Aletho News

What the Public Now Deserves to Know About the Mass Murder Incident by Passenger Jet

By Doug E. Steil | Aletho News | March 28, 2015

Adverse side effects related to taking anti-depressant pharmaceutical drugs are well known. Numerous mass murders in conjunction with suicides were attributable to people who were under the influence of these drugs, which are being over-prescribed due to industry marketing pressure. (At least one in four women in the US are purportedly taking psychiatric medication.)

Nonetheless, according to Federal Aviation Authority regulations, pilots are not permitted to fly under the influence of such medication due to the harmful and potentially dangerous effects they can cause, including abnormal, self destructive, and violent behavior. This is simply a basic issue of public safety.

Today information has emerged that the co-pilot of Lufthansa’s German Wings subsidiary, Andreas Günther Lubitz, who had intentionally caused this crash in an act of mass murder, thereby killing 149 people in addition to himself, was suffering from severe depression and had prescriptions for various medications. He was under treatment and had been seen by neurologists and psychiatrists. They had written sickness notes that were subsequently found, according to which he was to have been on sick leave during the past week.

According to German law confidentiality between doctor and patient is not absolute but subject to exceptions, in which case there is a mandatory duty to inform authorities, including in instances when there is an overriding public interest, such as potentially impending danger of inflicted harm to others by the patient.

It ought to be assumed that they were aware of Lubitz’s occupation as an airline pilot. They had an obligation to notify appropriate authorities to ensure that Lubitz would not be permitted to fly and thereby pose a threat to passengers due to his mental condition and the effects of any medication they prescribed. Though the matter is still under investigation, it appears that the University Clinic in Dusseldorf, where he was undergoing “treatment”, may have acted as an accessory to mass murder by having willfully neglected their notification duty.

If it turns out that this was the case the physicians may be subject to criminal prosecution, and in any case the Dusseldorf University Clinic would need to prepare for a substantial class action civil suit for negligence, as will Lufthansa, for its own negligent behavior, namely having hired Lubitz while knowing of his past mental instability and then continuing to employ him under the special conditions of seeking continual medical supervision. In a press conference two days ago Lufthansa’s CEO thus misled the public in claiming that the co-pilot had been “100% fit to fly”.

The German media, many of which have protected the perpetrator’s privacy by refusing to publish his surname or obscuring the details of his face in published images, have been stalling on seeking answers to the key question: “How could this have happened?” Other media have also been stalling on getting to the heart of the matter, namely causes and proximate culpability. However, the general public does have a right to know the answers to these four questions now:

*  Were the treating physicians, including at the Dusseldorf University Clinic, aware that Lubitz was working as an airline pilot?

*  Did he ever suggest to physicians, however cryptically, to carry out some spectacular event for the sake of infamy, as he confided to a stewardess?

*  Exactly which medications did the physicians prescribe to him in what doses and ingestion frequency during his “treatments”, especially most recently?

*  Are pilots in Europe (and specifically at Lufthansa and affiliate airlines) strictly forbidden to fly under the influence of anti-depressant medication?

March 28, 2015 - Posted by aletho | Aletho News