[acb-hsp] Why Are Suicides Climbing in the Military?

[peter altschul]

Why Are Suicides Climbing in the Military? Let's Look at the 
Drugs Being Prescribed
  Martha Rosenberg
  Why does the suicide rate among military personnel continue to 
climb--even among those who never saw combat? This week the 
Pentagon announced there were more suicides among active-duty 
members of the armed services in 2012 than combat deaths--a 
staggering 349.  Eighty-five percent had not even seen combat, 
reported Bloomberg.
  The suicide rate rose similarly last year and also included 
troops who had not faced combat.  There were 38 Army suicides in 
July of 2012 compared with 32 suicides in July of 2011.  In a 
2010 Army report called Health Promotion, Risk Reduction and 
Suicide Prevention Report, 36 percent of the troops who killed 
themselves had never even deployed.  The suicide rate increased 
by more than 150 percent in the Army and more than 50 percent in 
the Marine Corps between 2001 to 2009, reported stMilitary 
Timesst in a series of in-depth articles.
  One in six service members was on a psychoactive drug in 2010 
and "many troops are taking more than one kind, mixing several 
pills in daily 'cocktails' for example, an antidepressant with an 
antipsychotic to prevent nightmares, plus an anti-epileptic to 
reduce headaches--despite minimal clinical research testing such 
combinations," said stMilitary Times./
  The pills and pill cocktails many troops are prescribed are 
clearly linked to suicidal thoughts and behavior.  
Antidepressants like Prozac and Paxil, antipsychotics like 
Seroquel and Zyprexa and anti-seizure drugs like Lyrica and 
Neurontin all carry clear suicide warnings and all are widely 
used in the military.  Almost 5,000 newspaper reports link 
antidepressants to suicide, homicide and bizarre behavior on the 
website SSRI-STORIESDDCOM.  The malaria drug Lariam is also 
highly correlated with suicide and its use actually increased in 
the Navy and Marine Corps in 2011, according to the Associated 
Press.
  Eighty-nine percent of troops with post traumatic stress 
disorder (PTSAID) are now given psychoactive drugs and between 
2005 and 2009, half of all TRICARE (the military health plan) 
prescriptions for people between 18 and 34 were for 
antidepressants.  During the same time period, epilepsy drugs 
like Topamax and Neurontin, increasingly given off-label for 
mental conditions, increased 56 percent, reports stMilitary 
Timesst.  In 2008steast 578,000 epilepsy pills and 89,000 
antipsychotics were prescribed to deploying troops.
  Both the increase in the overall suicide rate in the US (rising 
to 36,000 a year after falling in the 1990's according to USA 
Today) and in the military coincide with the debut of 
direct-to-consumer drug advertising in the late 1990's.  They are 
also correlated with the FDA's approval of many drugs with 
suicide links and a population that is increasingly taking 
psychoactive drugs for minor problems and symptoms.  Several 
powerful military psychiatrists and administrators are also 
consultants to Big Pharma who shamelessly enroll veterans in drug 
studies and promote the pills that drug companies pay them to 
promote.  Who can say conflict of interest?
  When concerns about the rise in the general suicide rate in the 
US surfaced last fall, US Surgeon General Regina Benjamin 
announced federal grants for suicide hotlines, more mental health 
workers, better depression screening and Facebook tracking of 
suicidal messages.  Nowhere, did she mention examining the role 
of suicide-linked drugs on, ahem, suicide.  The Pentagon is 
apparently in similar denial.