The FDA has finally proposed that antidepressant medication manufacturers should update their  product labels with information about increased risks of suicidal thinking and behavior in young adults. 

The big secret that the press has avoided, especially with the tragedy at Virginia Tech, is that the MAJORITY of student suicides and shootings over the last few years can be linked to antidepressant usage. I'm pissed at this fact because I've known this for years — lots of radio shows and books have been written about this connection — and yet the press keeps skirting around the issue. It makes me wonder whether lobbying and advertising dollars are warping people's judgements.

In other words, the students did not shoot others because they were depressed. Rather, various books  and countless other evidence have been amassed linking the use of antidepressants to the generation of various emotions (dehumanizing of human beings, etc.) that have actually led to the shootings! So once again the press is fixating on the wrong issues. Not gun control, or the status of mental health screening in the US, but the use of antidepressants seems to be the common killer.

My own teacher constantly said that mental health will be the Big problem of this century. Not cancer, he sadi, but mental health problems will become an epidemic. So once again, we have to start looking for causes and cures. As to causes, we could cite many contributing factors — increased stresses of life, increase in thinking demands, the increase in fantasy promotions via the TV or internet, poisons in our environment, whatever. Everything contributes so who can say there is a singular cause of this trend?

As to the cure, well one part of the equation should definitely include meditation, because it is THE cure for mental health problems. Think about it. If you learn to let go of thoughts, and in particular the thoughts that bother you or propel you to do things you shouldn't, you become mentally purified. Well guess what does that?

Meditation.