Around The Web

New York State has investigated five large insurance companies for violating state and federal mental health parity laws by illegally denying to cover claims for behavioral health conditions and drug abuse treatment, according to a report by North County Public Radio (ncpr).

New research finds that brain matter loss in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia is correlated with antipsychotic use, according to Psych Central. The analysis suggests that the continued use of antipsychotics is linked with progressive cortical gray matter loss.

Psych Central covers findings published in BMJ revealing that many people in the U.K. with intellectual disabilities are being prescribed antipsychotic drugs. The study’s lead author comments: “People who show problem behaviors, along with older people with intellectual disability or those with co-existing autism or dementia, are significantly more likely to be given an antipsychotic drug, despite this being against clinical guidelines and risking possible harm.”

A new study out of the University of Missouri examines the relationship between forgiveness and depression. Medical Daily reports, “while your therapist might tell you to forgive yourself when times get tough, it’s not always just self-forgiveness that decreases depression. Rather, forgiving others seems to have the most positive impact.”

On Tuesday, NPR told the story of DeAngelo Cortijo. DeAngelo became a foster kid at age 3 after his mother attempted suicide. He was “diagnosed with bipolar and anxiety disorders, attachment disorder, intermittent explosive disorder or posttraumatic stress disorder,” and was prescribed “a combination of antipsychotics, antidepressants and stimulants, and was told that taking them was his only hope of being normal.” Through equine therapy, DeAngelo was eventually able to get off all of his medication. Now, California is hoping to pass reforms that would prevent foster kids, like DeAngelo, from being “prescribed antipsychotic drugs at double to quadruple the rate of that not in foster care.”

“We are consistently seeing sensory, motor, and cognitive issues pop up more and more in later childhood, partly because of inadequate opportunities to move and play at an early age,” writes Angela Hanscom in The Washington Post.

"CNN's Carol Costello explores Operation Tohidu, an experimental rehabilitation program to help veterans with PTSD." Operation Tohidu founder, Dr. Mary Vieten claims PTSD is not a mental illness and "there is no reason to medicate someone who has been traumatized by their war experience." When asked what percentage of soldiers returning with PTSD do not need drugs she responds, "100%."

Parents Opposed to Pot, a group opposed to the legalization of marijuana, criticizes a recent University of Pittsburgh study which found no correlation between pot use and mental health. They contest the results and insist that since the long-term study began in 1987, “skunk” or high THC pot has been on the rise.

An editorial in the Guardian discusses the fact that the number of people with intellectual or learning disabilities “who are being treated with psychotropic drugs far exceeds those with mental illness.” The authors of a new study examining the overuse of psychotropic drugs on people with learning disabilities, published this month in BMJ, argue: “If people without mental illness are given psychotropic drugs… it is probably to control their behavior.”

Writing for Forbes, Matthew Herper documents the FDA’s increasing drug approval rates. “In 2008, BioMedTracker says the FDA approved 20 new molecular entities (NMEs) and rejected 20, for an approval rate of 50%.” So far this year, he writes, “the FDA approval rate is more like 96%.”

Jeffrey Lieberman, past-president of the American Psychiatric Association, authored an Op-Ed in last Friday’s New York Times, calling for improved mental health screenings in schools and emergency rooms in the wake of the murder of Virginia journalists Alison Park and Adam Ward. In support of forced treatment mechanisms, Lieberman claims: “Almost every mentally ill perpetrator of mass violence had been symptomatic and untreated for lengthy periods of time before their crime, because they (or their families) did not seek treatment or they refused it.”

On Saturday morning, Susan Inman, writing for HuffPost Canada, published “What You’re not Hearing About the Hearing Voices Movement.” In it, she criticizes HVM for “failing to differentiate between the needs of people who actually have psychotic disorders and those who don't.” On Sunday the Bay Area Hearing Voices Network published an open letter in response, writing: “Ms. Inman has profoundly mischaracterized hearing voices networks (HVNs) and also demonstrates a troubling lack of understanding of the empirical literature on psychosis, optimal psychosocial intervention and recovery.”

The International Business Times covers a new study showing “trials for new antidepressant medications may not be applicable to the population at large.” “The finding, published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, shows recent trials are less generalizable than the prior studies, as researchers excluded most depressed patients from drug company-sponsored treatment studies.”

Today’s NY Times front page featured a story on the problem reproducibility poses for many psychology studies. The story is based on the results of a year-long study where the researchers found they were unable to reproduce 60 out of 100 studies published in three leading psychology journals. “The overall ‘effect size,’ a measure of the strength of a finding, dropped by about half across all of the studies.”

Writing for Truth-Out, hurricane Katrina survivor G. Maris Jones writes: “To adapt to a changing climate, survivors of these catastrophes - especially those in marginalized, low-income communities - need long-term physical and mental health services.” She adds a concurrent call to “assume our responsibility to make positive change through action on climate change.”

Tania Lombrozo for New Hampshire Public Radio (nhpr) asks, “could it be that some people believe psychiatric disorders can be contagious?” A new study in the Journal of Memory & Cognition says “yes,” and adds that this perception influences the way people interact with mental health category members.

CBC News Canada voices sex therapists and psychiatrists concerns over the FDAs decision to approve Flibanserin last week. Critics contend, “it's an ineffectual pharmacological solution for a problem better treated with relationship counselling, sex therapy and behavioural changes.” Walid Gellad, the co-director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing adds, “"[I] believe that it should be used by almost no one.”

The Intercept illustrates the growing insecurity of our medical and mental health data in an age of privacy breaches. Individual stories detail instances of electronic therapy notes being shared between all doctors in a practice, employees being fired after mental health information is disclosed through workplace wellness programs, and police data on past suicide attempts being used to prevent Canadian citizens from crossing the US border.

Healthline reports that as five second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) lose patent protection, Medicaid expenditures for antipsychotics are projected to be cut in half over the next five years. But some worry that the decrease in spending may lead policymakers to lift existing restrictions on antipsychotics at a time when most SGAs are prescribed to children for off-label reasons.

The Toronto Star reports on a 40-page analysis of the criminalization of mental illness released by the John Howard Society of Ontario last week. The crime and justice non-profit claims that “jails have replaced asylums as repositories for people who don’t have adequate resources to cope with community living,” with the unintended consequence that people in need of treatment “are forced to navigate a system that was never intended to be therapeutic.”

The Australian reports that their Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) received new data from drug company Janssen-Cilag, the developers of risperidone, “indicating a more than fivefold higher risk of ‘cerebrovascular adverse events’ — stroke or transient ischaemic ­attack — in patients with vascular or mixed dementia on risperidone.”

Former DSM-IV task force chair Allen Frances takes aim at the “massive overuse of psychotropic medication in children” in an article for the Psychiatric Times. He shares a checklist of questions for doctors to consider before prescribing medication to children. Frances warns: “We simply don’t know what will be the long-term impact of bathing a child’s immature brain with powerful chemicals.”

Writing for GreenBiz, Elizabeth Grossman reports on research on the increasing amounts of pharmaceuticals making their way into the environment. “They report on opiods, amphetamines and other pharmaceuticals found in treated drinking water; antibiotics in groundwater capable of altering naturally occurring bacterial communities; and over-the-counter and prescription drugs found in water leeching from municipal landfills.”

“Stress damages the integrity of the hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that deals with memory and emotions,” Thor Benson writes for Salon. “Hormones like Cortisol and other biological reactions created by stress essentially disrupt the balance of how much white and grey matter the brain is creating, which affects how the brain operates.”

In this week’s NY Times Modern Love blog Hannah Louise Poston tells the story of living with her severely depressed boyfriend, Joe, and how her decision to buy a kitten improved their relationship. “The next morning when we woke up, the first words out of Joe’s mouth were, ‘Where’s the kitten?’ And the kitten’s first act, when she heard his voice, was to ice-pick her way up the quilt and jump on his face. That same summer, Joe mustered the energy to make major changes in his life…”