The AP (8/6, Stobbe) reports, “Prescriptions of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone are soaring, and experts say that could be a reason overdose deaths have stopped rising for the first time in nearly three decades.” CDC officials reported Tuesday that “the number of naloxone prescriptions dispensed by U.S. retail pharmacies doubled from 2017 to last year, rising from 271,000 to 557,000.” Meanwhile, “about 68,000 people died of overdoses last year, according to preliminary government statistics reported last month, a drop from the more than 70,000 in 2017.” CDC researchers also “noted there were fewer than 1,300 naloxone prescriptions dispensed in 2012, meaning the number grew more than 430-fold in six years.” Health officials “said pharmacies should be giving out even more.” The findings were published online in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
STAT (8/6, Joseph) reports that “while the number of naloxone prescriptions doubled from 2017 to 2018, there was still only one dispensed for every 69 high-dose opioid prescriptions.” Dr. Anne Schuchat, the Principal Deputy Director of the CDC, said: “We may never get to 1-to-1…but we think that ratio of 1-to-70 is too low.” Meanwhile, the CDC report “also uncovered drastic geographic disparities, with some counties dispensing the medication at 25 times the rate of other counties.” Specifically, “dispensing rates were often lowest in rural counties, a finding that Schuchat called ‘disappointing.’”

Related Links:

— “Boom in overdose-reversing drug is tied to fewer drug deaths, “Mike Stobbe, AP, August 06, 2019

NPR (8/6, Chatterjee) reports on its “All Things Considered” program and in its “Shots” blog research indicates mass shooting “incidents usually occur in clusters and tend to be contagious” and that “intensive media coverage seems to drive the contagion.” In a 2015 study published in PLOS One, “researchers at Arizona State University analyzed data on cases of mass violence.” Lead researcher Sherry Towers said, “What we found was that for the mass killings – so these are high profile mass killings where there’s at least four people killed – there was significant evidence of contagion.” Investigators “also found that what distinguished shootings that were contagious from those that weren’t was the amount of media coverage they received.” In addition, they “found that there is a window when a shooting is most likely to lead to more incidents – about two weeks.”

Related Links:

— “Mass Shootings Can Be Contagious, Research Shows, “Rhitu Chatterjee, NPR, August 06, 2019

Reuters (8/5, Rapaport) reports researchers found “older women who are under a lot of social strain may be more likely to develop brittle, fracture-prone bones after menopause than their counterparts with worry-free lives.” The findings were published in Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

Related Links:

— “Social stress tied to lower bone density after menopause, “Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, August 05, 2019

Medscape reports that a large cohort study, published online July 22 in Depression and Anxiety, “of Israeli patients with cancer found that antidepressant adherence above 50% was associated with one quarter less mortality over four years compared with adherence below 20%.” Investigators “reported that any adherence above 20% was linked to increased survival over the four years of the study.”

Related Links:

— “Cancer Survival Linked to Antidepressant Adherence, “Helen Leask, Medscape, August 05, 2019

The Washington Post (8/5, Wan, Bever) reports that according to research, mental illness is not to blame for America’s mass shootings. In a 2018 report of active shooters, the FBI “found that 25 percent of active shooters had been diagnosed with a mental illness. And of those diagnosed, only three shooters had been diagnosed with a psychotic disorder.” Similarly, “in a 2015 study that examined 235 people who committed or tried to commit mass killings, only 22 percent could be considered” as having a mental illness. In addition, “a 2004 report conducted by the Secret Service and the Education Department found that only 12 percent of perpetrators in more than three dozen school shootings showed an interest in violent video games.”

The AP (8/5, Johnson) reports experts say that “Trump’s focus on ‘mentally ill monsters’ oversimplifies the role of mental illness in public mass shootings and downplays the ease with which Americans can get firearms, experts said.” Mental health experts “repeated what they have said after previous mass shootings: Most people with mental illness are not violent, they are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators, and access to firearms is a big part of the problem.” The AP adds that “a country’s rate of gun ownership is a far better predictor of public mass shootings than indicators of mental illness, said Adam Lankford, a University of Alabama criminologist who published a 2016 analysis of data from 171 countries.” Meanwhile, “last month, the U.S. Secret Service released a report on mass public attacks in 2018, finding that ‘no single profile’ can be used ‘to predict who will engage in targeted violence’ and ‘mental illness, alone, is not a risk factor.’”

TIME (8/5) reports that physicians “across specialties are growing increasingly frustrated by” the linkage of mass shootings and mental illness by public figures and are “arguing for a stronger focus on gun control over mental health.” As a results of studies failing to find a link between mental illness and mass shootings, “an increasingly large and vocal cadre of doctors has been arguing for years that gun violence is more an issue of access and regulation than it is mental health.”

The Hill (8/5, Weixel) reports that “the country’s largest organization of psychiatrists on Monday pushed back against comments from politicians linking the most recent spate of mass shootings to mental illness.” In a statement, “the American Psychiatric Association (APA) said gun violence is a public health crisis, and noted that ‘the overwhelming majority of people with mental illness are not violent and far more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators of violence.’” The APA said, “Rhetoric that argues otherwise will further stigmatize and interfere with people accessing needed treatment. Individuals can also be emboldened to act violently by the public discourse and divisive rhetoric.”

Related Links:

— “Experts: Mental illness not main driver of mass shootings, “Carla K. Johnson, AP, August 05, 2019