Global Research
The Suicide of Robin Williams: Why We Need a Grand Jury Inquest to Investigate It
On July 2, 1961, an American icon,
Earnest Hemingway, committed suicide at his beloved vacation home in
Ketchum, Idaho. He had just flown to Ketchum after being discharged from
Mayo Clinic’s psychiatric ward where he had received a series of
electroshock “treatments” for a depression that had started after he had
experienced the horrors of World War I as an ambulance driver.
One of his duties was to retrieve
fragments of mutilated human bodies in the battle zone. He was haunted
by the images of dead and bodies and dying humans for the rest of his
life so there was no question that he had what was later to be
understood as combat-induced post-traumatic stress disorder, with
depression and insomnia. Hemingway himself had been severely wounded by
shrapnel. Like many victims of combat-induced PTSD, he drank a lot of
alcoholic beverages and had had a series of failed marriages, with
financial problems related to the alimony payments to his ex-wives. He
understood that his psychiatric ECT “treatment” had erased his memory,
and he knew that his writing career, his reason for living, was over.
Almost exactly 53 years
after Hemingway’s suicide, another American icon, Robin Williams,
entered a psychiatric facility in Minnesota (July 1, 2014). He had been
given an as yet unknown cocktail of prescription drugs that resulted in
his losing weight and withdrawing from his loved ones, sleeping, after
his discharge later that month, in his darkened bedroom up to 20 hours a
day, in an apparent drug-induced stupor.
Williams was said to have
developed Parkinson’s Disease (and had been given some new drugs for
it), which can commonly be caused by antipsychotic drugs, now often
prescribed, off label (i.e., unapproved for such indications by the
FDA), for insomnia, especially psycho-stimulant drug-induced insomnia
(which Williams suffered from). It should be mentioned that
antipsychotic drugs (like Abilify, Seroquel, Geodon, etc) also commonly
cause diabetes, obesity and hyperlipidemia, in addition to the
neurological movement disorders that mimic Parkinson’s Disease. It is
also important to note that when a patient suddenly quits antipsychotic
drugs (even if first used for non-psychotic indications like insomnia)
withdrawal symptoms can occur, such as acute psychoses, hallucinations,
insomnia and mania any of which can lead a physician to falsely diagnose
schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
Within weeks after
Williams’ discharge from Hazelden’s Rehabilitation facility in
Lindstrom, MN, he hung himself in the bedroom of his San Francisco home
where he was certainly suffering multiple side effects from his cocktail
of drugs. He left no suicide note, but certainly his psychiatrists,
psychologists and other staff members at Hazelden know exactly what
Williams could have written on such a note. So far Hazelden is mum on
what happened to Williams during July’s rehab stay.
Some of Williams’s closest
friends are claiming that the newly prescribed drugs were what killed
him, but the media that is swarming all over the tragic event are
avoiding those logical and obvious conclusions; for anybody who is aware
of the well-known connections between psychiatric prescription drugs
and violence, suidicality, dementia, and irrational thoughts and actions
(whether while taking the drugs or withdrawing from them) has already
asked him or herself the question: “I wonder what psych drugs Robin was
on?”
Knowing that Williams had
been under the care of psychiatrists for the last six weeks of his life,
certain taboo questions need to be asked and answered.
But don’t hold your breath.
There will be no answers unless we get them in the secret details of
what happened at Hazelden, including what brain-altering drugs he was
on..
Shouldn’t There be Penalties for Pushers of Legal Brain-altering Drugs?
There are penalties for
bartenders who serve underage drinkers who go on to have auto accidents
while under the influence. There are penalties for street corner drug
pushers who supply their junkies with dangerous illicit drugs, and there
are penalties for the drug lords who are at the top of the drug supply
chain.
But shouldn’t there also be
penalties for legal drug pushers who are supplying medications to their
addictive and addicted clients without first obtaining from them fully
informed consent after understanding what are the dangers of the drugs?
Shouldn’t there be penalties for legal drug pushers who are prescribing
dangerous brain-altering psychiatric drugs in combinations that have
never even been tested for safety in the animal labs?
The heretofore respected –
and very profitable – industries of Big Pharma, Big Psychiatry, Big
Medicine and drug rehabilitation are all very interested in keeping any
and all unwelcome truths about the lethality of their products from
being aired out in the mainstream press. Thus the rapid disappearance of
interest in the celebrity suicides or lethal psych drug overdoses by
the time the belated coroner report reveals what drugs were in the
victim’s blood and gastric contents. (Note that many coroners are not
aware that many psych drugs are detectable in brain tissue long after
the time that they disappear from the blood; therefore many coroners
don’t bother to test for drugs in brain tissue samples).
If blood tests are negative
for drugs, it is often erroneously assumed by the uninformed public
(and even by medical professionals) that drugs aren’t a factor in the
aberrant behavior or death of drug-taking patients. Drug withdrawal
commonly causes patients to become irrational, violent or suicidal –
realities that can occur at any time, even after the drug has
disappeared from the blood.
The Taboo Reality: Psych Drugs Can Cause Suicidality
There have been millions of
words written about how much everybody was shocked by Williams’
suicide. There have been thousands of flowers placed at any number of
temporary shrines. There have been hundreds of comments on the internet
from amateur arm-chair psychologists spouting obsolete clichés about
suicide, mental illness, drug abuse, alcoholism, cocaine addiction, and
how wonderful prescription drugs have been. for depression.
And there have been dozens
of dis-informational essays and website commentaries written by
professional psychiatrists who have financial or career connections to
Big Pharma, Big Psychiatry, Big Medicine and the rehab industries. Most
of those commentaries distract readers from making the connections
between suicidality and psych drugs. Some of the comments I have read
have preemptively tried to discredit those who are publicly making those
connections.
Whenever unexpected
suicides or accidental drug overdoses occur among heavily drugged-up
military veterans, active duty soldiers, celebrities or other groups of
individuals, I search – often in vain – for information in the print
media and on TV, radio and the internet that will identify the drugs
that are often involved. There seems to be a taboo on revealing the drug
names, dosages, length of usage or who prescribed them. One has to read
between the lines or wait until the information might possibly be
revealed at www.ssristories.org (which, by the way should be mandatory reading for everybody, especially those who prescribe or consume psychiatric drugs)..
Rarely can I find
information about the crazy-making drugs involved, the prescribing
physicians or the institutions that were treating the individual before
the unexpected death. Patient confidentiality is usually the reason
given for the cover-ups – and which is the reason why important
teachable moments about these tragedies are lost every day.
There is a lot of fluff to
wade through on those mostly futile searches for the truth about the
drugs. The useful information that could clinch the suspected real
diagnosis (i.e., psychiatric drug-induced suicidality or psychiatric
drug withdrawal syndrome rather than the usual “mental illness” [of
unknown cause]) seems to be cleverly concealed – probably with the
intent to misinform the public and perpetuate the ever-present,
cunningly-implanted myths of mental illness.
Calling for an Inquest into the Suicide of Robin Williams
What the Robin Williams’
case needs, especially in view of the American epidemic of prescription
psychiatric drug deaths and suicides (tens of thousands every year), is
an unbiased judicial inquest to determine the real root causes of his
sudden and only partially explained death.
Autopsies can determine the
immediate cause of death but inquests can reveal the underlying
motivational or contributing factors involved. And the results of an
inquest could be the beginning of a rational discourse about
drug-induced violence and drug-induced mental ill health. So far the
corporate media’s rush to judgment about celebrity suicides and the
violence epidemic has been subverting teachable moments that could save
tens of thousands of lives in America. The disinformation so vigorously
forced upon us from the four special interest groups mentioned above has
guaranteed the dumbing-down of most of the potential consumers of
psychiatric drugs, so that most Americans have become true believers in
what they are repeatedly told about drugs in the prime time commercials
on TV.
The Marin County coroner
has established the preliminary cause of death in Williams’ case:
suicide by asphyxiation/hanging. No surprises there. The coroner has
also told the press that the toxicology findings on the blood and
gastric fluids won’t be ready for 6 weeks (even though the tests could
actually be completed in hours or days).
The confidence of the
American public in Big Pharma’s highly profitable drugs and vaccines
must not be shaken. Wall Street’s rigged stock market does not easily
allow anything that could destroy investor confidence in their major
publicly-traded corporation’s products, even if the product is bogus or
destructive.
The beauty of an unbiased
public inquest, which should have been done in the case of Adam Lanza
and every other school shooter murder-suicide, would be the subpoena
power of a grand jury to open up the previously secretive medical
records and force testimony from Williams’ treatment team. The public
could finally hear information that could make comprehensible the
mysterious death of yet another high profile suicide victim and start
the process of actually positively America’s suicide and violence
epidemics.
An inquest would likely
reveal that Robin Williams did not have a “mental illness of unknown
cause” or “bipolar disorder of unknown cause” or “depression of unknown
cause” or “suicidality of unknown cause”. An inquest would obtain
testimony from medical, psychiatric and psycho-pharmaceutical experts
such as Peter Breggin, MD, Joseph Glenmullen, MD, Grace Jackson, MD,
David Healey, MD, Russell Blaylock, MD, Fred Baughmann, MD and other
well-informed medical specialists who don’t own stock in Big Pharma and
who know well how dangerous their drugs can be.
Robin Williams did not have a Mental Illness of Unknown Etiology
Just knowing a little about
the life and times of Robin Williams (as would also be the case for
that long list of drugged-up Hollywood celebrities that “died too soon”)
easily disproves most of the amateur or professional theories about his
death that have appeared online. The proposed inquest would reveal what
happened inside the locked doors of the rehab facility.
What is the major reason
that many psych drug skeptics, medical professionals and psychiatric
survivors want an inquest in the Williams’ suicide? We want to know the
names of the ingredients in the cocktail of drugs that had been tried on
him (and the dosages and length of time they were taken). We want to
know what side effects he had from the drugs and what his responses
were. We want to know what was the reasoning behind the decision to
prescribe unproven drug cocktails on someone whose brain was already
adversely affected by the past use of potentially brain damaging drugs.
And we want to know, for
the sake of past and future victims of these neurotoxic drugs, if the
prescribing practitioners fully informed Williams about the dangers of
his treatments, particularly the black box warning that is at the top of
every product information packet of every SSRI drug: that the risk of suicide is doubled in those who take them. And
we want to know if Williams knew that the drug cocktails that were
prescribed for him had never actually been tested for either short or
long-term safety on lab animals or humans?
(It is important to remind
ourselves here that no psychiatric multi-drug combinations have ever
been approved by the FDA for use on human subjects, with the outrageous
exception being the approval for marketing that the FDA gave for the use
of the anti-psychotic drug Abilify in combination with SSRI
antidepressants [a combination apparently found to be modestly safe and
modestly effective in short-term trials] in cases where the SSRI drug
alone had failed to relieve the sadness in some subjects.)
Stress-induced and Drug-induced Mental Ill Health Doesn’t Mean One Has a Mental Illness (of Unknown Etiology)
Robin Williams gained fame
and fortune as a comic actor, starting with what was to become his trade
mark manic acting style (stimulant drug-induced mania?) on “Mork and
Mindy”. As have many other famous persons that attained sudden wealth,
Williams spent his millions of dollars lavishly and – in retrospect –
often foolishly. After his third marriage he found that he could no
longer afford the Hollywood lifestyle.
But long before his two
divorces and his subsequent serious financial difficulties caused him to
crack and fall of the sobriety wagon for the final time, Robin Williams
had lived in the fast lane, working long exhausting days and partying
long exhausting nights with the help of stimulant drugs like the
dependency-inducing drug cocaine (that overcomes sleepiness and fatigue)
and tranquilizers like the equally dependency-inducing alcohol (that
can counteract the drug-induced mania and drug-induced insomnia that
often results from psycho-stimulants like cocaine, nicotine, caffeine,
Ritalin, Prozac, Paxil, Wellbutrin, amphetamines, etc).
Williams had acknowledged
that he was addicted to both cocaine and alcohol when his famous
comedian friend John Belushi died of an accidental drug overdose shortly
after they had snorted some cocaine together (March 4, 1962). (BELUSHI
DIED MARCH 5 1982 ) Williams quit both drugs cold turkey, and he
remained sober and cocaine-free for the next 20 years. There is no
public information about the possible use of addictive prescription
drugs, but it is well-known that many Hollywood personalities have close
relationships with both prescription-writing physicians and illicit
drug pushers.
However, Williams did
relapse in 2006 and started abusing drugs and alcohol again, eventually
being admitted to a Hazelden drug rehab facility in Oregon. After
“taking the cure” he continued his exhausting career making movies,
doing comedy tours and engaging in personal appearances in order to “pay
the bills and support my family”.
After two expensive
divorces, huge indebtedness and an impending bankruptcy, Williams was
forced, in September of 2013, to sell both his $35,000,000 home and his
ranch in Napa Valley. He moved into a more modest, more affordable home
in the San Francisco area, where he lived until his suicide.
But despite solving his
near-bankruptcy situation (which would make any sane person temporarily
depressed), Williams continued having a hard time paying the bills and
making the alimony payments; and he was forced to go back to making
movies (which he despised doing because of the rigorous schedule,
working long days and being away from his family for extended periods of
time. He hated the fact that he was being financially forced to sign a
contract to do a “Mrs. Doubtfire” sequel later in 2014.
For regular income, he took
a job doing a TV comedy series called “The Crazy Ones”, but the
pressures of working so hard got him drinking again, even using alcohol
on the set, which he had never done before. He was making $165,000 per
episode and was counting on continuing the series beyond the first
season in order to have a steady income.
So when CBS cancelled the
show in May 2014, humiliation, sadness, nervousness and insomnia
naturally set in, and he decided to go for professional help at a
Hazelden facility in my home state of Minnesota, spending most of July
2014 as an inpatient there. In retrospect, that decision had fatal
consequences. The public deserves to know what really happened inside
that facility.
Robin Williams ended his
life shortly after being prescribed a cocktail of unproven drugs that
had never been certified by the FDA as either safe or effective.
There are no reports about any electroshock treatments
ever having been given to Williams, but an inquest to bring to light
important details such as that would certainly go a long ways to
de-mystify his untimely death. It is the least that could be done to
honor the man, give some additional meaning to his life and perhaps make
something good come out of the bad that has so unnecessarily confused
us survivors.
Robin Williams’ fans certainly deserve to know what
really happened to him. There are many painful lessons to be learned,
and we should be mature enough by now to learn them.
The psychiatric drug-taking public deserves to know what
were the offending drugs that might have contributed to his anguish,
sadness, nervousness, insomnia, sleep deprivation, hopelessness and
irrational, very likely drug-induced, suicide.
And the family and friends of Robin Williams certainly
deserve to understand the essential facts of the case which, without an
inquest, will otherwise just result in a continuation of America’s
“mysterious” suicide and violence epidemics, and the continuation of Big
Pharma’s unjust gravy train that has been deceiving – and destroying –
so many for so long.
For more information on the above very serious issues, check out these websites:
www.ssristories.com, www.mindfreedom.org, www.breggin.com, www.cchrint.org, www.drugawareness.org, www.psychrights.org,www.quitpaxil.org, www.endofshock.com, www.madinamerica.com.
Dr Kohls
is a family physician who, until his retirement in 2008, practiced
holistic (non-drug) mental health care. Dr Kohls warns against the
abrupt discontinuation of any psychiatric drug because of the common,
often serious withdrawal symptoms that can occur in patients who have
been taking any dependency-inducing psychoactive drug, whether legal or
illicit. He recommends close consultation with an aware, informed
physician who is familiar with drug withdrawal syndromes, the dangers of
psychiatric drug use and the nutritional needs of the drug-toxified and
nutritionally-depleted brain.
Dr Kohls is a past member of MindFreedom
International, the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and
Psychology and the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.
He is the editor of the occasional Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter.
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www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner.
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Copyright © Dr. Gary G. Kohls, Global Research, 2014
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