Wednesday, April 23, 2003

New Reports Explore State Implementation of Prescription Drug Prior Authorization
This page at the Kaiser Family Foundation web site serves as the index to two new studies (both in Adobe Acrobat format) that "shed light on the impact of an increasingly popular strategy - prior authorization - being used to control prescription drug spending." The studies are Prior Authorization for Medicaid Prescription Drugs in Five States: Lessons for Policy Makers and Model Prescription Drug Prior Authorization Process for State Medicaid Programs.  
  

Chaos Theory May Help Explain Patterns Of Alcohol Abuse, Studies Suggest
Science Daily story based on research published in Addictive Behaviors - "Chaos theory, which helps scientists understand complex systems such as weather patterns and the stock market, may also help shed light on the dynamics of alcohol abuse, a new study suggests. A researcher at Ohio State University used techniques of chaos theory to do a case study of the drinking patterns of an alcohol abuser over several years."  
  

Old drugs put to new use treating cocaine addiction
Los Angeles Times story - "Medications designed for one purpose often end up as treatments for other conditions. That's not unusual. What is surprising is the number of older drugs that have suddenly become good candidates for treating cocaine addiction. Researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse are studying whether a half-dozen medications used for such conditions as narcolepsy and influenza can help people trying to abstain from cocaine and other addictive drugs."  
  

No-brainer / A House move to hobble mental health
Editorial in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune - "Today the House Ways and Means Committee will have a chance to atone for a wrong. The panel meets this afternoon to consider the Omnibus Health and Human Services Finance Bill, which is packed with mental-health provisions about which citizens haven't been allowed to testify. Slipped in as amendments by the HHS Committee chairman, Rep. Fran Bradley, R-Rochester, these stealth moves would reverse recent steps toward building a sound system of mental-health care in Minnesota."  
  

NHS `not ready' to aid Gulf veterans (UK)
Story at icWales - "A quarter of soldiers returning from the Gulf could suffer serious psychological problems yet Britain's health service is woefully under-prepared to cope, experts said yesterday. The Mental Health Foundation estimates that as many as 10,000 of the 43,000 troops in Iraq could suffer serious psychological trauma, such as post traumatic stress."