Wrongplanet on Dateline?

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If this thread is already started please direct me to it. Thanks. I couldn't find a mention so I started this one.

On Dateline tonight was a terribly sad story of a guy who was poisoned and really altered and messed up by the drug Accutane. Bottom line is his life was ruined and he ultimately killed the doctor who prescribed it.

At the start of the story I thought he seemed very Aspie. As it went on I was thinking "oh no" because I (and from what I've heard, alot of other Aspies) am VERY over-sensitive to drugs. It's so hard to get a doctor to believe you but if they prescribe something for your body weight it's ALWAYS too much for me to handle. I used to get so much sicker after taking any kind of prescribed meds until I figured out to break everything in half and or take it half as often as they say. When I take baby doses I'm okay and the drug does the positive thing it's supposed to. Otherwise I get much sicker from it.

This poor guy was prescribed the full dose (40mg tablets, 2 of them) and told to take them both TOGETHER instead of one early and one later in the day. That means 80 mg in one shot of a psychotropic drug! It messed him up big time.

One of the bits of the story showed a post he made here and my jaw dropped. He had suspected he may be AS - which makes perfect sense to me because I also suspected as much when I first heard just a little of his story.

I just thank God I haven't gotten some big jolt of that kind of drug (yet) because I could react in the exact same way.

The whole story is so sad because the doctor's family is devastated, but so is the man's family who did the killing. His father made the best point of all - that there were two victims in this story. There really were - plus both men's entire familes.

Damn.

There's a med I take that only goes down to 3mg, even though my doc has been on to me to try 6mg again (nuh huh!). What he doesn't know is that I'm actually taking the 3mg every other day . . . what I really need is a 1.5 mg, but they don't go that small.

Geez that's sad.

I have one that my doc said only comes in 5 mg as the smallest dosage so that's fine - I cut them in half and don't take them nearly as often as I've been directed to.

Docs get BIG cash awards and incentives for pushing the drugs on us. Write more scripts, push bigger quantities, move the product. It's not right but ultimately it's our own responsibility to do our homework and be careful and start with lower dosages - just don't let the poison in the front door in other words.

The worst part to this story is that the drug was prescribed for ACNE (a pretty mild case) and in the literature it was stated to be only used for the worst cases of acne. And side effects were depression and psychosis. That is not a drug that a person should get to clear up a few pimples! Talk about overkill.

Then the doc didn't know this man's history or that he had suffered from depression already, etc. He shouldn't have ingested that drug at all and then to have such a large dose.

It really is a tragic story.

I saw this too and saw the little clip showing WP for a brief time. I wonder if the post is still here.

I'd like to see the post, as well.

Here's the story on NBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23592456/

sans WrongPlanet screenshot.

I found his post. This is it.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php? ... &highlight

Pill splitters can get them amost microscopic, though they're not super precise. Frankly I'm shocked that drugs like Accutane are still on the market. I shouldn't be, but my naive mind still can't wrap around the concept of greed being a perfectly acceptable reason to gamble with people's lives. Go Big Pharma and your quiet friend the FDA! You two never cease to amaze me.

Good digging, Arbie. That's it.

Just reading this nearly makes me cry. It's so sad. I feel so bad for him, both for what he's done and for what's been done to him.

Accutane is not a psychotropic drug and Peterson also only took one-and-a-half days worth of doses when the normal course of treatment lasts months. According to his own words, he took

Here is his description of side-effects he supposes to come from accutane

The drug is very powerful and has some amazing positive and unfortunate negative effects, but given that he only took the drug twice(and only once incorrectly), I wouldn't have expected that the drug caused him to become homicidal.

Accutane has been on the market for over 25 years, and its patents expired many years ago. There are cheap generic versions on the market. And I do not believe that doctors push the drug. One doctor I dealt with was unwilling to prescribe it and another was unwilling to prescribe it except as a last resort, and even required me to read a large pamphlet and sign a legal contract stating that I was aware of its dangers.

There has also been no confirmation that Peterson had AS. His first post here indicated that he might, but he only posted here twice. Self-diagnosis is not infallible. And even if his supposition was correct, that does not indicate that anyone else here is more likely to commit murder. Have there been any studies which show a correlation between AS and murder?

And even if his supposition was correct, that does not indicate that anyone else here is more likely to commit murder. Have there been any studies which show a correlation between AS and murder?

That is a completely out of context correlation. Of course no one has said that. Why are you making that leap?

It has never even been hinted to that there's a link between AS and murder - good grief. Go back and reread this thread because you have obviously missed some key points.

I believe the dosage he took WAS enough to damage him. Just saying it rinses out of the body after a few days or something is not always true. Drugs can do irrepairable harm. The quote you posted of his side effects point to that.

This doc did indeed 'push' the drug. He prescribed it. At that dosage. That's pushing. I don't think most patients go into their doctor's offices and go shopping for drugs, pick out a specific one they like and beg for it. The doctors are the ones who know about the different drugs and they prescribe them. Most patients take what they're given. Didn't sound like this one was "unwilling" to prescribe Accuatane.

I believe you misread my post. I said that I believe no such correlation exists. I was referring to the other thread where people asked if such a correlation might be made by "Dateline" viewers. I believe if a study were to be done that if such a correlation were to be made, it would be more likely to be a negative correlation.

I took accutane for several months several years ago. I'm well-aware of the side-effects, and well-aware of how long they last(Some still persist today, but are lessening). I don't believe there is significant evidence that one-and-a-half days' worth of accutane is enough to cause five years worth of problems.

As I mentioned in my post, I talked to two doctors about accutane, and one refused to prescribe it. To say that most patients take the drugs they are given is to disregard the years worth of commercials telling people to "Ask [their] doctor if [drug x] is right for [them]." Those commercials do work. If they did not work, they would not be aired.

My reason for posting was to indicate that I didn't see enough evidence that either AS or accutane had caused this doctor's murder.

What other thread??

That's what I asked in my very first post here and no one has said there is another thread. I was surprised to come here and not find anyone talking about this so after looking for it for awhile I tentatively posted this.

Where is the other thread?

Ah, I see. The mistake was mine.

It looks like I posted about something of which you were not aware. Oops.

This thread was posted in September of last year:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt43433.html

No problem, Matt. Thanks for the link.