Congressional Quarterly (6/10, Attias, Subscription Publication) reports that legislators have arrived at “a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on a five-year reauthorization of federal autism programs, boosting the package’s chances of clearing Congress before central provisions of the Combating Autism Act sunset at the end of September.” Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Sen. Michael B. Enzi (R-WY) “plan to introduce the compromise legislation in the Senate on Monday, according to a Senate source involved in the negotiations, while the House Energy and Commerce Committee is expected” to “amend the current bill (HR 4631) to report out the new language at a Tuesday markup.”

In addition, “the legislation would change the name of the legislation from the Combating Autism Reauthorization Act of 2014, which references the name of the original 2006 law (PL 109-416), to the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education and Support Act of 2014, or the Autism CARES Act of 2014.”

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— Congressional Quarterly (requires login and subscription)

USA Today (6/10, Weintraub) reports that according to a study published online June 9 in JAMA Pediatrics, autism is “one of the costliest disabilities – adding $2.4 million across the lifespan if the person has intellectual disabilities and $1.4 million if they don’t.”

The Los Angeles Times (6/10, Kaplan) “Science Now” blog points out that the “money spent caring for Americans with autism each year exceeds interest paid on the national debt.” In the case of adults, “the biggest costs were tied to living expenses, especially in facilities that require lots of staff.” Other costs include “medical expenses and the lost productivity of people on the autism spectrum.” For children, costs include early-intervention treatments and lost parental productivity.

The Boston Globe (6/9, Salahi) reports that people with autism often “require specialized schooling and other services that are not covered by insurance, which contribute to the increased costs.” In fact, “the annual cost of autism therapies and treatments can exceed $40,000 to $60,000 per year, according to the Autism Action Partnership.”

Bloomberg News (6/10, Ostrow) reports that after reviewing “US and UK studies on patients with autism and their families to examine costs,” researchers discovered that “the national cost of supporting children with autism is estimated to be $61 billion to $66 billion a year in the US and $4.5 billion to $5 billion a year in the UK.” The study received funding from the New York-based advocacy group Autism Speaks.

The Huffington Post (6/10, Pearson) points out that an accompanying editorial observed that “an autism diagnosis means ‘a lifetime of absorbing many of the financial and caregiving burdens associated with the disorder, especially in adulthood when the availability of societal supports diminishes.’”

Also covering the story are Reuters (6/10, Seaman), TIME (6/10, Park), the Kaiser Health News(6/10, Gold) “Capsules” blog, CNBC (6/10, Boyle), Congressional Quarterly (6/10, Young, Subscription Publication), and HealthDay (6/10, Thompson).

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— “Caring for those with autism runs $2M-plus for life,” Karen Weintraub, USA Today, June 9, 2014.

The Los Angeles Times (6/10, Kaplan) reports that according to the results of a Gallup poll (6/10) released June 9, “the longer a person has been out of work, the greater the chances that he or she will develop a clinical case of depression.” The poll revealed that “overall, unemployed Americans were nearly twice as likely as working Americans to be depressed – 12.4% versus 6.4%.” The poll data “are based on interviews with 356,599 Americans who were surveyed in 2013 for the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.”

The Washington Times (6/10, Klimas) reports that approximately one in every five individuals “who have been unemployed for 52 weeks or more report that they are either depressed or being treated for depression,” a figure nearly double that of those “who have been unemployed for just three to five weeks.” The poll also indicated that long-term unemployment “could lead to a higher rate of health problems like depression or anxiety.”

The Kansas City (MO) Star (6/10, Stafford) reports, “The long-term unemployed also may have financial worries that keep them from seeking professional help or filling prescriptions for medication that could help them.”

The National Journal (6/10, Berman, Subscription Publication) points out that “a 2003 study in the Journal of Clinical Psychology found that depression costs the US economy tens of billions of dollars annually, in part because of ‘direct treatment costs, lost earnings due to depression-related suicides, and indirect workplace costs.’” Also covering the story are the Huffington Post (6/9, Chan) and Forbes(6/9, Adams).

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— “Risk of depression is nearly twice as high for unemployed Americans,” Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times, June 10, 2014.

In “The Blog” for the Huffington Post (6/7), psychologist Nicholas Covino, president of the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, wrote in wake of the Santa Barbara rampage, “Despite what is sensationalized in the media, the majority of violent episodes in this country are not triggered by mental illness.” In fact, “a recent study by the American Psychiatric Association found no predictable patterns linking criminal conduct and mental illness symptoms; of the 429 crimes studied, 7.5 percent were directly related to symptoms of mental illness.” People with mental illnesses “are more likely to commit suicide with a gun than homicide.”

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— “Lessons from Santa Barbara: Why We Need a Long-Term Approach to Ending Violence,” Nicholas Covino, The Huffington Post, June 6, 2014.

The AP (6/7) reports that DOJ released a report Friday that found Los Angeles County jails “have ‘deplorable’ conditions that have contributed to a dramatic increase in suicides” and found “there is inadequate mental health care and supervision to identify suicidal inmates or prevent them from becoming suicidal.” The report found 15 inmates killed themselves in two and a half years and cited “‘dimly lit, vermin-infested, noisy, unsanitary, cramped and crowded’ conditions” in the jails. The DOJ report said the Sheriff’s Department had completed some reforms required by a 2002 agreement, but said “‘serious systemic deficiencies’ remain.”

The Los Angeles Times (6/7, Chang) reports that DOJ said Friday it wants “court oversight of how the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department treats those inmates,” which “marks a significant escalation by the federal government in its efforts to improve conditions in the nation’s largest jail system.” The Times says the county disputes DOJ’s findings “and defended its treatment of mentally ill inmates.”

The Wall Street Journal (6/7, Phillips, Subscription Publication) reports that Acting Assistant Attorney General Jocelyn Samuels, head of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement, “The Los Angeles County Jails have an obligation to provide conditions of confinement that do not offend the Constitution and to take reasonable measures to protect inmates from harm.”

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— “Report: Mental health care at LA jails lacking,” Associated Press, Sacramento Bee, June 6, 2014.

On its front page Saturday, the New York Times (6/7, A1, Schwirtz, Santora, Belluck, Subscription Publication) examined the system for post-incarceration mental healthcare against the backdrop of a New York man accused of stabbing a young boy to death and leaving another young child critically wounded. The Times says that even though “the numbers of inmates with mental illness have surged in jails and prisons across the country in recent years,” their mental healthcare and fitness for society “can be haphazard” afterward. New York state “has more tools” than most, yet “there are many ways for mentally unstable people who might be dangerous to slip through the cracks.”

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— “Stabbing Case Shows Lapses in Treatment for the Mentally Ill,” Michael Schwirtz, New York Times, June 6, 2014.

MedPage Today (6/6, Neale) reports that research published online in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association suggests that “the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) before a stroke may worsen the event for some patients.” Researchers found that “among patients with hemorrhagic strokes, use of an SSRI in the 90 days before symptom onset was associated with a greater likelihood of the stroke being severe (OR 1.41, 95% CI 1.08-1.84) and of dying within 30 days (OR 1.60, 95% CI 1.17-2.18).” But, in “those with ischemic strokes…SSRI use was not associated with either outcome.”

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— “Stroke Rounds: SSRIs May Worsen Hemorrhagic Strokes,” Todd Neale, MedPage Today, June 5, 2014.

Medscape (6/6, Anderson) reports that according to a study published online June 4 in JAMA Psychiatry, “major depressive disorder (MDD) with atypical features, including increased appetite and hypersomnia, is linked to obesity and other measures of adiposity.” The study of 3,054 adults in Switzerland also revealed that “the elevated body mass index (BMI) in patients with atypical depression is not a temporary phenomenon but persists after depressive symptoms remit and is not attributable to new episodes.”

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— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

The Royal Oak (MI) Daily Tribune (6/4, Murray) reports that according to a review (6/4) published June 5 in the new England Journal of Medicine, Nora Volkow, MD, director of the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and colleagues argue that marijuana may “reduce teens’ IQ, that it impairs driving, and that today’s version is more potent than in the past.” Dr. Volkow stated, “It is important to alert the public that using marijuana in the teen years brings health, social, and academic risk.” She added, “Physicians in particular can play a role in conveying to families that early marijuana use can interfere with crucial social and developmental milestones and can impair cognitive development.”

HealthDay (6/4, Thompson) reports that because the drug “is potentially addictive, proven to contribute to fatal motor-vehicle crashes, and can disrupt the brain function and learning of young users,” its legalization “will lead to the sort of nationwide health problems now attributed to alcohol and tobacco, said Volkow.”

MedPage Today (6/5, Gever) reports that Volkow and “and colleagues based their conclusions on findings in 77 previously published papers.” The review also “found an increased likelihood of anxiety and depression, increased likelihood of psychosis, worsened symptoms of schizophrenia, and earlier onset of psychotic events.”

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— “National study links marijuana use to adverse effects,” Diana Dillaber Murray, Royal Oak Daily Tribune, June 4, 2014.

The NPR (6/4, Singh) “Shots” blog reported on the difficulties faced by newly graduated college students seeking care for mental health conditions. Even though “finding and paying for a psychologist or psychiatrist can be difficult at any age, for young people who don’t have steady jobs or stable paychecks, the task can be especially daunting.” To lessen some of these difficulties, “‘the trick is planning ahead’ long before graduation, says Luis Ramirez, the associate director of clinical services at New York University,” where counselors help students locate mental health professionals in the community. In addition, NYU also assists graduating students moving out of New York to locate therapists in their new city.

Related Links:

— “For New College Grads, Finding Mental Health Care Can Be Tough,” Maanvi Singh, National Public Radio, June 4, 2014.