Psychiatric Times Vol 25 No 12

Reports of 1 in 5 military service members returning from Iraq or Afghanistan with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or depression and rising suicide rates have led researchers and military leaders to warn civilian psychiatric care providers of a “gathering storm”1 headed their way.

In “SSRI Prescribing Rates and Adolescent Suicide: Is the Black Box Hurting or Helping?” (Psychiatric Times, October 2007, page 33) Gibbons and associates primarily use data from their American Journal of Psychiatry article that appeared in September 2007, in a not very veiled attempt to influence doctors and the FDA to roll back the “black-box” warning on the prescription of SSRIs for adolescents.

In the Valley of Elah is an improvised explosive device that writer-director Paul Haggis has set to go off in the hearts and minds of Americans who still support the war in Iraq. Haggis, who earned an Oscar (Best Picture and Screenplay) for Crash, has aimed his second film at the hardworking, churchgoing, flag-flying, decent Americans who cannot imagine that the country they love would engage in an unjust war.

Over the past decade, NSAIDs have been on a roller-coaster ride almost as wild as that now being experienced by this country’s housing and financial markets. The selective COX-2 inhibitors-first celecoxib (Celebrex) and then rofecoxib (Vioxx) and valdecoxib (Bextra)-promised to revolutionize the treatment of pain.

Recent research has raised concerns about the adequacy of psychiatric diagnostic evaluations conducted in routine clinical practice, particularly the detection of disorders that are comorbid to the principal diagnosis.

A strategic plan to guide research priorities and resource allocations of the NIMH was released recently by NIMH Director, Thomas R. Insel, MD. The plan is intended to provide direction over the next 5 years toward the institute’s stated vision of “a world in which mental illnesses are prevented and cured.”