US Troops Heavily Medicated on Prescription Drugs, Report Warns

Yesterday I posted about how giving medication alone was not working for a reason.

Telling veterans to only pop pills, nails coffins

Now here's more news that you need to know.

"The medications they use shouldn't be so heavily prescribed in combat," said Dr. Judith Broder, a psychiatrist and founder of the Soldiers Project, a nonprofit counseling service.


"But they can't afford to send anyone home. They need the bodies -- health and welfare are secondary," she said.

US Troops Heavily Medicated on Prescription Drugs, Report Warns
Updated: Wednesday, 22 Jun 2011, 3:39 PM EDT
Published : Wednesday, 22 Jun 2011, 3:02 PM EDT

(The Daily) - Men and women in the US military are more medicated than ever -- and their doctors do not even know who takes what, The Daily reported Wednesday.

The Department of Defense does not keep track of medical prescriptions doled out to service members in combat, despite ongoing pleas from federal officials to do just that.

Last week, a report on the military's 2012 budget from the House Appropriations Committee remarked that the prescription of pain management drugs is handled inconsistently, especially in battle.

The report also handed down an ultimatum: within two months of the budget's approval, the committee wants concrete information on "the required steps and potential obstacles toward electronic transmission of prescription drug data."

A 2010 US Army study found that 14 percent of soldiers had been prescribed an opiate painkiller, with 95 percent of those prescriptions for oxycodone, a notoriously-addictive pharmaceutical best known by the brand name OxyContin.

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US Troops Heavily Medicated on Prescription Drugs

Unseen Wounds of War: Serving the Mental Health Needs of Our Troops

Posted February 20th, 2011 by USNavySeals

In a previous post, we talked about the increased use of psychiatric prescription drugs among troops who fought – and are still fighting – in the Iraqi and Afghan wars. This increase in medications is brought about by the various mental health conditions that service members and combat veterans face.

That being said, however, the same feature on The New York Times shared that the military continues to report a shortage of therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. It seems that medications are more readily available, when compared against the medical professionals who have the license to prescribe them.
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Serving the Mental Health Needs of Our Troops