When he died last week, Dr Michael Corry was the subject of an ongoing Medical Council inquiry. His sin, as others saw it, was to have an opinion on anti-depressant medication that did not fit a cosy medical consensus which can be summed up in one easy-to-remember phrase – "prescribe, prescribe, prescribe". Dr Corry, to put it mildly, was a sceptic about such a free-and-easy approach. Depression was an emotion and not a disease, he believed, "a reflection of loss, grief, broken hearts, chronic anxiety, panic attacks, sexual abuse, bullying, difficult relationships, financial problems, and the impact of having life fired at you point blank". Treating it purely as a medical problem which could be solved by tablets was fundamentally wrong, he believed. Such an approach was having immeasurable adverse side-effects on patients.


In the early autumn of last year, after Shane Clancy had killed both himself and Sebastian Creane in Bray, Co Wicklow, Dr Corry told this newspaper that Clancy would not have committed this act had he not been on anti-depressants. "If he was not on medication, he would not have done what he did," Corry said. "I would stake my career on that. His behaviour was out of character. He went from homicidal to suicidal."


Clancy had been suffering from depression for some time, the trigger apparently having been the end of a three-year relationship. His GP prescribed him Citrol, a brand of the antidepressant citalopram, which he took for a week before suddenly downing three weeks' supply in a day. He went to another doctor, who prescribed a three-week prescription of a different anti-depressant. Despite advice on the prescription to the contrary, Clancy managed to acquire the full three-week supply in one go. He appears to have taken most of those tablets over the course of the next day. In the early hours of the following morning, 16 August, he killed Creane and himself.


Corry's comments in the Sunday Tribune, and similar statements made subsequently on The Late Late Show, drew the ire of certain practitioners of medicine which, as far as I can tell, is the only profession which has an internal disciplinary procedure in which you can be punished for having an opinion. A Medical Council inquiry has the same power as the High Court to compel witnesses to attend or produce documents, so it's a big deal. When Corry told the Sunday Tribune that he would stake his career on his opinion about the role of anti-depressants in Shane Clancy's actions, he was not exaggerating, therefore: had the result of the inquiry gone against him, he could have lost his licence to practice.


The complaints against Dr Corry are that he made comments about a tragedy "without regard to the distress" caused to the families; that he had made allegations regarding the competence" of a colleague; made statements about a diagnosis without ever seeing the patient and had "made statements about the pharmacology of antidepressants".


Pharmacology is the study of the body's reaction to drugs. This complaint therefore implies that when a psychiatrist talks about this topic he renders himself unfit to practice. Such a finding would represent an appalling vista – it would mean that psychiatrists or any other medical practitioners would not be able to talk about the interaction of the human body or mind with anti-depressants without being accused of malpractice. All debate in this area would be closed down.


Which may be what the medical establishment wants. When Tim O'Malley, then a junior minister at the Department of Health, did an interview with the Irish Medical News in 2006 in which he was similarly sceptical about the treatment of depression and the value of medication, six eminent psychiatrists wrote to The Irish Times suggesting he might want to resign.


It was a strong letter, making many good points, but its message was clear: anybody who steps outside the "prescribe, prescribe, prescribe" consensus will meet the full force of establishment scorn. Resignations will be called for; fitness to practice will be questioned.


Dr Corry's premature death is a tragedy of unspeakable proportions for his family, but it robs an important debate of one of its key players. Ireland has the highest prescribing rates for anti-depressants in Europe, and it is surely not unreasonable to ask why. In some medical circles, such questions are the equivalent of treason. It's surely not unreasonable either to ask why that should be.


Whale truth: they're not called killer for nothing


If you live by the sword, you die by the sword; if you make a trophy of a killer whale, don't be surprised if he makes a trophy of you. As the debate raged last week over whether Tilikum, the whale who killed its trainer at a Florida theme park, should be put to death for its impertinence, few enough people were prepared to make the obvious point: Dawn Brancheau, the dead trainer, was complicit in her own demise.Tilikum was taken into captivity in 1983 when he was just two and was paraded for the delectation and pleasure of human beings ever since. Last week, he got his revenge, grabbing Brancheau by her ponytail, pulling her underwater and refusing to let her come up. There is an obvious human tragedy here, but killing was in Tilikum's nature: expecting that he would always put up with his humiliation was typical human hubris.


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