As U.S. military leaders gathered Wednesday to give their latest update on the rash of Army suicides, new questions are being raised about a U.S. Central Command policy that allows troops to go to Iraq and Afghanistan with up to a six-month supply of psychotropic drugs.
Prescription drugs have already been linked to some military suicides, and a top Army official warned last year about the danger of soldiers abusing that medication. Psychiatrists are now coming down hard on the military for continuing to sanction certain psychotropic drugs for combat troops, saying the risk from side effects is too great.
"There's no way on earth that these boys and girls are getting monitored on the field," said Dr. Peter Breggin, a New York-based psychiatrist who has extensively studied the side effects of psychiatric drugs. "The drugs simply shouldn't be given to soldiers."
Anxiety, violent behavior and "impulsivity" are all side effects of some of these medications, he said, the latter symptom being particularly dangerous in a war zone. Breggin said that if patients were given these medications in the civilian world and not monitored, it would amount to "malpractice."
But Nextgov.com reported that Army leaders and doctors are increasingly concerned that the policy continues to allow combat troops to use everything from antidepressants to antipsychotics to hypnotics, medications they say could impair a soldier's judgment. The swath of active-duty troops on these kinds of medications, according to a June 2010 Defense Department report, was about 20 percent.
The article highlighted one particular drug -- the antipsychotic Seroquel -- which the Army has sanctioned as a sleep aid, even though it can't be used to treat troops for the mental disorders it was originally designed to address. A May 2010 military report recommended 25-50 milligram doses of the drug for "sleep disorders" including nightmares. It happens to be the same drug that two Marines back from Iraq were taking before they died in their sleep.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Concerns Raised About Combat Troops Using Psychotropic Drugs - FoxNews.com
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