Category: Grumpy’s hall of Shame

At GunsAmerica, our general policy is to avoid glorifying mass shooters by naming them. But the 2012 Aurora Theater shooting demands we break this rule, not to focus on the shooter, but on a potentially overlooked catalyst – Big Pharma.

Here’s the shocker. The world has been fixated on the “orange-haired psycho” responsible for the carnage at the Aurora movie theater, where 12 lives were lost and 70 were injured. But it’s time to challenge the one-dimensional villain narrative.

What if the real story has been hiding in plain sight?

Enter the compelling insights of Dr. David Healy, a leading psychiatrist and a beacon of clarity in a sea of pharmaceutical ambiguity. In a sobering interview with Dr. Josef on YouTube (see above), Healy tears down the mainstream facade. His point? We’re missing a critical piece of the puzzle.

Healy paints a picture of the shooter before the tragedy: a typical college student battling shyness, not a natural born killer.

“I was struck by the fact that it was a very normal human being; this was not a monster in the sense of someone who kills 12 other people and injures 72 others,” he tells Dr. Josef.

Healy interviewed the suspect at the behest of his legal defense team prior to the trial. Dr. Healy also had the opportunity to examine all the suspect’s medical reports.

What Healy found was the twist in his tale began with the Pfizer-produced Zoloft, an SSRI prescribed for his introversion.

As the patient’s mental state deteriorated (likely suffering from “disinhibited delirium,” per Dr. Healy), his dosage was ramped up – a move Healy slams as disastrously misguided. The result?

A once-timid student morphing into an unrecognizable version of himself, engaging in uncharacteristic behaviors.

“He’s beginning to do things, like he finds it easy to go and ask girls out. He picks the prettiest girl in the class and asks her out. You know this kind of behavior just wasn’t happening before,” explains Dr. Healy.

“He’s beginning to buy things that, you know, he wouldn’t have ever bought before including guns, and he goes along to a shooting range to teach himself how to shoot and things like this. This is all very unusual behavior for him; there’s never been anything like this before.”

Then, according to Dr. Healy, he goes to his psychiatrist and says, “Look I’m not much better, and if I was to tell you what I was thinking you’d lock me up.”

Eventually, he drops out of school, stops taking the Zoloft and goes into an abrupt withdrawal. Post-medication, the suspect’s actions escalated to the point of no return. Everyone knows what happens next.

And, Healy’s conclusion is stark: “You know you can’t be absolutely certain that the drugs caused it but I think it’s highly likely that the Zoloft he was on and the withdrawal from it caused the problems.”

Healy doesn’t stop there. He links a potential genetic factor to the shooter’s adverse reaction to SSRIs, a factor ignored or overlooked by his doctors.

“Both of his parents at one point or another had had an SSRI and that they’d had reactions not unlike the ones that he’d had, and things became terribly vivid and abnormal,” he says.

The Aurora Theater shooting saga, spotlighted by Dr. Healy, isn’t just an isolated incident of potential medication-induced violence. It’s a tip of an iceberg in a sea of pharmaceutical implications, extending far beyond SSRIs like Zoloft.

Consider the eye-opening case of Singulair (made by Merck), an asthma medication. A forceful letter this week from the NY State Attorney General’s Office to the FDA blasts the lid off concerning reports of Singulair causing aggressive behavior ( e.g. “rage”) and suicidal thoughts.

This isn’t just a footnote; it’s a glaring alarm signal!

The Attorney General’s direct call to the FDA paints a grim picture, revealing a critical oversight in medication monitoring.

The Singulair debacle corroborates Healy’s argument – the problem of drugs triggering violent reactions is more widespread and insidious than we’ve been led to believe. This isn’t about one type of drug or one tragic event; it’s a systemic flaw.

As Dr. Healy told Dr. Josef, “There’s a range of drugs that can cause these things so my key take-home message is if you go on any drug and feel weird you’re probably right.”

But, “Now the world we live in is one where you’ll be told don’t go off your drugs, whether it’s even an asthma drug or whatever, ‘don’t come off your drugs without consulting your doctor.’ That’s not safe anymore.”

“If you’ve got a good doctor it may work. But all too often doctors will increase the dose of the drug you’re on when you say you feel weird,” warns Healy.

The Aurora Theater case, when seen in this expanded context, becomes even more alarming. As mentioned, it’s no longer just a story of a single shooter and an SSRI. It’s a wakeup call echoing across the entire medical and regulatory landscape, urging a serious, unflinching reexamination of how all medications are monitored, reported, and discussed.

It’s high time for a bold, unvarnished conversation about the full spectrum of potential medication side effects. This is about public health, public safety, and the urgent need for transparency and accountability from Big Pharma and the FDA.

As Healy noted explicitly in the interview, “the Pfizer articles on Zoloft are ghost written; you realize that not even FDA has seen the data from the clinical trials.”

What?!!! How is that even possible???

It’s evident that we’re standing at a crossroads demanding answers. These answers aren’t just crucial pieces of a complex puzzle; they could very well hold the key to averting future mass killings.