The Washington Post (12/11, Bever) reports that fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond appears to have an alcohol problem, researchers concluded in findings (pdf) published in the Medical Journal of Australia. After analyzing “Bond films from 1962 to 2015 to better understand his patterns of alcohol use,” investigators “found that the British spy met more than half of the criteria for alcohol use disorder as defined by the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-5 classification system for mental disorders.”

Related Links:

— “Shaken not slurred: James Bond had ‘a severe chronic alcohol problem,’ public health experts say, “Lindsey Bever, The Washington Post, December 11, 2018.

In ongoing reporting on data about drug abuse, the Washington Post (12/12, Zezima) reports that fresh data from the National Center for Health Statistics show that “deaths from cocaine sharply increased from 2011 to 2016 across the United States, adding another dimension to a crisis of fatal overdoses that has primarily been driven by opioids.” Cocaine overdose deaths were up “about 18 percent each year during the five-year period,” while “the data also showed a staggering rise in the number of deaths from fentanyl, with deaths from the powerful synthetic opioid increasing about 113 percent each year from 2013 to 2016.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 70,000 people died of drug overdoses last year.

The AP (12/11, Stobbe) reports that the latest CDC data also show “a bigger share of U.S. drug overdose deaths are being caused by methamphetamine,” with that drug’s overdose death toll tripling in the period between 2011 and 2016, “while the percentage of overdose deaths involving meth grew from less than 5 percent to nearly 11 percent.”

Related Links:

— “Cocaine deaths increase amid ongoing national opioid crisis, “Katie Zezima, The Washington Post, December 12, 2018.

The AP (12/10, Ramer) reports, “Nearly half of all New Hampshire adults say they experienced stressful or traumatic events in childhood, and data released” Dec. 10 “show those experiences are hurting their health today.” Even though just “10 percent of adults with no adverse experiences during childhood reported being in fair or poor health, that percentage was 17 percent for those with at least one such experience, according to statistics presented at a news conference by the New Hampshire Department of Public of Health and Spark NH, the governor’s early childhood advisory council.”

Related Links:

— “Data show link between childhood trauma, adult health, “Holly Ramer, AP, December 10, 2018.

Medscape (12/10, Lowry, Subscription Publication) reports, “Young people with substance use disorders (SUDs) who are in treatment are at greater risk for overdose if they have a history of IV drug use or mood dysregulation,” research indicated. The findings of the 200-patient study were presented at the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry (AAAP) 29th Annual Meeting.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

MedPage Today (12/10, George) reports, “Having an older sibling with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder” (AD/HD) “raised the risk of being diagnosed with either condition,” research indicated. In the study that “included 730 younger siblings of children with” AD/HD, “158 younger siblings of children with autism, and 14,287 younger siblings of children with no known diagnosis of either disorder,” investigators found that youngsters “whose older brother or sister had autism were 30 times more likely to receive an autism diagnosis and 3.7 times more likely to be diagnosed with” AD/HD “than children whose older sibling did not have either disorder.” The findings were published online Dec. 10 in JAMA Pediatrics.

According to Psychiatric News (12/10), the authors of an accompanying editorial wrote, “[This study] used a simple and transparent design to report novel data on later-born within- and cross-condition recurrence of ASD and” AD/HD “in a way that is useful in the clinic but also motivates research to understand how and why these conditions commonly co-occur both within individuals and within families.” HealthDay(12/10, Thompson) also covers the study.

Related Links:

— “Older Sibling with Autism or ADHD Ups Risk for Younger Kids, “Judy George, MedPage Today, December 10, 2018.

The sixth article in a series on battling opioid addition for the Boston Globe (12/9, Freyer) addresses recent emergency room improvements in helping addicted patients. For decades, according to the piece, “programs for people with addiction have developed largely outside the medical system.” But because of pressure from physicians like Dr. Alister Martin at the Massachusetts General Hospital, a new state law requires emergency departments to begin addiction treatment on site, “a mandate that calls on hospitals to meet the challenge of a crisis claiming four or five lives each day in Massachusetts.”

Related Links:

— “Emergency rooms once offered little for drug users. That’s starting to change, “Felice J. Freyer, The Boston Globe, December 09, 2018.

According to Reuters (12/7, Rapaport), a 60-study review suggests that “breast cancer survivors may be more likely to experience anxiety, depression, sleep troubles and other mental health issues than women who have not been diagnosed with the disease.” The findings were published online Nov. 7 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Related Links:

— “Breast cancer survivors may have lingering mental health effects, “Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, December 07, 2018.

Vox (12/6, Lopez) reports in an article about video game addiction that “this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) for the first time recognized ‘gaming disorder’ in the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11).” By doing so, “the WHO joined the American Psychiatric Association (APA), which had previously added ‘internet gaming disorder’ as a phenomenon worthy of more research in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)

Related Links:

— “Video game addiction is real, rare, and poorly understood, ” German Lopez, Vox, December 06, 2018.

Healio (12/6, Demko) reports, “After conducting a meta-analysis of data from functional MRI studies, researchers found that patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder [OCD] showed hyperactivation in certain regions of the brain during error-processing and hypoactivation in other regions during inhibitory control when compared with healthy” individuals, researchers concluded after conducting “a large-scale meta-analysis of the existing literature” using “unthresholded t-maps from studies comparing patients with OCD with healthy controls during error-processing and inhibitory control.” In other words, “in OCD, the brain responds too much to errors, and too little to stop signals,” the study found. The findings were published online in Biological Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Error processing, inhibitory control both altered in OCD, “Savannah Demko, Healio, December 06, 2018.

Reuters (12/5, Beasley) reports CVS Health Corp announced as of the beginning of 2019 a new prescription benefit option for employer-sponsored plans that will ensure clients receive all rebates and discounts paid by drugmakers. The new plan, called “guaranteed net cost,” may serve to counter criticism of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), often the beneficiaries of rebates paid by pharmaceutical companies. CVS Caremark president Derica Rice said, “If rebates go away, this model accommodates that, but as long as we get to the lowest net cost we are indifferent.” The plans may eventually be available to other clients, including government.

Forbes (12/5) reports, “In August, CVS grabbed headlines when it disclosed that it has historically retained 2% of rebates negotiated with drug makers, which this year translates to 3% of the company’s annual earnings per share, or about $300 million.” The move by CVS echos a growing trend among PBMs generally to increase transparency on drug pricing for consumers.

The Washington Examiner (12/5, Williams) reports the plan will provide customers a “guaranteed average cost per prescription,” determined by inflation, cheaper generic alternatives, and rebate amounts.

Also covering the story are Fortune (12/5, Sherman), a second article in Fortune (12/5, Mukherjee), Healthcare Finance News (12/5, Morse), and Health Exec (12/5, Baxter).

Related Links:

— “CVS offers ‘guaranteed net cost’ for pharmacy benefit clients, “Deena Beasley, Reuters, December 05, 2018.