Dr. Declan Gilsenan has stated that throughout his three-decades-long career of carrying out post-mortems, “too many suicides” have been committed by patients taking antidepressant medications. Gilsenan also stated that he believes that doctors are over-prescribing those medications.
Gilsenan also stated that proof of that fact is “more than anecdotal” and that he was willing to talk with the minister who is responsible for mental health about it. This is to be a part of the delegation that is campaigning on behalf of patients’ families; it has been organized by Leonie Fennell, who is the mother of Shane Clancy, who killed himself after first killing his friend Sebastian Creane.
At the time of the murder/suicide, Shane started taking antidepressants that were believed to be a larger dose than he was supposed to receive. It was during Clancy’s inquest that Gilsenan testified that there were “toxic” levels of citalopram (brand name Celexa or Cipramil) in Clancy’s blood when the incident took place. Since then, Fennell has been busy campaigning about how dangerous antidepressants are. Fennell is hoping that she will meet with Kathleen Lynch, the minister of state with responsibility for mental health. Gilsenan has been enlisted to assist her with her cause, along with a former minister that doesn’t want to be named just yet.
“Based on my experience of doing postmortems on people where anti-depressants have been started fairly recently I would have concerns about the link to suicide,” Gilsenan said.
Paxil is among the antidepressant medications that Fennell and Gilsenan are concerned about. Studies have even proven the increased risk of patients experiencing severe side effects when taking drugs like Paxil, such as suicidal thoughts and behavior as well as aggressive/homicidal thoughts and actions. The drugs have also been linked to birth defects in babies whose mothers took the drugs while pregnant. In fact, a recent study showed that drugs like Paxil can also cause babies’ heads to be too small.
