 07/31/12 at 10:03 am in response to Property forfeitures double in Ramsey County

British psychiatrist David Healey says that the medical profession refuses to own up to the reality that psychiatric drugs can lead to violence, even though that is an undeniable fact:

http://davidhealy.org/the-hidden-gorilla/

"Most drugs that can cause suicide, including the antidepressants, mood-stabilizers, antipsychotics, smoking cessation drugs and others, can also...

Posted on 07/19/12 at 07:26 pm in response to MPR, national parent lay off 10 employees, citing 'challenges'

"Development", aka "Money". So they lost $1.8 million last year, but still have assets of over $100 million. By my calculation they could continue losing that amount of money for 50 YEARS. Get rid of Kling and McTaggart and that deficit is half erased. But no - fire a few employees so they can focus on "development" - begging for more money.

Posted on 07/20/12 at 01:46 pm in response to MPR, national parent lay off 10 employees, citing 'challenges'

The point remains: They could lose this amount of money with no changes for 50 years.

Posted on 07/13/12 at 12:18 pm in response to Prepare now for Minnesota's future higher-ed needs, Itasca report advises

Is anyone else sick of the jerks at the Itasca Project telling us what to do? These are the same folks who are foisting the MinnCans, Michelle Rhees, Charter Schools, Testing, privatization of education, etc on us. It's just more opaque plutocracy.