Antidepressants and Homicide: Automatism Spectrum Disorders

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Saturday, October 5, 2024, 1 pm to 3 pm

In this presentation, David Healy, along with panelists Jim Gottstein and Christopher Lane, poses a question for all of us to consider. There is overwhelming evidence from clinical studies and from tragic events that antidepressants can cause homicide. Judges and prosecutors both acknowledge this to be true.  However, no jury has ever acquitted a person for homicide on the basis of a drug they took. If the person shows any hint of intent, we convict them, not the drug. 

The only hope of acquittal is if there is evidence that the killing happened in an “automatic state,” like sleepwalking.  Yet, most of our behaviors are in fact automatic (reflexive and unconscious), and SSRIs reshape the sensory inputs that drive these reflexes, with relatively immediate effects on our personality and potentially our character. Doesn’t that make a case for…