In a May 2009 study, which was largely ignored by the mainstream US media, Jussi Honkola, MD,at the University of Oulu, Finland concluded that people who suffered fatal cardiac arrest were more likely to have taken antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs than those who survived.
“Our study shows that medications may negatively impact a person’s chance of surviving an acute coronary event such as a heart attack,” Dr. Honkola warns. “With more people taking medications such as painkillers and antidepressants, the public needs to understand the potential risks and serious consequences.”
Mr. Jackson’s battle with (legal) psychiatric drugs has been well documented. In court papers filed in Jackson’s Santa Maria county case, Neverland security guard Chris Carter testified that Jackson was “taking ten-plus Xanax pills a night.”
Jackson was also under investigation by Santa Barbara’s District Attorney Tom Sneddon who claimed that a huge stash of prescription drugs were seized when police raided Jackson’s Neverland ranch in 2003. The drugs found included bottles of Vicodin, Oxycontin, Versed, Promethazime, Xanax and Valium.
If the King of Pop’s death was due to psychiatric drugs, he certainly wasn’t alone. Heath Ledger, the 28 year old actor found dead in his New York City apartment, died from a mixture of prescription drugs which included Xanax, Valium, OxyContin, Restoril, and Unisom.
Anna Nicole Smith’s autopsy revealed that the actress had a combination of 11 prescription pills in her system when she died. Valium, Ativan, and the sleep aid Noctec were among them. Smith’s 20-year-old son Daniel died from taking a combination of the antidepressants Zoloft and Lexapro along with methadone (painkiller, anti-addiction aid).
In a 2004 study, a team of British researchers investigated all of the drug related deaths in the UK and Wales. The report, which was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, concluded that anti-depressant drugs accounted for over 11% of all drug related deaths in the UK and Whales between years 1998 and 2000.
Though the autopsy results have not yet been released, I have a hunch that Michael Jackson’s fatal cardiac arrest was due to a mixture of the very drugs which Dr. Honkola’s study warned about. A study which received little US media attention, with the exception of those who reported the study only to discredit its findings.
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