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)

Medscape (4/1, Brauser) reports that research presented March 28 at the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry’s annual meeting suggests that “receiving a diagnosis of a life-threatening illness may be a significant determinant of suicidal ideation in older adults.” The study, which included “more than 3000 adults aged 55 years or older, showed that those who had a traumatic accident/illness were three times more likely to also have suicidal ideation than those who did not experience that type of trauma.” But, “within this trauma category, only life-threatening illness was significantly associated with late-life suicidal ideation; a life-threatening accident or toxic chemical/substance exposure did not have significant associations.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

In a blog post for Reuters (3/31), suicide prevention experts Christopher Gandin Le and Jennifer Gandin Le outlined the two steps they believe will help avoid another aviation incident like Germanwings flight 9525. First of all, increased mental health screening is a good idea, they argue, as FAA currently requires that pilots self-report suicidal tendencies, but privacy must also be taken into consideration, lest employees harbor a fear of reprisal for reporting medical conditions. At the same time, the conversation about mental health should not stigmatize anyone with a disorder, and the authors praise the Air Force Suicide Prevention Program as a successful program in this respect.

Related Links:

— “Two-step approach to preventing the next Germanwings disaster,” Christopher and Jennifer Gandin Le, Reuters, March 31, 2015.

The investigation into the March 24 Germanwings flight 9525 crash and new revelations about the mental health of 27-year-old co-pilot Andreas Lubitz continue to feature prominently in national outlets. Coverage of the story led evening television news broadcasts and appeared on the front page of several leading newspapers. Yesterday, Germanwings’ parent company Lufthansa revealed that Lubitz had emailed the company’s flight training school in 2009 about his clinical history with depression.

ABC World News (3/31, lead story, 2:25, Muir) broadcast that Lufthansa “knew of that young co-pilot’s troubling medical history,” that “he suffered a severe bout of depression, even before they hired him.”

The CBS Evening News (3/31, lead story, 2:15, Pelley) reported that “Lubitz had been treated for suicidal tendencies,” as evidenced by his medical history, but Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr maintains that “Lubitz was 100 percent air-worthy, without any restrictions.” The CBS Evening News added that, in Germany, physicians “are not obliged to tell airlines if pilots have problems that would preclude them from flying.”