Funding for new mental health and dementia drugs dries up

Following is a snippet from an article in the journal "Nature" regarding funding for new mental health drugs.  Click on the link to read the entire article--it's surprisingly easy to understand and scary.

Psychopharmacology in crisis

Researchers warn of 'withdrawal of hope' as funding shrivels.

Daniel Cressey

Patients face a "withdrawal of hope" as neuropsychopharmacology funding falters.SOVEREIGN, ISM/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Many people affected by mental illness are facing a bleak future as drug companies abandon research into the area and other funding providers fail to take up the slack, according to a new report.

Produced for the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP), the report warns that "research in new treatments for brain disorders is under threat". With current treatments inadequate for many patients, it says, "withdrawal of research resources is a withdrawal of hope for patients and their families"¹.

Here is the link to the entire article....

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110614/full/news.2011.367.html?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20110614

I always comfort myself, when I look at my mom and wonder if that's my destiny, too, by telling myself "well, if it is, the treatments will be much better by then...."  so this article was an unwelcome eye-opener.

House to Vote on Mental Health Parity Bill

Please call your representative and urge them to vote for this bill.
I strongly believe that DH would have been hospitalized longer, if it wasn't for his insurance. The psychiatrist in the hospital begged the insurance company to allow DH to stay, but they refused, so he came home. I believe that much of the pain we endured this past year could have been avoided if he had been able to stay long enough for the hospital to determine that his mental illness was "stable".

House To Vote On Mental Health Parity Bill

WASHINGTON (AP) ― The House is scheduled to vote Wednesday on mental health parity legislation named for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone that would require equal health insurance coverage for mental and physical illnesses when policies cover both.

"I cannot emphasize enough how historic this vote will be," said Wellstone's son, David Wellstone, in a letter to activists. "For five years, I have heard promise after promise that Congress will pass mental health parity legislation in my father's honor."

Paul Wellstone, a Minnesota Democrat who championed mental health parity for years, was killed in a plane crash in 2002. David Wellstone is urging people to contact House members on the eve of the vote Tuesday to rally support for the bill, called the "The Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act."

In 1996, Paul Wellstone and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., won passage of a law banning plans that offer mental health coverage from setting lower annual and lifetime spending limits for mental treatments than for physical ailments.

The House legislation -- and a mental health parity bill that the Senate passed last year -- build on that by adding things like co-payments, deductibles and treatment limitations, a longtime goal of Wellstone's. But David Wellstone calls the House bill stronger.

The House bill is sponsored by Reps. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., who has battled depression, alcoholism and drug abuse, and Jim Ramstad, R-Minn., a recovering alcoholic. Ramstad plans to retire at the end of the year, but has said he wants to see the bill passed before he goes.

David Wellstone said he'll be in Washington next week to lobby for the bill.

Ramblings regarding mental health parity, prescription drugs, health insurance, and more!

I've been reflecting on how our lives might have been different right now, if my "good" health insurance had truly been required to provide the care that my DH needed the first time he was hospitalized. DH was in the hospital for three weeks, which is, in itself, remarkable. But he was still suicidal when he left the hospital. His psychiatrist in the hospital had begged the insurance company to allow him another few days' stay, just to see if the meds kicked in, and to make sure that my DH was truly going to be safe. He (my DH) was not only required to leave the hospital before anyone involved in his case (except the insurance company, of course) thought he was "better", but also, two of the drugs that had been prescribed for him while he was in the hospital, were not covered by the insurance at all. (As an aside, Minnesota, the state where I live, does have a mental health parity law, but it can only be applied to insurance companies that operate out of Minnesota. Other insurance companies, like mine, that are based in other states aren't affected by the law.)

I was doing some reading tonite and I read this story about a senator's son, called "What you Don't Know Can Hurt you" and I was convinced that since issues like these mostly tend to affect us working-class people, and you typically don't think that a senator would take notice of something like this, the fact that a senator was affected and decided to try to do something about it, signifies to me that there are probably a lot of unsophisticated people out here who are just being raked over the coals by their "good" health insurance, especially for mental health coverage and issues.

There is such a shortage of prescribing psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners in our area, that if my DH has a bad reaction to his meds, or if they don't work, he has to go to the hospital to get them changed, or else he can wait 6-8 weeks for an appointment. His regular physician is comfortable ordering refills of mental health drugs, but not prescribing new ones. All of this "hurry up and wait" is really hard on the patients and their families.

To me, what all of this says, is that the fact that mental health patients are not being treated in the same way as patients with arthritis, diabetes, and heart problems (parity), is probably doing a huge favor to all those people writing about how the mental health system is overwhelmed, because if people got the treatment and medications they really need before a crisis hits, then maybe it would end up being tantamount to going to the doctor, finding out your blood pressure is high, and getting a prescription for that before you have a stroke. It all seems so common sense, and yet so full of red tape.

Some of you might remember that I briefly touched on the fact that our new prescription drug plan (through my job) is potentially going to kill us next year (See Whew! post, October 6).

I cringe every single time DH takes his pills, which, even with the copays that we won't have at all next year, cost us about $160/month, which, for this newly one-income, not-rich-by-any-standard family, is quite a hefty sum, but if he stays on the same drugs that he is on right now, we will be shelling out over $900/month for prescriptions. So. We basically will probably need to start over with the meds, trying to find cheap ones that work well, because for me to pay for those prescriptions, well, it would be either DH's sanity, or the mortgage. It's a tough call, for sure. But I know I'm not the only one struggling with these issues. I know I'm lucky that I still have insurance of any kind. Like I said, I haven't mentioned any of this to DH yet, I don't need him to be stressing out about this, that's my job for now!