I think Peter Hitchens may have been taking journalism lessons from Richard Littlejohn. In his sunday rant he asks this rather random question.
Firstly why does he think that taking antidepressants would lead to going mental in a shopping centre? Does he imagine that the 31 million prescriptions written every year for these drugs lead to an increase in psychotic rampages and has he any evidence of this? Although as he showed in his debate on second hand smoking over at Angry Mob his grasp of science is fragile to say the least.
Secondly, if he thinks prescribing antidepressants may be a contributing factor isn't it his job to find this out? I believe he's a journalist after all.
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To be fair to Hitchens, he's been covering anti-depressants in much detail for a long time on his blog:
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His concerns about the safety of anti-depressants explain why he's an interest in the area but I don't think they excuse the lazy littlejohn-esque journalism of asking questions about the news instead of finding the answers.
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