http://www.bestsyndication.com/?q=20090413_vetrans_suicide_reasons.htm
Are VA Protocols Behind Iraq Soldier Suicides?
(Best Syndication News) Why are suicides among Iraq war soldiers twice
that of other wars?
One reason could be that 80 percent of troops with post traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD) are given drugs that didn't exist during other wars.
Antidepressants like Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil and Celexa (Selective
Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors or SSRIs) and Cymbalta and Effexor
(Serotonin Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors or SRNIs) that are so
closely associated with suicide they carry suicide warnings.
660 people have killed themselves on SSRIs and SNRIs since 1988
according to published newspaper reports including at least 17 Iraq war
veterans. Many more have attempted suicide and committed felonies,
self-harm, police stand-offs, murders, murder/suicides and mass murders
with high powered weapons.
Yet what does the US Department of Veterans Affairs suggest as a
treatment for PTSD?
"We recommend SSRIs as first line medications for PTSD pharmacotherapy
in men and women with military-related PTSD," says the VA's National
Center for PSTD's Iraq War Clinician Guide, 2nd Edition. "Findings from
subsequent large-scale trials with paroxetine [Paxil] have demonstrated
that SSRI treatment is clearly effective both for men in general and for
combat veterans suffering with PTSD."
In fact 89 percent of veterans with PTSD were given antidepressants and
34 percent antipsychotics according to an article in the June 2008
Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.
While scientific studies continue to confirm the danger of SSRI use in
young and/or bipolar patients--a January 2009 Journal of Affective
Disorders article by VA authors recommends "close monitoring" for
suicide for 12 weeks "following antidepressant starts" when risk greatly
rises--another voice says it's not what it looks like.
"Suicide attempt rates were lower among patients who were treated with
antidepressants than among those who were not," says an article in the
July 2007 American Journal of Psychiatry [Relationship Between
Antidepressants and Suicide Attempts: An Analysis of the Veterans Health
Administration Data Sets] by Robert Gibbons, director of the Center for
Health Statistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "These
findings suggest that SSRI treatment has a protective effect in all
adult age groups. They do not support the hypothesis that SSRI treatment
places patients at greater risk of suicide."
This is not the only time Gibbons have gone to bat for the controversial
antidepressants.
In an article called "Early Evidence on the Effects of Regulators'
Suicidality Warnings on SSRI Prescriptions and Suicide in Children and
Adolescents," in the September 2007 American Journal of Psychiatry, he
indicted "black box" suicide warnings that the FDA mandated in 2004 for
a national rise in young peoples' suicides. Why? Because the warnings
discouraged doctors from prescribing SSRIs!
Of course the "SSRI deficiency" argument is as insipid as blaming the
obesity epidemic on the unavailability of fen phen. But many joined
Gibbons in the round of big pharma "I-Told-You-Sos" including Charles
Nemeroff of Emory University School of Medicine who was later disgraced
for undisclosed pharma conflict of interests.
Unfortunately Gibbons was wrong. The suicide stats he analyzed did not
yet reflect the effect of the black box warnings and he ended up having
to tell the New York Times the "early evidence" was actually not
evidence at all but "suggestive." Oops.
Worse, Zoloft maker Pfizer contributed $30,000 to the article bellyflop
writes Alison Bass, author of Side Effects: A Best-selling Drug on
Trial, in the Boston Globe. Not much Return on Investment there.
Of course it should come as no surprise--except to journal editors--
that Gibbons is financially linked to Effexor maker Wyeth, now Pfizer
and that his second author John Mann is linked to Pfizer and
GlaxoSmithKline.
A bigger surprise is that Gibbons is rolling in tax payer funded grants
from the National Institute of Mental Health including some to study
antidepressants and suicide.
What firewalls are in place to keep pharma "science" from becoming
government science, promoting deadly pills?
What protects US tax payers, public health monies--and most importantly
our veterans?
By Martha Rosenberg
Martha is a writer and cartoonist from the Chicago Area
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
