Why Are So Many Soldiers On Antipsychotics?
24 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // March 26th, 2010 // 7:28 am
So here’s a chilling statistic - at least one in six service members is on some form of psychiatric drug. What’s more, many troops take a mix of antidepressants and antipsychotics to prevent nightmares, for instance, or an anti-epileptic to reduce headaches, according to The Military Times. Meanwhile, there’s not much research on these cocktails.
Here’s another problem: the meds can impair motor skills and reduce reaction times, just the sort of side effect wanted for a fighting soldier, yes? And given that some meds may increase the risk of suicide, some docs and members of Congress question whether the drugs are connected to the rising rate of military suicides, the Times writes.
“It’s really a large-scale experiment. We are experimenting with changing people’s cognition and behavior,” Grace Jackson, a former Navy psychiatrist, tells the paper. At a hearing of the Personnel Subcommittee of the Senate Commiteee on Armed Services, US Senator Jim Webb, a Virginia Democrat, called the sharp increase in prescription drug use among the military “stunning.”
A Military Times investigation of electronic records obtained from the Defense Logistics Agency shows DLA spent $1.1 billion on common psychiatric and pain meds from 2001 to 2009, and that use of psychiatric drugs increased about 76 percent overall, with some drug types more than doubling since the start of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
How much is being spent on which drugs? And which companies are benefiting?
Orders for antipsychotics, including Seroquel and Risperdal, jumped by more than 200 percent, and annual spending more than quadrupled, from $4 million to $16 million. Orders for anti-anxiety drugs and sedatives such as Valium and Ambien rose 170 percent, and spending climbed from $6 million to about $17 million. Annual orders anti-epileptics increased about 70 percent, while spending more than doubled, from $16 million to $35 million.
Antidepressants had a comparatively modest 40 percent gain in orders, but it was the only drug group to show an overall decrease in spending, from $49 million in 2001 to $41 million in 2009, a drop of 16 percent. The debut in recent years of cheaper generic versions of these drugs is likely responsible for driving down costs, the Times aptly notes.
However, antidepressants and anticonvulsants are the most common such meds prescribed to service members - 17 percent of the active-duty force, and as much as 6 percent of deployed troops, are on antidepressants, Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton, the Army’s highest-ranking psychiatrist, told Congress on Feb. 24, according to The Times.
In a recent twist, Sutton’s office earlier this week told the paper that statement was inaccurate. One Army study showed 17 percent of soldiers in Afghanistan were taking mental health meds in 2007, but a more accurate figure for the total force, according to Sutton’s office is between 2 percent and 4 percent. But then, in testimony this week, the Army Surgeon General, Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, estimated “roughly 8 percent of the total force” is using psychiatric meds, the paper writes.
Meanwhile, the Times adds, from 2001 to 2009, the Army’s suicide rate increased more than 150 percent, from 9 per 100,000 soldiers to 23 per 100,000. The Marine Corps suicide rate is up about 50 percent, from 16.7 per 100,000 Marines in 2001 to 24 per 100,000 last year. And orders for psychiatric drugs in the analysis rose 76 percent over the same period. As Bloomberg News noted recently, J&J’s Janssen Pharmaceutica sales reps promoted Risperdal to the Veterans Administration, noting that docs were given materials about studies of unapproved uses for Risperdal.
Hat tip to Bnet
Anne PME
Some of these medicines may also metabolize down common pathways. These medicines interact with other medicines so if a soldier is wounded and brought in for emergency medical treatment first responders need to know. You also worry that these soldiers may be at higher risk of one or more medical errors because if they are on one or more of these medicines.
Anne PME
Sorry about all of the typos…my hands fingers are not cooperating today.
SFM
Wow - what a scary combination of the military industrial complex and the massive pharmaceutical industry.
Whatever the motivations or outcomes, there is little doubt these entities are utilizing this “experiment” to gather lots of valuable data.
tylor
my hands fingers are not cooperating today.
pharmavet
As a Viet Nam era person with many ex-military friends, I can state categorically about the US military’s use of psychtropic agents. Combat troops would be ordered to go into “free fire zones”, where they were ordered basically to shoot anything that moved. To wear down their resistance to such tasks they were forece fed amphetamines, the result being that being awake for 3-4 days straight lowered their resistance. Army also tested “volunteer” soldiers with hallucinogens as part of chemical warfare development. See below.
In case you’re not familiar with the term “fragging”, it arose in such context. Jacked up on speed, when GI’s refused to obey an order such as torching a village with women and children, it would take the form of killing their superior officer with a fragmentation grenade.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-05-army-experiments_N.htm
Lisa Van Syckel
I, for one, is very happy that this issue is finally being addressed. My nephew, who is Marine, contacted me from his base, because one of his comrades had been prescribed an antidepressant, and an antipsychotic and became agitated and suicidal, and would I please speak to his buddy, and try to help. Thank god that, our young men and women in the military are becoming wiser consumers.
Too many Marines, survived their tours, only to return home too die in their sleep.
Lisa Van Syckel
shoot, meant am, where is, is.
pharmavet
Lisa, I think we agree on this one.
patrons99
As the proud son of a decorated military combat veteran (Silver Star, Purple Heart), I can speak to this topic. While I’ve never asked my father whether he was ever placed on antipsychotics, I am certain that he was “jabbed” with great regularity, especially prior to each deployment.
I would ask whether the combination of antipsychotics, generalized immune stimulation, and systemic drug toxicity, might not be manifest as neurobehavioral and neurodegenerative problems, once the last straw breaks the camel’s back? E.g., PTSD, mass homicides, celebrity deaths, Parkinson’s, ALS, Alzheimer’s.
AnneS
Great - our young men are dealing with: obesity in high numbers; ADD, allergies, asthmas, diabetes, autoimmune issues, etc. in high numbers; and too many pharmaceuticals. Some military we will soon have.
Martha
And yet: didn’t I read a few years ago that young men who had a history of taking Ritalin and other psychostimulants were ineligible for military service? What gives?
American
Sorry if it’s in the story, but it is time to launch a thorough investigation about the chain through which this has occurred.
The troops sent to Iraq were treated as disposable from the start. So were those sent to Vietnam years before. Cannon fodder.
It is time for something resembling actual patriotism instead of the idiots dressed up in Paul Revere costumes.
Who is responsible? Let’s all demand to know.
Justice in MI
Not specific to the military, but this from the Bloomberg article Ed links:
“At a 2003 meeting, a Janssen executive praised the use of coached questioners at programs, according to a transcript. A doctor identified in the transcript as Randy told Janssen employees that he signed a letter agreeing he would only talk about permitted uses of Risperdal.
‘Plant a Shill’
“However, I always plant a shill because if I get asked a question from the audience, I can then speak off-label,” Randy said. “You never like to go to a CME meeting without knowing ahead of time that somebody is going to ask you, ‘what about dementia?’”
“That’s good practical advice,” replied Dr. Andrew Greenspan, an executive in Janssen’s medical affairs department, according to the transcript.”
keiner
“…and reduce reaction times,”
Reaction time is prolonged. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a problem, i guess.
cavalldequer
Doesn’t all this just reflect a growing realisation that being a professional killer is not the sort of thing post-modern human psyches can cope with? And a jolly good thing, too.
Justice in MI
I don’t think so, Caval. I think it reflects war-profiteering.
grace jackson MD
kudos to the Army Times and to Andrew Tilghman for finally broaching this topic openly.
Regrettably, print journalism permits only superficial handling of complex subjects.
When first interviewed by Andrew Tilghman for this piece (many months prior to publication),
Mr. Tilghman posed the provocative question:
“so what’s wrong with drugging soldiers?”
I supplied a list of what was “problematic” with the use of psychotropics among active duty personnnel. Among my concerns, relative to psychiatric drugging:
1) the implication that the soldier’s “brain” must be broken [rather than anxiety or mood symptoms being the expectable result of prolonged and controversial guerilla warfare]
2) the induction of potentially delayed
and long-lasting brain changes
[a phenomenon known as chemical imprinting >>> as seen with LSD flashbacks or the delayed demyelinating effects associated with exposures to organophosphate fertilizers and nerve gas]
3) the infliction of genotoxic and clastogenic damage to sperm and eggs
[e.g., drugs taken in the past >> causing
future deformities and miscarriages among
the progency of drug-exposed military personnel]
4) endocrine disruption
[most physicians still do not consider or understand the endocrine-perturbing effects of psychiatric drugs. These drug-associated changes are particularly dangerous for survivors of brain trauma, as drug-related suppression of growth hormone, cortisol, and thyroid hormone - as well as drug-related elevations in prolactin and changes in hypothalamic proteins ... all
carry enhanced risks of sudden death for TBI survivors. As 15-40% of TBI patients suffer long-lasting pituitary suppression related to their head traumas, the last thing that they can endure is an additional stress in the form of Chemical Brain Injury]
5) neurodegeneration
especially for survivors of TBI, it should concern physicians that psychiatric drugs are
directly toxic to the brain
[I have profiled the extensive evidence for dementia (brain destruction) associated with each class of psychiatric medication in my book
[Drug Induced Dementia -a perfect crime. For example, the mainstream news media remains silent about the link between antipsychotic
drugs --- old and new -- and the direct induction of Alzheimer's pathology in the brain]
6) addiction
few patients yet realize that many antidepressants and antipsychotics produce
physiological effects in the brain which mimic
the actions of alcohol and opium/opiates
e.g., Seroquel [whose active metabolite
is structurally similar to methadone] is a
street-drug of abuse with heroin-like effects;
perhaps for this reason, many soldiers on Seroquel and other drugs are dying in their sleep [a la many movie stars and other celebrities]
========================
Regrettably, despite this writer’s repeated attempts to draw Congressional attention to the crucial issue of drug misuse since 2002, not one of the Senators to whom I have written or personally delivered materials has ever responded to me — including Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, and Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia.
here’s hoping that the Army Times’ article
spurs a sincere and active response in the near future — but in the meantime, it would seem prudent for military families to become proactive by seeking the highest quality medical care for their loved ones…if necessary, outside the military and VA systems.
Grace E. Jackson, MD
Justice in MI
Thank you, Dr. Jackson.
The upcoming Congressional elections, and some of the “high-profile” Senate races (McCain’s comes to mind) would seem to present opportunities to bring the issue more widely to public attention, and hold incumbents responsible both for what they have not done and what they commit to doing.
While my comment above was probably premature, I would be very surprised if we did not soon see FCA cases (probably a number in the wings) concering fraudulent or off-label promotion of some of these drugs to Tricare.
Keep it coming.
Evelyn Pringle
Like Dr Jackson and others mentioned, this issue is nothing new, but let’s hope the article stimulates action by members of Congress.
However, having watched the same situtation develop in other patient populations constantly since 2004 ( eg, teens, toddlers, elderly in nursing homes), with equal alarm raised by patient advocacy groups, I will not hold my breath waiting for the drugging of our troops to end anytime soon.
Especially being Pharma has the equvilant of a visa card, backed with our tax dollars, to pay for drugs doled out to any person in the military.
patrons99
Evelyn - thank you for making the point that we have “watched the same situation develop in other patient populations”. I think that we MUST ask why??? Where is this ever increasing incidence of asthma, allergies, ADHD, ADD, Autism, diabetes, obesity, other autoimmune, Parkinson’s, ALS, and Alzheimer’s, coming from? Where is the ever increasing incidence of acute psychotic “breaks” coming from?
Overuse of psychotropics, generalized immune stimulation from the current vaccine schedules, polypharmacy, drug toxicity, and drug-drug interactions, are potentially all to blame, at least in part.
I blame it on Western medicine and pharma’s “pushing” of a pill (or jab) for every ailment and an ailment for every pill (or jab). It’s not just our soldiers who are at risk! We are all at risk. We are rapidly losing are our freedom of choice.
Perhaps those of us who practice allopathic medicine need to revisit the basic model of dis-ease upon which all of Western medicine is based. Florence Nightingale identified the problem with this model more than a century ago.
“There are no specific diseases only specific disease conditions”—Florence Nightingale
http://www.whale.to/v/nightingale_h.html
We will soon be mandated to purchase health insurance for healthcare which adheres solely to pharma’s and big insurance’s allopathic model of healthcare. And worse still, if McCain’s Dietary Supplement bill passes, open access to natural dietary supplements will likely be decimated. See an article titled, “McCain’s Dietary Supplement Bill: An Attempt to Implement Codex Alimentarius” by Brandon Turbeville on February 24, 2010.
http://www.infowars.com/mccains-dietary-supplement-bill-an-attempt-to-implement-codex-alimentarius/
patrons99
While I greatly respect Senator McCain’s military service to our country, I believe that he has effectively “sold out” to Big Pharma with his co-sponsorship, along with Senator Dorgan, of the Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010 (S. 3002). This bill, should it pass, will be a VERY sorry addition to the Senator’s legacy.
Why are so many soldiers on antipsychotics? I would hazard to say that it is because the military-industrial complex actively supports pharma’s agenda.
Justice in MI
TMAP for Troops?
Former Pharma Marketing Director
Well the good news is that just as I had long suspected no normal sane person can really be part of the atrocities of killing women and children for example without having been pumped up on psycho meds. Phew! Glad we cleared that up..
But now, on to the really big problem.
Is it me or does anyone see shades of Nuremberg here?
How are we allowing our government to exploit the soldiers who answer the call of duty to serve, protect and defend in such a malicious way? Shame!!!
Pharma is making big money from this….
They are also saving money too, they get access tot he “data” being generated by this experiment on our men and women in the services.
There needs to be transparency, the soldiers need to know what the potential harm and risks are and then they need to be fully compensated.
patrons99
It is not a stretch to say that we now live in a medical dictatorship. You can almost predict what will happen next. There will probably be a global backlash. Then there will be an inquisition. The usual suspects, the heretics, will then be identified for special treatment, i.e., they will be slimed, pilloried, marginalized, and made outcasts by the mainstream medical establishment and the global pharma consortium. The pessimists amongst us probably feel that there is nothing that can be done to correct the imbalance and excesses…they might be right.