That’s certainly the implication of the headline appearing yesterday on the popular Drudge Report website. It read, "School Killer was on Prozac …" The story then goes on to describe a very disturbed and isolated teen who had tragically lost both parents. The only information available about Prozac was in paragraph seven and just comments that he was on it.
But was he really taking it – likely not. We won’t know until we get the final coroner’s report. Many questions need to be answered before we can speculate about what role, if any, Prozac played.
So, why would a headline want to jump so quickly to insinuate that Prozac was the real killer? Because this is America, and the main purpose of our dominant news sources is to build as large an audience as possible – it’s all about the money.
Recently a 15 year-old was found guilty of maliciously murdering his grandparents. The jury rejected the defense that his behavior was caused by Zoloft, a medication similar to Prozac. The evidence was overwhelming that in his case a long history of pathologic violence and absence of normal guilt and remorse had long preceded his taking the medication.
So what about the case in Minnesota? He had a long history of deviant behavior and fascination with violence. He had been in a psychiatric hospital because he was suicidal.
When was he put on Prozac? Did it precede his deviant behavior? We don’t know. But hey, let’s not wait for the facts. Let’s exploit the possibility. How else are we going to get over 9 million hits per day?
Besides, we need to move on to planning the made-for-T.V. movie. I can see it now … ratings week … Slaughter in Minnesota goes head to head with Terry Schiavo.
