On its front page, in the first part of a two-part story, the Boston Globe (4/30, A1, Lazar, Carroll) reports, “Federal data show that roughly 185,000 nursing home residents in the United States received antipsychotics in 2010 contrary to federal nursing home regulators’ recommendations — often elderly people…who have Alzheimer’s or other dementias.” The medications, “which are intended to treat severe mental illness such as schizophrenia, can leave people in a stupor.” What’s more, “the US Food and Drug Administration has issued black-box warnings — the agency’s most serious medication alert — about potentially fatal side effects when antipsychotics are taken by patients with dementia.”

A separate Boston Globe (4/30, Carroll) piece explains the methodology used by the Globe in arriving at its conclusions. “The Boston Globe examined data on more than 15,600 nursing homes across the nation for its investigation of antipsychotic drug overuse. The information was supplied by the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 19 months after a Freedom of Information Act request was submitted.” The first set of data involved “the percentage of long-term residents without a psychosis or related condition who received antipsychotics contrary to federal nursing home regulators’ recommendations,” while “the characteristics of each home, such as staffing levels, number of patients on Medicaid, and the number reported by staff to have behavioral problems” made up the second set of data.

According to the USA Today (4/30, Eversley) “On Deadline” blog, “At more than one in five US nursing homes, anti-psychotic drugs are administered to people who do not have a condition that warrants their use, the Globe reports.” However, “members of the nursing-home industry…told the Globe the drugs are sometimes necessary to keep people from hurting themselves and/or others.” In fact, “Frank Grosso, vice president of pharmacy services at Genesis Health Care, owner of more than 200 nursing homes, told the news organization that sometimes patients are given lower doses than someone with a psychosis and the data do not reflect that.”

Related Links:

— “Use of antipsychotic drugs raises alarm,”Kay Lazar , The Boston Globe, April 29, 2012.

MedWire (4/27, Cowen) reports, “The use of progestin-only contraceptives is associated with an increased risk for current mood disorders in women, while the use of combined estrogen and progestin contraceptive agents is associated with a reduced risk,” according to a study published online April 24 in the Journal of Affective Disorders. In 498 Australian women of childbearing age, all of whom were evaluated for mood disorders, researchers found that “women taking progestin-only contraceptives were more likely to have a current mood disorder than those who were not taking progestin-only agents, at an odds ratio of 3.0.” In comparison, “women taking combined contraceptive agents were less likely to have a mood disorder than those who were not taking such agents, at an OR of 0.3.”

Related Links:

— “Contraceptive use linked to current mood disorder risk in women,”Mark Cowen , MedWire News, April 27, 2012.

MedWire (4/27, Grasmo) reports, “Adolescents who use methamphetamine or methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA) are at risk for developing subsequent depressive symptoms,” according to a study published online April 19 in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. After following some 3,880 Canadian secondary-school children for five years, researchers found that “both MDMA and methamphetamine use significantly increased the likelihood for having elevated depressive symptoms in the following year (odds ratio [OR]=1.7 and 1.6, respectively).” What’s more, “individuals who used both MDMA and methamphetamine, but not those who used just one of the drugs, were significantly more likely than nonusers to report elevated depressive symptoms the following year (OR=1.9).”

Related Links:

— “Methamphetamine, MDMA use increases risk for depressive symptoms,”Ingrid Grasmo , MedWire News, April 27, 2012.

HealthDay (4/27, Goodwin) reports that “nearly two-thirds of US children with an autism spectrum disorder have been bullied at some point — according to a recent survey of nearly 1,200 parents by the Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Interactive Autism Network.” The story quotes Connie Anderson, community scientific liaison for the Interactive Autism Network, saying, “Part of the reason the children are so vulnerable is that the heart of autism is a social disability. It’s really hard for them to read the social world, to interpret what’s going on, to make an appropriate response, something most people do naturally.” Bullying is said to reach its height in grades 5-8.

Related Links:

— “Battling the Bullying of an Autistic Child,”Jenifer Goodwin , HealthDay, April 26, 2012.

ABC World News (4/26, story 8, 0:35, Sawyer) reported, “The Centers for Disease Control announced today a staggering number of Americans, 30% of us, are not getting enough sleep.”

NBC Nightly News (4/26, story 6, 1:45, Guthrie) reported that according to the CDC’s Dr. Ileana Arias, “Unfortunately, what we found is that about a third of working adults get only six or fewer hours every day of sleep.” NBC News chief science correspondent Robert Bazell, said, “Among health care workers, just over half said they don’t sleep enough. For those in the transportation and delivery business, it was 70%.”

MSNBC /MyHealthNewsDaily (4/27, Rowan) reports, “When the results were broken down by age group, the findings showed people in the middle of their working years were most likely to report less than six hours of sleep a night: about 32 percent of people between the ages of 30 and 64, compared with 26.5 percent of those ages 18-29, and 21.7 percent of those 65 and older.” Meanwhile, “there were also differences among races. Black workers (38.9 percent) and Asian workers (33.2 percent) were significantly more likely to report short sleeps than white workers (28.6 percent) or Hispanic workers (28.8 percent), the report said.”

HealthDay (4/27, Reinberg) reports, “About 44 percent of night shift workers get too little sleep, compared to about 29 percent of people working the day shift.”

WebMD (4/27, Mann) reports, “Others who are not getting enough sleep include people who hold down more than one job, widows, divorcees, or recently separated partners.” These “findings are based on data from the 2010 National Health Interview Survey.” The report is published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The Minneapolis Star Tribune (4/27, Peifer) “Health Check” blog also covers the story.

Related Links:

— “One-third of US workers don’t get enough sleep,”Karen Rowan , MyHealthNewsDaily, April 27 , 2012.