In continuing coverage, the New York Times (3/8, Dao) “At War” blog reports, “Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are more likely to be prescribed opioid pain killers than other veterans with pain problems and more likely to use the opioids in risky ways, according” to a VA study published March 7 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. According to the blog, VA “and the Department of Defense have for years been trying to reduce the use of opioid pain therapy among active duty troops and veterans amid reports of overmedication, addiction, rampant drug abuse and accidental deaths caused by overdoses or toxic mixing of medications.” Dr. Robert D. Kerns, VA’s national program director for pain management, “said in an interview that the department would draw attention to the new findings to push doctors to consider alternatives to opioid therapy, particularly” with PTSD patients.

Medscape (3/8, Lowry) notes, “Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan with mental health diagnoses, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), are more likely to be prescribed opioid drugs for pain than are their counterparts without mental health diagnoses, new research shows. They are also more likely to have patterns of opioid use that put them at high risk for adverse clinical outcomes, lead author Karen H. Seal, MD, MPH, told Medscape.” Medscape adds, “Exploring other options to treat pain, such as the use of higher-dose anti-inflammatory drugs, physical therapy, and complementary or alternative medicine, such as acupuncture and chiropractic, is something that should be tried in this population, said Dr. Seal.”

Related Links:

— “For Veterans With Post-Traumatic Stress, Pain Killers Carry Risks, “James Dao, The New York Times, March 7, 2012.

HealthDay (3/8, Reinberg) reports, “Suicides among US soldiers rose 80 percent from 2004 to 2008,” according to a study published online March 7 in the journal Injury Prevention. The “analysis of data from the US Army Behavioral Health Integrated Data Environment” also revealed that “as many as 40 percent of these suicides may have been linked to combat experience in Iraq, yet nearly a third of the soldiers who committed suicide saw no combat at all.”

“Just one ambulatory visit for a mental health disorder may warn that a soldier is at risk for suicide,” MedPage Today (3/8, Fiore) reports. “Those who sought such help were about four times more likely to commit suicide than those who had not made any mental health visits (RR 3.9, 95% CI 3.0 to 4.9), Michelle Canham-Chervak, PhD, of the Injury Prevention Program of the US Army Public Health Command, and colleagues.” Notably, “patients who were hospitalized with mental illness had more than a 15-fold higher risk of suicide than those not hospitalized (RR 15.5, 95% CI 11.2 to 21.5).”

Related Links:

— “U.S. Army Suicides Rising Sharply, Study Finds Service in Iraq and Afghanistan appears to be the cause of increasing mental-health problems,”Steven Reinberg , Health Day, March 7, 2012.

The New York Times (3/7, B2, Thomas, Subscription Publication) reports that according to a report released Tuesday by AARP, “the prices of drugs used most widely by older Americans rose by nearly 26 percent from 2005 to 2009 — nearly twice the rate of inflation.” The report found that “the increase happened even as the price of generic drugs, which account for the vast majority of prescriptions, has been falling in recent years.” Cheryl Matheis, AARP senior vice president for policy strategy, said that while the “country is contracting economically and inflation is…really low, inflation in the cost of prescription drugs is going in the other direction,” illustrating a trend the organization describes as “relentless because it just doesn’t seem to abate.” Meanwhile, pharmaceutical industry officials criticized AARP’s report, asserting that the increased availability of generic medications has curtailed the increase in medication prices.

Related Links:

— “AARP Study Says Price of Popular Drugs Rose 26%,”Katie Thomas, The New York Times, March 6, 2012.

The AP (3/7, Weissert) reports that 52% “of the young people in Texas’ youth prisons have a moderate or high need for mental health care, and officials should improve their early intervention efforts to help those kids before they end up behind bars, the head of a new state agency told lawmakers Tuesday. Cherie Townsend, executive director of the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, said” that just over half “of teens and other youngsters held at the state’s six juvenile detention facilities have been diagnosed with at least moderate mental health problems.” What’s more, “including those with at least some kind of mental health care needs would make that tally much higher, she said.”

Related Links:

— “Mental health issues common among youth prisoners, “Will Weissert, The Associated Press, March 6, 2012.

The AP (3/7) reports, “Morphine and similar powerful painkillers are sometimes prescribed to recent war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress along with physical pain, and the consequences can be tragic,” according to a study published March 7 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Despite the fact that veterans “are at high risk for drug and alcohol abuse…they’re two times more likely to get prescriptions for addictive painkillers than vets with only physical pain,” the study found. “Iraq and Afghanistan vets with PTSD who already had substance abuse problems were four times more likely to get these drugs than vets without mental health problems.”

“The research points to the need for doctors to use caution when treating veterans who need pain relief but who also have mental health or substance-use disorders,” the Los Angeles Times (3/6, Roan) “Booster Shots” blog reports. “Even in the civilian population, abuse of opioid medications has skyrocketed, with increased rates of addiction and overdose deaths. But, the authors noted: ‘Most VA primary care clinicians lack specialized training in the management of comorbid pain and PTSD.'”

Karen Seal, MD, MPH, of the VA Medical Center at the University of California-San Francisco, and colleagues “found that a far greater percentage of those with PTSD and those with other mental health problems — including depression, anxiety, alcohol use disorders, drug use disorders, and traumatic brain injury — received opioids for their pain compared with those without mental health diagnoses (17.8% and 11.7% versus 6.5%),” MedPage Today (3/7, Fiore) reports.

HealthDay (3/7, Reinberg) explains, “For the study, Seal’s team looked at the association between mental health problems and unfavorable results — including accidents, overdose and self-inflicted injury — with use of prescription painkillers in more than 140,000 veterans treated for pain at VA hospitals from October 2005 to December 2010.” Investigators found that nearly “16,000 patients received prescriptions for painkillers covering 20 or more days.” The study authors also found that veterans with “PTSD were more likely to take higher doses and more than one painkiller than mentally healthy vets. They were also more likely than the others to take sedatives and to refill their prescriptions early.” Also covering the story are the CNN (3/7, Kounang) “The Chart” blog and Reuters (3/7, Pittman).

Related Links:

— “Vets with mental health problems more likely to abuse painkillers,”Shari Roan, LA Times, March 6, 2012.

HealthDay (2/29, Mozes) reports, “Taking the hallucinogen ecstasy during pregnancy may harm the health of the fetus and lead to poorer motor control in infants,” according to a US National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded study published in the journal Neurotoxicology and Teratology. Researchers found that “infants born to mothers who used ecstasy during pregnancy had worse motor control and poorer hand-eye coordination at four months than babies whose mothers didn’t use the drug. Other problems among the ecstasy-exposed group included an impaired ability to balance their heads, sit up without support or roll from their back on to their side.”

Related Links:

— “Ecstasy Use During Pregnancy May Harm Fetus: Study, “Alan Mozes , Health Day, February 28, 2012.

Reuters (2/29, Dahl, Croft, Subscription Publication) reports that illegal pharmacies based on the Internet are utilizing social media to publicize and market their wares to young people, according to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). INCB President Hamid Ghodse was quoted as saying, “Illegal Internet pharmacies have started to use social media to publicize their websites, which can put large audiences at risk of dangerous products.” According to Ghodse, such illegal pharmacies use YouTube and Facebook for such purposes.

The Financial Times (2/29, Jack, Rappeport, Subscription Publication) reports that the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board warned, in its 2011 annual report, of “relatively slow progress” from governments in banning illegal drug sales online. Of note, the US Food and Drug Administration has recently been trying to stop such illegal sales and warned about websites offering fake drugs and supplements.

Related Links:

— “Social Media Used to Sell Drugs to Youth, Report Says,”Reuters, The New York Times, February 28, 2012.

The Army Times (2/29, Kime) reports, “Better data on suicide rates among veterans could be available by summer under an agreement forged between” Secretary Shinseki “and 49 states.” The rate “often noted in press reports and analyses — an average of 18 veteran suicides each day — is derived from information available from the Centers for Disease Control’s National Violent Death Reporting System, which receives input from 18 states, and other sources. VA now has a commitment from 49 state governments to furnish statistics on veterans’ deaths in their states to the department, said Jan Kemp, VA’s National Mental Health Program Director for Suicide Prevention,” who added that VA is in talks with Colorado’s governor to provide the information. While speaking at the American Legion convention in Washington, DC, on Monday, Kemp stated, “By April, hopefully, we’ll have a more realistic view of the scope” of suicides committed by veterans.

Related Links:

— “VA aims to get better data on vet suicide rates,”Patricia Kime, ArmyTimes, February 28, 2012.

Bloomberg News (2/28, Moroney) discussed “the diminishment of acute care for the mentally ill — the kind of hospitalizations sought during times of crisis. The duration of these stays has dropped to 7.8 days in 2009, the last year of available data, from 12.8 days in 1993.” Even though “stays of all kinds have been shortened by insurance plans trying to manage care, the 39 percent decline for mental illness is one of the sharpest…according to the US Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research (AHQR).” Bloomberg News adds, “The result: greater relapse and more patients released prematurely doing harm to themselves and others, according to 20 psychiatric experts interviewed by Bloomberg News.”

Related Links:

— “Son Who Hears Voices Finds Health Care Fatally Dysfunctional,”Tom Moroney , Bloomberg, February 28, 2012.

In commentary published on the CNN (2/23, Brooks) website, Adam C. Brooks, a research scientist at the Treatment Research Institute, wrote, “What makes substance abuse hard to combat is the fact that addiction plays such a central role,” but “major advances in scientific research have given us a much clearer picture of addiction — what it is, what is isn’t, and what causes it.” At present, “there is no ‘cure’ for addiction.” However, the “disease can be managed and recovery is possible. The most successful treatments are modeled after treatments for other chronic, noncurable, relapsing diseases such as diabetes, hypertension or asthma.”

Related Links:

— “Addiction is not hopeless,”Adam C. Brooks , CNN, February 22, 2012.