Monday, July 12, 2004

WHO Wants to Start Drug Trial Registry
Washington Post story - "The World Health Organization wants to establish an international registry of drug trials to ensure that the public finds out when medications do not work, as well as when they do, officials said yesterday. Pressure has been growing on pharmaceutical companies to fully disclose details of all clinical trials, not just those that support the use of their products. WHO officials said an international database, which would be modeled on registries in the United States and other countries, will be proposed to national health ministers at a meeting in November." See also the July 6 story at the same source, Drugmakers Prefer Silence On Test Data.  
  

Drug Companies Seek to Mend Their Image
July 8 New York Times story - "With drug prices skyrocketing, the pharmaceutical industry has long had plenty of critics. And in a measure of just how badly tarnished the industry's image has become, even some of its most prominent defenders are turning against it. That could spell trouble, which is why the drug industry is about to begin a charm offensive to try to win back the nation's affection. Roy Vagelos, the well-known former chairman of Merck & Company and one of the industry's most prominent boosters, now condemns drug makers for the 'exorbitant' prices of new medicines and 'galloping' annual increases of old ones. Government price controls, he predicts, are almost inevitable..." [Viewing New York Times resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

Researchers Accuse Bush of Manipulating Science
July 9 Los Angeles Times story - "More than 4,000 scientists, including 48 Nobel Prize winners and 127 members of the National Academy of Sciences, accused the Bush administration Thursday of distorting and suppressing science to suit its political goals. ... The administration has frequently been accused of misusing and ignoring science to further its policy aims. The list of signatures collected by the Union of Concerned Scientists suggests that the issue has become worrisome throughout the scientific community..." [Viewing Los Angeles Times stories requires registration, which is free]. See also, at the Union of Concerned Scientists web site, a related press release and the full report (in Adobe Acrobat format), Scientific Integrity in Policy Making.  
  

3 Senators Seeking Details for a Drug-Trial Database
July 9 New York Times story - "Three Democratic senators who have already expressed interest in creating a required database of clinical drug trials asked federal regulators yesterday to outline what additional financing and enforcement mechanisms would be needed to create such a database. The three - Senators Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut - made the request in a letter sent to the heads of the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. In the letter, the senators asked what could be done to either improve an existing government-run database, expand it or create a new one, so that drug makers would be required to post both the existence of a drug trial and its results..." [Viewing New York Times resources requires registration, which is free]. See also the ClinicalTrials.gov, which "provides regularly updated information about federally and privately supported clinical research in human volunteers."  
  

Gene Discovery Could Change Psychiatric Care
HealthDay story at Yahoo - "For the first time, researchers working with mice have identified a naturally occurring genetic mutation that affects brain levels of serotonin, a neurochemical linked to depression, anxiety and other psychiatric conditions. The discovery may help explain why some patients feel much better after taking serotonin-altering antidepressants such as Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft, and why others do not..."  
  

Depression Ups Risk of 'Metabolic Syndrome'
Reuters Health story at Yahoo - "Women who have had an episode of depression have increased odds of having "metabolic syndrome" -- a cluster of conditions such as abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar and unhealthy cholesterol levels, that set the stage for type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. These findings, reported the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, may help explain why depression has long been linked to heart disease and other cardiovascular ills, the researchers write..."  
  

Algorithm-Based Program Effective for Major Depressive Disorder
A new CME unit from Medscape - "Patients treated with an algorithm-based program for major depressive disorder (MDD) had better outcomes than those treated with usual care, according to the results of a prospective trial published in the July issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry..." "med"  
  

The Expanding Role of Antipsychotic Pharmacotherapy in Bipolar Disorder
A new CME unit at Medscape - " Bipolar disorder is one of the most symptomatically complex disorders in psychiatry. The presence of multiple phases of the disorder with varied presentations in each phase makes it challenging to both diagnose and treat. Until recently, studies and medications specifically targeted for bipolar disorder were few in number. This clinical and scientific dearth is now changing for a number of reasons..." See also the Medscape resource center on bipolar disorder. [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

Judge rules state must fund service (California)
San Diego Union Tribune story - "A Sacramento judge has issued what could become a more far-reaching order granting San Diego County the right to refuse to meet a mandate requiring support of a mental health program the state calls for but does not fund. The program, which provides services to schoolchildren, must continue because of federal law, but the state will be forced to pay for it. Superior Court Judge Jeffrey L. Gunther ruled in favor of the county last week, agreeing with the contention that it is a violation of the state constitution to order local governments to provide programs without giving them sufficient funding to pay for the services. "  
  

La Crosse County inmates say they're not getting prescriptions (Wisconsin)
AP story in the Duluth News Tribune - "Inmates at the La Crosse County jail say they are not receiving needed medications for mental health and other medical conditions since the jail's medical services were privatized. La Crosse County hired Health Professionals Limited, a Peoria, Ill.-based provider of medical services to jails and prisons, to take over medical operations at the jail starting this January. Before that, county Health Department nurses and a local doctor ran the jail infirmary..."  
  

New law could fill jails with homeless, some say
Miami Herald story reprinted at PsycPORT on a law signed by Gov. Jeb Bush last month that "requires judges to sentence Floridians with at least five arrests in a 12-month period to six months in a county jail or residential treatment facility. Jacksonville legislators and the Duval County sheriff sought the bill as a way of cleaning up the streets before the 2005 Super Bowl. But experts fear the change in state law, together with an already steep decline in funding for psychiatric services, could swell the jails with more mentally ill inmates..."  
  

Drug to treat addicts lacks support in Maine
Press Herald story - "Maine's doctors have been slow to embrace a 2-year-old drug treatment that can help opiate addicts control their cravings without daily clinic visits, a national expert says. About two dozen Maine doctors have taken the eight-hour course required to prescribe buprenorphine, a treatment for opiate addiction that, unlike methadone, does not require daily clinic visits. Instead, doctors can write prescriptions that patients fill at local pharmacies..."  
  

Mental health workers' union accepts offer (New Zealand)
Story at Stuff - "Striking mental health workers in Rotorua and Taupo have returned to work after their union reached an agreement with hospital boards over their employment conditions. The parties spent two days in mediation but this morning neither side would go into the details of the new offer. The proposed settlement will be presented to mental health workers for ratification over the next two weeks. About 350 psychiatric nurses and community mental health workers employed by the Lakes, Bay of Plenty and Waikato district health boards walked off the job for six days at 3am last Friday after negotiations between their union – the Public Service Association (PSA) – and their employers broke down. Their strike ended early this morning."  
  

Clark County Declares a State of Emergency -- Overflow of Mental Health Patients Prompts Hospital Crisis (Nevada)
July 9 KLAS-TV story - "Clark County has issued a formal proclamation to the State of Nevada officials requesting emergency assistance to deal with about 100 mental health patients who are overcrowding local hospital emergency rooms. ... The area’s 11 hospital emergency rooms, including University Medical Center, report an overflow of mental health patients. Emergency management officials say the situation poses a serious threat to the community’s health and safety because it limits the ability of local emergency room staff to deal with other medical emergencies."  
  

Many Youths Reported Held Awaiting Mental Help
July 8 New York Times story - "Congressional investigators said Wednesday that 15,000 children with psychiatric disorders were improperly incarcerated last year because no mental health services were available. The figures were compiled by the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Government Reform in the first such nationwide survey of juvenile detention centers..." [Viewing New York Times resources requires registration, which is free]. See also the press release from the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Thousands of Children with Mental Illness Warehoused in Juvenile Detention Centers Awaiting Mental Health Services and other resources at the Bazelon site, including testimony by Tammy Seltzer and an open letter to Congress signed by more than 130 national and state advocacy groups. The Congressional investigators' full report is also available online in Adobe Acrobat format.  
  

Area hospital's mental health unit faces closure (Oklahoma)
Daily Ardmoreite story - "Arbuckle Memorial Hospital's 15-bed mental health unit could close unless it gets additional funding. The unit hospitalizes and evaluates individuals picked up on emergency orders of detention by area law enforcement agencies. Should the facility close, the impact on the area would be significant."