(Article changed on February 3, 2013 at 08:18)
Why
does the suicide rate among military personnel continue to climb--even among
those who never saw combat? This week the Pentagon announced there were more
suicides among active-duty members of the armed services in 2012 than combat
deaths--a staggering 349. Eighty-five percent had not even seen combat,
reported Bloomberg.
.
The
suicide rate rose similarly last year and also included troops who had not
faced combat. There were 38 Army suicides in July of 2012 compared with 32
suicides in July of 2011 . In a 2010
Army report called Health Promotion, Risk Reduction and Suicide Prevention
Report, 36 percent of the troops who killed themselves had never even deployed.
The suicide rate increased by more than 150 percent in the Army and more than
50 percent in the Marine Corps between 2001 to 2009, reported Military Times in a series of in-depth articles.
One
in six service members was on a psychoactive drug in 2010 and "many troops
are taking more than one kind, mixing several pills in daily 'cocktails' for
example, an antidepressant with an antipsychotic to prevent nightmares, plus an
anti-epileptic to reduce headaches--despite minimal clinical research testing
such combinations," said Military Times.
The
pills and pill cocktails many troops are prescribed are clearly linked to
suicidal thoughts and behavior. Antidepressants like Prozac and Paxil,
antipsychotics like Seroquel and Zyprexa and anti-seizure drugs like Lyrica and
Neurontin all carry clear suicide warnings and all are widely used in the
military. Almost 5,000 newspaper reports link antidepressants to suicide,
homicide and bizarre behavior on the website SSRIstories.com. The malaria drug
Lariam is also highly correlated with suicide and its use actually increased in
the Navy and Marine Corps in 2011, according to the Associated Press.
Eighty-nine percent of troops with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are now given psychoactive drugs and between 2005 and 2009, half of all TRICARE (the military health plan) prescriptions for people between 18 and 34 were for antidepressants. During the same time period, epilepsy drugs like Topamax and Neurontin, increasingly given off-label for mental conditions, increased 56 percent, reports Military Times . In 2008 , 578,000 epilepsy pills and 89,000 antipsychotics were prescribed to deploying troops.
Both
the increase in the overall suicide rate in the US (rising to 36,000 a year
after falling in the 1990s according to USA Today) and in the military coincide
with the debut of direct-to-consumer drug advertising in the late 1990s. They
are also correlated with the FDA's approval of many drugs with suicide links
and a population that is increasingly taking psychoactive drugs for minor
problems and symptoms. Several powerful military psychiatrists and
administrators are also consultants to Big Pharma who shamelessly enroll
veterans in drug studies and promote the pills that drug companies pay them to
promote. Who can say conflict of interest?
When
concerns about the rise in the general suicide rate in the US surfaced last
fall, US Surgeon General Regina Benjamin announced federal grants
for suicide hotlines, more mental health workers, better depression screening and
Facebook tracking of suicidal messages. Nowhere, did she mention examining the
role of suicide-linked drugs on, ahem, suicide. The Pentagon is apparently in
similar denial.
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