Friday, January 31, 2003

Fiscal Challenges Await State Mental Health Program Directors
Article in Mental Health Weekly at Medscape - "States are facing yet another difficult fiscal year of enormous budget shortfalls and escalating budget deficits, which so far in the mental health field have prompted facility closings, workforce reductions, hiring freezes, and dwindling resources while states try to grapple with escalating prescription drug costs." [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

Side Effects and Therapeutic Effects
Article in Medscape Psychopharmacology Today - "There are two broad sets of issues that we deal with in psychopharmacology: pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. Pharmacokinetics could be defined as what the body does to drugs, and encompasses all of the issues of drug interactions and drug clearance metabolism. Pharmacodynamics could be defined as what the drug does to the body. One could argue that it is the most important group of issues, because it encompasses the actual therapeutic effect of the drug." [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

National Champion of People with Mental Illnesses Dies
At the NAMI web site - "Richard T. (Dick) Greer, 76, who in the 1980s helped spearhead the drive to refocus the federal government’s research efforts toward the biological basis for mental illnesses and to increase research funding and community services, died of acute leukemia on January 13, 2003 at his Arlington, Virginia home."  
  

Magnet Therapy May Quiet 'Voices' in Schizophrenia
Reuters Health story at Yahoo - "Schizophrenics who hear imaginary voices that are not quieted by medication could find some relief in an experimental procedure that directs magnetic waves toward certain brain regions, a small study suggests."  
  

CMH expects cuts to exceed $1.26 million (Michigan)
Midland Daily News story - "State budget cuts could total more than $1.26 million for the six-county Community Mental Health for Central Michigan."  
  

Woman helps mentally ill negotiate legal minefields (Canada)
Simcoe story on Susan Boyles, who "was recently hired as the Human Services and Justice System co-ordinator by the Canadian Mental Health Association, Barrie-Simcoe Branch and her role is to assist people whose mental and emotional difficulties get them into legal trouble."  
  

Health care advocates decry aid cuts (Massachusetts)
Boston Globe story - "A day after Governor Mitt Romney announced $133 million in cuts to health and human service programs, the leader of a statewide health advocacy group lamented what he characterized as the continued dismantling of the Commonwealth's health care system and called for the restoration of funding to serve the state's neediest residents."  
  

Cuts to balance state's books will turn lives upside-down (Oregon)
Story in The Oregonian - "The morning after Oregon voters rejected a tax increase, the state reprogrammed its computers for dozens of health and social programs due to shrink or vanish at midnight tonight," including "the General Assistance Program for 2,700 disabled and low-income Oregonians unable to work; round-the-clock mental health crisis service in most counties; and long-term care help that keeps older Oregonians out of nursing homes."  
  

Apartments for mentally ill put on hold (Iowa)
Story in the Iowa City Press-Citizen - "Having missed a deadline to apply for a city grant, a local agency's plan to build apartments for people with mental illnesses has been placed on hold."  
  

New Cuts Hit Mental Health, Safety Net, And Kids' Programs (Connecticut)
Story in The Day - "Gov. John G. Rowland swung his budget ax again this week, unilaterally ordering $40 million in budget cuts and leaving key mental health, “safety net,” and child development programs without enough funds to finish the fiscal year."