Republished with permission from AbleChild.
Registered nurse and mother Andrea Yates was drugged and in 2001 murdered her five children. Fast forward twenty-five years and registered nurse and mother Lindsay Clancy was drugged and now awaits trial for the murder of her three young children. More than two decades separate these brutal killings and still the mental health industry has yet to be held responsible for the murderous actions of these drug-induced women.
It’s hard to believe that June of this year will mark the twenty fifth anniversary of Texas mother Andrea Yates drowning her five children in the bathtub of her suburban home. At the time, the nation was shocked by the sheer brutality…the madness that certainly must have possessed Yates. It wasn’t until Yates’s murder trial that America learned that Yates had been purposefully drugged out of her mind. Unfortunately, the mental health industry dodged any responsibility, and another mother now faces a similar fate to Yates.
The two mother’s stories are so similar it’s scary. In the case of Yates, the mother of five children had a history of depression and being “treated” with psychiatric drugs. In 2000, after the birth of her fifth child, Yates was hospitalized after having a breakdown and attempted suicide, prescribed antidepressants and an antipsychotic and diagnosed with postpartum psychosis.
Yates had been her High School Valedictorian, captain of the swim team, National Honor Society officer and nursing graduate of University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. By 2000, six years after marrying Yates, Andrea and husband Rusty had delivered five healthy children. Andrea and Rusty Yates were also devout evangelical Christians.
By the birth of their fourth child, Yate’s depression had returned and on and off for the next several years and a fifth birth, Andrea had been prescribed cocktails of psychiatric drugs including the antipsychotic Haldol, and the antidepressants Wellbutrin, Effexor and Remeron. On the Monday before the murders, Yates’s psychiatrist had prescribed nearly the maximum allowed Effexor, then added the antidepressant, Remeron, and at the same time Yates had abruptly stopped taking the antipsychotic Haldol.
The question at the time and still today: was Yates insane and lost it, or had Yates been the victim of psychotropic drug-induced filicide? To get a better idea of what might have caused Yates’s murderous behavior, one must consider the possible known side effects of the two prescribed psychiatric drugs at the time of the murders.
Haldol known as a powerful antipsychotic used as “treatment” for schizophrenia has the following known side effects including, but not limited to, rapid changes in mood or behavior, feeling restless and anxious, insomnia, hallucinations, confusion, exacerbation of psychotic symptoms, depression, psychotic disorder, restlessness, toxic psychosis, and catatonic-like behavior.
And, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) no one knows how Haldol works as “treatment” writing, “the precise mechanism of action has not been clearly established.” It is well known that sudden withdrawal from Haldol can cause severe anxiety, depression, agitation, vivid dreams, mood instability, and psychotic relapses to name a few.
Let’s now consider the possible side effects associated with the antidepressant, Effexor, which include, but not limited to, unusual and abnormal dreams, mood and mental changes, suicidal thoughts, insomnia, anxiety, abnormal thinking, confusion, depersonalization, depression, emotional lability, hallucination, hostility, mania, manic reaction, hysteria, psychosis, suicide attempt, delirium, delusions, paranoid reaction, psychotic depression and homicidal ideation.
The FDA cannot provide exact information about how Effexor “works” as “treatment” for depression writing, “The mechanism of the antidepressant action of venlafaxine (Effexor) in humans is believed to be associated with…” Not known, but “believed.”
Finally, let’s look at the possible side effects of the second antidepressant, Remeron, prescribed to Yates. The possible side effects associated with the antidepressant Remeron include depression, suicidal thoughts or actions, mood or mental changes, abnormal thinking, agitation, anxiety, confusion, feelings of not caring, insomnia, delirium, delusions, depersonalization, hallucinations, manic reaction/mania, hostility, paranoid reaction, nightmares/vivid dreams, paranoia, and suicidal behavior.
As with all other psychiatric drugs approved for depression, the FDA has no idea how Remeron “works” as a “treatment” for depression acknowledging that “the mechanism of action of REMERON (mirtazapine) tablets, as with other drugs effective in the treatment of major depressive disorder, is unknown.”
What is unfortunate for Andrea Yates is that most likely none of her psychiatrists advised her of all the possible deadly side effects of the drugs she had been prescribed nor was she advised that no one knows how the drugs “work” as “treatment.” And, adding insult to injury, Yates also probably was not advised that the pharmaceutical companies that produce these drugs have never conducted clinical trials on any of the cocktails of drugs she had been prescribed.
To say that Andrea Yates had no idea what possessed her is an understatement that can easily be shared with Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother now awaiting trial for the murder of her three small children in January of 2023.
While Clancy’s husband was out picking up dinner and medications, Lindsay strangled her three children with an exercise band then attempted suicide by jumping from a second-story window, leaving her alive but paraplegic.
Like Yates, then 32-year-old Clancy had been suffering from postpartum depression and had been prescribed 13 mind-altering drugs in three months leading up to the murders with the help of “virtual therapy sessions,” including SSRI antidepressants, two sedatives, an antipsychotic and antiseizure drugs. Prozac, Zoloft, Trazodone, Seroquel, Amitryptiline, Remeron, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan and Lamictal were some of the drugs used in cocktails as “treatment” for Clancy.
Blood tests after arrest showed three antidepressants, and antipsychotic, two sedatives and an anticonvulsant in Clancy’s system. Trazadone, Amitriptyline, Seroquel and Remeron were found in Clancy’s system at “peak levels.” It has not been made public what the drug cocktails consisted of, but one can be sure it was pure experimentation.
And there is little doubt that not one prescribing physician advised Clancy that the cocktail of mind-altering drugs she had been prescribed had never gone through any rigorous clinical trial. Forget “rigorous.” No drug cocktail has ever gone through any clinical trials, making this kind of multiple drugging complete experimentation. And like Yates, there is no doubt that Clancy had not been advised that the FDA has no idea how any of the drugs “work” as “treatment” for any psychiatric diagnosis.
The modern mental health industry failed Andrea Yates and Lindsay Clancy. The modern mental health industry has gotten away with making diagnoses that are not based in science and drugging Americans with powerful mind-altering drugs that no one knows how the drugs “work” with impunity.
While Yates was eventually found insane and relegated to a mental institution for life, and Clancy is awaiting trial and possible prison time despite being paraplegic, AbleChild would argue that the modern mental health industry failed Yates and Clancy by failing to provide informed consent about the “treatment” the mothers were receiving.
But this is exactly what happens with the failed mental health industry and why AbleChild is pursuing federal legislation that would force physicians to provide detailed information about psychotropic drugs prior to the first prescription.
Without this information in hand, there is no informed consent being provided and that is an egregious violation of patient/human rights. Clancy’s case is so egregious that it’s time to finally acknowledge the cause of this senseless violence and hold those doing the prescribing of these dangerous mind-altering drugs responsible for these grotesque experimentation failures.
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AbleChild is a 501(3) C nonprofit organization that has recently co-written landmark legislation in Tennessee, setting a national precedent for transparency and accountability in the intersection of mental health, pharmaceutical practices, and public safety.
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