The Defense Department has not provided prescription totals for such
antidepressants from before and after the United States invaded Iraq
in 2003.
The prescriptions were for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors,
commonly called SSRIs.
These drugs are used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, some
personality disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder.
They include brand names such as Paxil, Cymbalta and Wellbutrin.
The antidepressants work by elevating the level of the
neurotransmitter serotonin.
Researchers believe that low serotonin levels in the brain could be a
biological cause of depression and certain anxiety disorders.
Mental-health care for service members and the Defense Department's
efforts to keep the mentally ill in uniform are becoming national
issues, said Steve Robinson, director of the National Gulf War
Resource Center in Silver Spring, Md.
Robinson said three Army doctors have told him about being pressured
by their commanders not to identify mental conditions that would
prevent personnel from being deployed.
"They are being told to diagnose combat-stress reaction instead of
PTSD," he said.
"That does two things: It keeps the troops deployable and it makes it
hard for them to collect disability claims once they get out of the
military."
Robinson contends that the Pentagon is trying to control its spending
on mental-health disabilities.
Between 1999 and 2004, disability payments to veterans with
post-traumatic stress disorder rose to $4.3 billion from $1.7 billion
nationwide, according to a report by the Department of Veterans
Affairs' inspector general.
Overall, service members' mental health is a hot-button subject
because it goes to the cost of the war in dollars and lives, said Joy
Ilem, an assistant national legislative director for the organization
Disabled American Veterans.
"The (Department of Veterans Affairs) is very worried about the
political implications of PTSD and other mental issues arising from
the war," Ilem said.
"They are talking about early outreach and treatment, but they are
really trying to tamp down the discussion."
Cmdr. Paul S. Hammer deals with such issues daily.
Hammer, a psychiatrist, is responsible for the Marine Corps'
mental-health programs during this deployment rotation.
He confirmed that Marines with post-traumatic stress disorder and
combat stress are returning to Iraq, though he would not say how many.
Hammer said deciding who is deployed is often anguishing.
From The San Diego Union-Tribune, 3/19/06:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060319/news_1n19mental.html
Some troops headed back to Iraq are mentally ill
By Rick Rogers
STAFF WRITER
Besides bringing antibiotics and painkillers, military personnel
nationwide are heading back to Iraq with a cache of antidepressant and
anti-anxiety medications.
The psychotropic drugs are a bow to a little-discussed truth fraught
with implications:
Mentally ill service members are being returned to combat.
The redeployments are legal, and the service members are often eager
to go.
But veterans groups, lawmakers and mental-health professionals fear
that the practice lacks adequate civilian oversight.
They also worry that such redeployments are becoming more frequent as
multiple combat tours become the norm and traumatized service members
are retained out of loyalty or wartime pressures to maintain troop
numbers.
Sen. Barbara Boxer hopes to address the controversy through the
Department of Defense Task Force on Mental Health, which is expected
to start work next month.
The California Democrat wrote the legislation that created the panel.
She wants the task force to examine deployment policies and the
quality and availability of mental-health care for the military.
"We've also heard reports that doctors are being encouraged not to
identify mental-health illness in our troops. I am asking for a lot of
answers," Boxer said during a March 8 telephone interview.
"If people are suffering from mental-health problems, they should not
be sent on the battlefield."
Stress reduces a person's chances of functioning well in combat, said
Frank M. Ochberg, a psychiatrist for 40 years and a founding member of
the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.
"I have not seen anything that says this is a good thing to use these
drugs in high-stress situations. But if you are going to be going
(into combat) anyway, you are better off on the meds," said Ochberg, a
former consultant to the Secret Service and the National Security
Council.
"I would hope that those with major depression would not be sent."
About 25,000 Marines and sailors based in San Diego County are
undergoing a major combat rotation that began in January.
Their deployments are expected to last seven months.
Officials from the Defense Department and Camp Pendleton, where some
units have been to Iraq three times, said they don't track personnel
deployed while taking mental-health medication or the number diagnosed
with mental illness.
But medical officers for the Army and Marine Corps acknowledge that
medicated service members -- and those suffering combat-induced
psychological problems -- are returning to war.
And anecdotal evidence, bolstered by the government's own studies,
suggest that the number could be significant.
A 2004 Army report found that up to 17 percent of combat-seasoned
infantrymen experienced major depression, anxiety or post-traumatic
stress disorder after one combat tour to Iraq.
Less than 40 percent of them had sought mental-health care.
A Pentagon survey released last month found that 35 percent of the
troops returning from Iraq had received psychological counseling
during their first year home.
That survey echoed statistics collected by the San Diego Veterans
Affairs Healthcare System.
The system has found that about 33 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan
veterans suffer from schizophrenia, depression and post-traumatic
stress disorder.
The various studies apparently didn't consider the effects of multiple
combat tours, though psychiatrists agree that the greater people's
exposure to combat, generally the higher their risk of suffering
mental illness.
More than 435,000 U.S. personnel have served in Iraq and Afghanistan
combined.
It is unclear how many have served in that region more than once.
Joe Costello, a mental-health counselor at the Vista Veterans Center,
said emotionally scarred troops are routinely redeployed and that most
want to go back to the war zone.
"I see it every day," said Costello, who mainly treats reservists.
____________________________________________________
The obscene lengths to which these right-wing criminal thugs will go
to get their cannon fodder.
Harry
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