Columbine Syndrome

[LydiaNN]

.....Call it the Columbine Syndrome. Ever since the news got out that school shooter Eric Harris was taking Luvox, an antidepressant, kids’ mental illness and eventual mass murder have been linked in the public mind. This past May, the journal Psychiatric Services published the results of the first large-scale nationally representative survey of public attitudes about children’s mental health. Eighty-one percent of respondents said they thought children with major depression would be dangerous to themselves or others; 33 percent said they believed children with A.D.H.D. were likely to be dangerous.

This despite the fact that scientific studies have shown only a modest relationship between mental health issues and violence, “a relationship that is largely attributable to co-occurring substance abuse,” wrote a team of authors led by Bernice A. Pescosolido, a sociologist at Indiana University. “Unfortunately,” they concluded, “public perceptions that mental illness and violence go hand in hand may be more important than the evidence.”.....

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/tsc.html?URI=http://select.nytimes.com/2007/08/04/opinion/04warner.html&OQ=_rQ3D1Q26nQ3DTopQ252fOpinionQ252fEditorialsQ2520andQ2520OpQ252dEdQ252fOpQ252dEdQ252fContributors&OP=29b68a50Q2FUQ7ErQ2AUTqekkTUwmm4UmHUmQ25Uko_Q27_kQ27UmQ25Q7EQ5EeQ27retQ60TQ7C!

(Sorry, this isn't the link I originally intended to use. You have to register to read the whole article using this link. The whole article has been cut and pasted on to a blog that you can find by googling Columbine Syndrome; I had it pasted here until I realized that an off-color comment made by the blogger would probably run afoul of TOS.)