TIME (9/23, Oaklander) reports that research published in The Lancet Psychiatry suggests that “simply blocking off popular routes to suicide, like erecting a fence around a cliff’s edge, can cut down on suicide deaths enormously.” The “meta-analysis…looked specifically at what the authors call ‘suicide hotspots’: sites accessible to the public and often used as a means to suicide, like bridges, cliffs, tall buildings and railroad tracks.” The researchers “analyzed 18 studies that looked at three interventions to deter suicides at hotspots.”

Related Links:

— “One Simple Way to Reduce Some Suicides by 90%,” Mandy Oaklander, Time, September 22, 2015.

WPost Praises Virginia County’s Plan To Keep Nonviolent Individuals With Mental Illness Out Of Jail.
In an editorial, the Washington Post (9/21) writes that Virginia’s Fairfax County “has a plan to establish a fledgling program, starting Jan. 1, to divert nonviolent people who have mental illness to a county-run crisis center.”

Instead of “jailing them, police officers, trained to detect the signs of mental health crises, would be able to hand them off to a team of professional staff at the center for evaluation and formulation of a treatment plan.” The Post praises such an arrangement, and cites similar models that have been successful across the country.

According to the Post, “The question is whether county officials…have the political will to shake up an entrenched system and whether they will find the dollars to do it.”

Related Links:

— “Treatment, not jail, for mentally ill people,” Washington Post, September 20, 2015.

In a more than 1,300-word article, the Wall Street Journal (9/19, A3, Kesling, Subscription Publication) outlines an independent report reviewing the VA healthcare system that was released Friday and that warns the agency needs to make substantial changes to address a number of serious problems.

According to the Washington Post (9/19, Wax-Thibodeaux) “Federal Eye” blog, the 4,000 page study by the Rand, McKinsey, and MITRE corporations “finds that VA facilities cost twice the norm for public facilities, a claim that will likely re-launch a debate about moving towards privatizing some VA services.”

Related Links:

— “VA Needs ‘Systemwide Reworking,’ Independent Report Finds/a>,” Ben Kesling, Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2015.

HealthDay (9/18, Dallas) reports that research published online Sept. 18 in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that teens with bulimia recover faster when their parents are involved. According to study lead Daniel Le Grange, the Benioff UCSF professor in children’s health at the University of California, San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco, the findings run “counter to the training that physicians receive in psychiatry, which teaches that parents are to blame for bulimia, and therefore should be omitted from treatment.”

The small study of 130 teens found that after initial treatment, 39 percent of teens who were randomly assigned to receive family-based therapy (FBT) were no longer binging and purging, compared with 20 percent of patients who received cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). At the six-month follow up, “44 percent of FBT patients had stopped binging and purging, compared to 25 percent of CBT patients.”

Related Links:

— “Parents Should Be Involved in Teen’s Bulimia Treatment: Study,” Mary Elizabeth Dallas, HealthDay, September 18, 2015.

NBC Nightly News (9/18, story 10, 0:35, Holt) reported on “troubling news tonight about the long-term dangers of head injuries while playing football.” According to PBS Frontline, a small study by the “VA in Boston University showed the brains of 87 out of 91 former deceased NFL players tested positive for” chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or “CTE in the latest study of traumatic brain injuries. That is 96 percent of deceased NFL players examined and they’ve also founded CTE in the brains of 79 percent of all deceased football players tested, including those who played in high school and college.”

The AP (9/18) added that the brains were examined by researchers with the Department of Veterans Affairs and Boston University. According to the report, many of the players who donated their brains to research suspected they had CTE, “which therefore skews the population of brains being examined.” CTE is linked to repeated brain trauma and is associated with symptoms including “memory loss, impaired judgement, depression, and, eventually, progressive dementia.”

Related Links:

— “TESTS ON BRAINS OF FORMER NFL PLAYERS CONTINUE CTE TREND,” Associated Press, September 18, 2015.

Reuters (9/18, Nathan) reports that the Food and Drug Administration approved Allergan Plc’s new antipsychotic drug, Vraylar (cariprazine), to treat patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. The drug has a boxed warning of increased risk of death in older patients who have dementia-related psychosis.

MedPage Today (9/18, Fiore) reports that the drug “is a partial agonist of the dopamine D3 and D2 and serotonin 5-HT1A receptors,” is “an antagonist of the serotonin 5-HT2B and 5-HT2A receptors, and it also binds to histamine H1 receptors.”

Related Links:

— “Allergan gets FDA nod for new antipsychotic,” Vidya L Nathan, Reuters, September 17, 2015.

Bloomberg News (9/18, Koons) reports that the Food and Drug Administration requested Pfizer Inc. in August to “alter Zoloft’s [sertraline] warnings to show some researchers have found an ‘increased risk of congenital cardiac defects’ in babies whose mothers took the drug,” according to court papers filed earlier this month.

Legal experts believe that the label change could help “bolster claims by those who have already sued over Zoloft,” but could also “help the company fend off future lawsuits.” According to a statement by Pfizer, the new label language, although still being drafted, “reflects the extensive science supporting the safety and efficacy of Zoloft, stating a complete review of the scientific evidence finds that there is no difference in birth defect risks between pregnant women who took Zoloft and those who did not.”

Related Links:

— “Pfizer Weighing FDA Request to Change Zoloft’s Warnings,” Cynthia Koons and Jef Feeley, Bloomberg News, September 17, 2015.

The Wall Street Journal (9/17, McGinty, Subscription Publication) “The Numbers Column” reports that according to a study published online July 22 in the American Journal of Medical Genetics, the global increase in youngsters diagnosed with autism may be attributed to diagnostic substitution, not to an actual increase in actual autism cases. In other words, more children may now be correctly diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder instead of another disability or condition.

Related Links:

— “‘Diagnostic Substitution’ Drives Autism Spike,” Jo Craven McGinty, Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2015.

The New York Times (9/17, A20, Carey, Subscription Publication) reports that in 2001, GlaxoSmithKline “published a study showing that the antidepressant Paxil [paroxetine] was safe and effective for teenagers.” Yesterday, however, the BMJ “posted a new analysis of the same data concluding that the opposite is true.”

Reuters (9/17, Kelland) reports that the British Medical Journal criticized GlaxoSmithKline for providing delayed access to critical data from a clinical trial of paroxetine showing that the medication can cause an increased risk of suicide in adolescents. BMJ associate editor Peter Moshi, of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, argues in a recent re-analysis that GSK should have provided the data in 2001, while GSK claims that its disclosure of the data now displays its commitment to transparency.

The Washington Post (9/17, Bernstein, Cha) reports in “Health & Science” that “using 77,000 pages of previously unavailable documents, a team of researchers concluded that paroxetine…was no more effective than a placebo and considerably more dangerous than the original study indicated.” While “similar criticism of what is known as ‘Study 329’ began within a year of its publication,” yesterday’s “reappraisal…may be the most thorough yet.”

Related Links:

— “Antidepressant Paxil Is Unsafe for Teenagers, New Analysis Says,” Benedict Carey, New York Times, September 16, 2015.

HealthDay (9/16, Mozes) reports, “The cost of caring for a woman with Alzheimer’s disease is ultimately about six times more than it is for a man with this form of dementia,” according to a study published in the September/October issue of the journal Women’s Health Issues. After examining “data collected by the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey between 2000 and 2010,” researchers found that “when the patient is a man, the true value of the time and energy a female family member typically puts into her caregiving job is 20 times greater than that performed by a male family member when the patient-caregiver roles are reversed.”

Related Links:

— “Women the Bigger Losers in Terms of Alzheimer’s Costs,” Alan Mozes, HealthDay, September 15, 2015.