In a piece for the New York Times (6/13, Subscription Publication), Parker Marie Molloy, a freelance journalist and activist, praises HHS for overturning the “decades-old ban on Medicare coverage for gender-confirming surgeries,” but warns that state-level restrictions remain. These, she says, leave “many, many” people without such coverage. Molloy concludes by urging readers to “stop fearing what we don’t understand, and push to end the anti-transgender stigma that empowers politicians and insurance companies to deny relatively inexpensive, lifesaving medical treatment.”

However, in a piece for the Wall Street Journal (6/13, Mchugh, Subscription Publication), Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, argues that simply providing surgery for transgendered individuals will not solve their underlying mental health issues.

Related Links:

— “Under the Skin: The Next Fight for Transgender Insurance Equality,” Parker Marie Malloy, New York Times, June 12, 2014.

MedPage Today (6/13, Brown) reports that according to a study published in the June 11 issue of JAMA Psychiatry, expectant mothers “who had symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder [MDD] were four times more likely to deliver preterm than women without symptoms.” While other studies have “shown that women who took antidepressants and benzodiazepine had higher risk of a preterm delivery…the risk associated with PTSD and a major depressive episode (OR 4.08, 95% CI 1.27-13.15) was separate from that risk,” the study of 2,654 women revealed.

Related Links:

— “Preterm Births Higher With PTSD, Depression,” Parker Brown, MedPage Today, June 12, 2014.

Modern Healthcare (6/11, Conn, Subscription Publication) reports that yesterday, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration conducted a “daylong ‘listening session,’” the subject of which was “whether patients of federally funded drug and alcohol abuse programs should continue to enjoy some of the most stringent privacy protections in all of US healthcare.”

Last month, SAMHSA gave written notice “that it was considering amending the rule covering drug and alcohol abuse records because some complain the rule’s more stringent privacy protections present barriers to record-sharing” which, some critics charge “impinge on the ability of new care models such as accountable care organizations and patient-centered medical homes to provide coordinated care at lower costs.”

Related Links:

— “Limits on sharing substance abuse patients’ records under debate,” Joseph Conn, Modern Healthcare, June 11, 2014. (Requires registration)

The Kaiser Health News (6/11, Hancock) “Capsules” blog reported that according to a National Bureau of Economic Review working paper produced by researchers at Purdue and Indiana Universities, “expanded coverage for young adults under the Affordable Care Act substantially raised inpatient hospital visits related to mental health.” Economist Kosali Simon, of Indiana University, who helped author the paper, pointed out that “greater hospital use by the newly insured might be caused by inadequate outpatient resources to treat mental-health patients earlier and less expensively.”

Related Links:

— “Study: Health Law Boosts Hospital Psych Care For Young Adults,” Jay Hancock, Kaiser Health News, June 11, 2014.

The CBS News (6/12, Firger) website reported that “some experts say it’s past time to start thinking about mass violence as a public health crisis.” Instead of “just continuing to debate gun reform and the failings of the mental health system, they say the way to stop the cycle is to treat gun violence as a disease and involve health care workers in combatting it.”

In April 2013, JAMA Internal Medicine published an article stating: “The secretary of Health and Human Services, the Surgeon General, the director of the CDC, and the director of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control should be allowed to protect the public health by working to reduce injuries and deaths from firearms, in the same way that they work to reduce injuries and deaths from poisonings, motor vehicle traffic accidents, and falls.”

Related Links:

— “Is gun violence a public health issue?,” Jessica Firgir, CBS News, June 11, 2014.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), in a piece for The Hill (6/11), calls for a much larger research program on Alzheimer’s, citing a study conducted by researchers at Rush University Medical Center finding that it “is now likely the third leading cause of death in the U.S.” Collins points out that NIH “will spend just $566 million” researching the disease in 2015, and offers a bipartisan resolution she authored with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) setting a “target of $2 billion a year in funding for research as recommended by the experts on the federal Alzheimer’s Advisory Council.”

Related Links:

— “Alzheimer’s becoming the defining disease of baby boom generation,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), The Hill, June 11, 2014.

TIME (6/11, Abrams) reports that a study conducted by researchers at Northwestern University ties student loan debt to hypertension “as well as poor self-reported mental and general health.” For the study, investigators examined “the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which allowed them to analyze previously existing conditions of debt and health in” some 8,400 young adults. The study’s lead author, Elizabeth Sweet, now “plans to conduct a five-year study funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities to further explore the ways various types of debt can impact physical and mental health.”

Related Links:

— “How Student Loan Debt Hurts Your Health,” Abby Abrams, Time, June 11, 2014.

Medwire (6/12, Cowen) reports that according to a review published online June 7 in the Journal of Affective Disorders, “patients with bipolar disorder [BD] and comorbid alcohol and substance use disorders are twice as likely to attempt suicide as those without such comorbidity.” Researchers arrived at that conclusion after having “reviewed data from 29 studies comprising 31,294 individuals with bipolar disorder, 6308 (20.1%) of whom had attempted suicide.”

Related Links:

— “Alcohol, substance abuse doubles suicide risk in bipolar disorder,” Lauren Cowen, Medwire, June 12, 2014.

Medwire (6/12, Cowen) reports that according to a study published online June 5 in the Schizophrenia Bulletin, “childhood residential mobility is associated with an increased risk of psychotic disorders, particularly schizophrenia, during adulthood.” After calculating “the number of moves between any of the 276 Danish municipalities during each year from birth to age 15 years for approximately 1.1 million individuals born between 1971 and 1991,” then following people up until December 2010, researchers found that youngsters “who move several times and those who move during adolescence may be particularly vulnerable, report Diana Paksarian,” of the National Institute of Mental Health, and colleagues.

Related Links:

— “Moving during childhood linked to increased schizophrenia risk,” Lauren Cow3n, Medwire, June 12, 2014.

Bloomberg News (6/12, Kim) reports that seniors in South Korea may take “a six-week course that seeks to show seniors how to appreciate life by preparing for death.” The class “reflects efforts to combat the developed world’s highest elderly suicide rate in a country where the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates 37 percent of the population will be older than 65 by 2050.” In the class, seniors are confronted “with the positive nature of death,” and the fact that life is precious and “worth living.”

Related Links:

— “South Korean Seniors Learn How to Die ‘Well’ to Curb Suicide,” Sam Kim, Bloomberg News, June 12, 2014.