The AP (1/13, Daly) reports that the House of Representatives, “for the second time in five weeks…has approved a bill aimed at reducing a suicide epidemic that claims the lives of 22 military veterans every day.” HR 5059, the Clay Hunt SAV Act, “a bill named for…a 26-year-old veteran who killed himself in 2011, was approved unanimously” yesterday. The measure “would require the Pentagon and the Veterans Affairs Department to submit to independent reviews of their suicide prevention programs and would establish a website to provide information on mental health services available to veterans.”

The Washington Times (1/13, Klimas) reports that this same bill “stalled in the Senate last month” over the “objections by retired Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, who said the $22 million price tag was too high for a bill that duplicated already-existing programs.” This time, however, the measure is anticipated “to easily reach the president’s desk.”

Related Links:

— “HOUSE AGAIN BACKS BILL TO LOWER SUICIDE RATE AMONG VETS,” Matthew Daly, Associated Press, January 12, 2015.

Medscape (1/13, Osterweil) reports that according to a study published online Jan. 12 in the journal Pediatrics, youngsters “referred to a specialist because of behavioral problems may have undiagnosed fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD).” The study found that “among 547 foster or adopted children referred to a children’s mental health center for behavioral issues, 156 met criteria for FASD, but 125 (80.1%) had never been diagnosed with prenatal exposure to alcohol.” And, of the 31 kids “who had been diagnosed with prenatal alcohol exposure before referral, 10 had a change in their diagnosis to a different disorder within the fetal alcohol spectrum, which represents a 6.4% misdiagnosis rate, the investigators said.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

In the New York Times (1/8) “Well” blog, psychiatrist Richard A. Friedman, MD, wrote, “Because some patients” with depression “respond better to psychotherapy than medication — and vice versa — or prefer one type of treatment over another, we need to learn much more about how various types of psychotherapy compare with medications clinically as well as at the level of the brain.”

At the moment, however, “we don’t have a clue, in part because of the current research funding priorities from the National Institutes of Mental Health, which strongly favor brain science over psychosocial treatments.” Nevertheless, “we owe it to our patients to try to answer” such “important questions.”

Related Links:

— “To Treat Depression, Drugs or Therapy?,” Richard A. Friedman, M.D., New York Times, January 8, 2015.

Reuters (1/10, Moloney) reports on the state of mental healthcare in Haiti five years after a devastating earthquake that killed 200,000. As it was before the Jan. 12, 2010 quake, the country still has no mental health system. There are only 10 psychiatrists in the impoverished Caribbean nation to serve a population of some 10 million, and most people with serious mental illnesses are not receiving any mental healthcare whatsoever. Because so many Haitians believe that mental illness is a form of demonic possession, they turn to voodoo priests for treatment.

Related Links:

— “Voodoo priests, doctors on frontline of Haiti’s mental healthcare,” Anastasia Moloney, Reuters, January 9, 2015.

The Baltimore Sun (1/10, Mirabella) reported that IBM’s Watson computer system is being used by US Department of Veterans Affairs physicians “to help…treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.” Recently, the VA “launched a two-year pilot program to study new ways of searching electronic medical records and medical literature.” The pilot program, “which will rely on simulations but use actual patient records, is intended to evaluate how the IBM technology can speed up clinical decisions.”

Related Links:

— “IBM’s cognitive computer Watson could use skills to help treat veterans with PTSD,” Lorraine Mirabella, The Baltimore Sun, January 12, 2015.