In case you haven't seen it, the Wikipedia entry for the Virginia Tech Shootings is one of the most thorough and quite honestly amazing Wikipedia entries I've ever seen. The number of edits and the short time between edits in the History… kinda incredible.
This quote from an ABC News story contains a disturbing piece of information:
Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of
antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that
they can find no record of such medication in the government's files.
This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including
samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet
sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the sources say theirs
is a reasonably complete search.Somehow I missed the signing into law of NASPER, the National All-Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act of 2005 (assuming the 'federal database' referenced is actually the combined databases of states accepting NASPER funding).
Unfortunately, as I read subsections (f)(1) and (g) of the Act, it doesn't seem to allow searches such as this one. Must've been a signing statement attached: Link.
BB reader Paul Pellerito writes in…
The "federal drugs database" mentioned in your recent post about the VA tech shootings seems to be somewhat flawed; the funding is for states to adopt registries reporting schedules II-V controlled substances (spam-email things like ritalin, valium, xanax, adderall, vicodin, and oxycontin) but the most commonly prescribed antidepressants like prozac, lexapro, zoloft, effexor, etc are schedule six and thus not considered controlled substances. My day job is working in a pharmacy in Michigan, and we do not report schedule VI to any state or federal database. Chances are if Cho was on an antidepressant the record would not be in a national database. His pharmacy and his prescription insurance company will know, however.
Previously on BB:
