Psych Drugs Are DANGEROUS!
Everyone knows the Lindsay Clancy case. Almost nobody knows this one, and the reason why should stop you cold: when a mother dies alongside her children, there is no trial, no media coverage, and no one digs into what happened in the months before.
Tranyelle Harshman was a 32-year-old Wyoming mother of four. No history of violence. No suicidal history. Her husband describes a loving mother and an incredible wife, and he is standing by her, just like Lindsay Clancy’s husband. There was no affair, no conflict, no motive. I searched.
What there was, according to the Wall Street Journal’s reporting and the wrongful death lawsuit her mother has filed, was take-home ketamine prescribed for postpartum depression. When Tranyelle reported heart palpitations and feeling disconnected from reality for days, she was reportedly told it often gets worse before it gets better, and her dose was increased. After taking that increased dose, she shot her four daughters and then herself. Toxicology reportedly showed ketamine at four times the threshold associated with mind-altering effects.
I helped develop a ketamine-based drug during my time in pharma. I know these side effect tables: dissociation in nearly half of patients, hallucinations, agitation, fear. This is why ketamine is normally given under clinical supervision, not at home, alone, with children napping upstairs.
The pattern from the Clancy case is identical. A struggling mother reports that a drug is making her worse, and the answer is a higher dose. I will keep saying this until it changes: when a patient gets worse on a psychiatric drug, that is information, not impatience. You do not double down on it.
