Coverage of the Germanwings crash investigation continued, focusing primarily on word from investigators that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz planned in advance to crash the jet and researched suicide and cockpit doors in the days before the crash.

Alex Marquardt reported on ABC World News (4/2, story 5, 1:30, Muir) that Lubitz “may have been planning his deadly flight for days. German investigators revealing a search of the co-pilot’s tablet computer shows that in the week before the crash, he had researched medical treatments, suicide methods, and information on cockpit door security.”

USA Today (4/3, Onyanga-Omara) reports that yesterday, “Germany announced the creation of a task force to examine what went wrong and consider whether changes are needed regarding cockpit doors, how pilots pass medical evaluations and how companies recognize psychological problems in employees.”

Related Links:

— “Co-pilot studied suicide methods, cockpit security,” Jane Onyanga-Omara, USA Today, April 2, 2015.

Employers Face Difficulty Balancing Need For Safety Against Employees’ Privacy Rights. Focusing on patient confidentiality, the CBS Evening News (4/1, story 7, 2:15, Pelley) reported that in the US, “45 states have laws requiring or permitting mental health professionals to disclose if they believe a patient is dangerous.” CBS News correspondent Jeff Pegues explained, however that even though “some privacy advocates agree that there are cases where warning law enforcement is necessary…they worry about a chilling effect on patients.” Chad Marlow, of the American Civil Liberties Union, was shown saying, “You might deter people from seeking mental health services in order to avoid disclosing things they want to keep private.” Meanwhile, “here in the US,” according to Pegues, “the Federal Aviation Administration mandates that airline pilots self-report mental health issues,” but “the FAA says it’s too early to discuss whether the protocols will be strengthened.”

In an article on the difficulties of balancing employers’ and the general public’s needs for safety against employees’ privacy rights and ability to work without suffering from the stigma of having a mental health disorder, the Wall Street Journal (4/2, Silverman, Feintzeig, Subscription Publication) reports that forensic psychiatrist Steven Hoge, MD, who chairs the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Psychiatry and the Law, explained that under certain limited circumstances, management can give orders to employees to undergo mental-health evaluations as a condition of keeping their employment.

Related Links:

— “After Airline Tragedy, New Focus on Mental Health at Work,” RACHEL EMMA SILVERMAN and RACHEL FEINTZEIG, Wall Street Journal, April 1, 2015.

USA Today (4/2, Zoroya) reports that a “massive study” conducted by the Defense Department’s National Center for Telehealth and Technology at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state and published online April 1 in JAMA Psychiatry suggests there is “no link between being deployed in or near a war zone and a high risk of suicide.” Researchers, who focused on “3.9 million US troops who served during the first six years after” the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, “found almost no difference between the suicide rates of those who deployed versus those who did not.”

The New York Times (4/2, A15, Philipps, Subscription Publication) reports that the study “also tracked suicides of military personnel after they left the military, by linking records kept by the Pentagon and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” The authors of the study and other experts “cautioned, however, that the findings do not rule out combat exposure as a reason for the increase in suicides, adding that more information was needed.” Michael Schoenbaum, “a researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health who led a 2014 study on suicides in the Army,” said, “You can be deployed without being in combat.” He added, “This data set wasn’t able to sort people by their exposure to the physical acts of war. That is the next step.”

Related Links:

— “Study: No link between suicide and serving in or near war zones,” Gregg Zoroya, USA Today, April 1, 2015.

The Hill (4/1, Carney) reports that Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) has introduced a bill “to strengthen veterans’ mental healthcare by making it easier to get help outside of the Department of Veterans Affairs.” The measure “would amend the Veterans’ Access, Choice, and Accountability Act, to allow veterans access to non-VA mental healthcare if they can show the agency is not giving them ‘adequate or timely’ care.” In addition, the proposed legislation would “roll back a requirement that veterans must live more than 40 miles away from a VA facility or have waited longer than 30 days before accessing non-VA mental healthcare.”

Related Links:

— “Ernst offers bill to improve veterans’ access to mental healthcare,” Jordain Carney, The Hill, March 32, 2015.

Medscape (4/1, Johnson) reports that research indicates that “the risk for suicide and accidental death is higher in the first year after a diagnosis of prostate cancer than other cancers.” While “the risk for suicide is not higher overall…it is during the first year, ‘specifically in men who are not treated,’ said investigator Christian Meyer, MD.” The “finding comes from an analysis of diagnosis data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database, presented…at the European Association of Urology 30th Annual Congress.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)