VA "Candy Land" Pill Push Spread Tragedy

Devastating effect of ‘Candy Land’ VA hospital reach beyond veterans 
La Crosse Tribune
Aaron Glantz Center for Investigative
Reporting March 15, 2015

Others happened when prescription abuse accelerated into heroin addiction. This progression, seen around the country, contributes to a fatal overdose rate among VA patients that the agency’s researchers have pegged at twice the national average.

On a clear August morning, Amish carpenter William Miller and his family climbed into their black horse-drawn buggy and headed out to the nearest big-box store, a 16-mile journey from their central Wisconsin farm that takes them two hours.

They never made it. Less than a mile from their destination, the buggy was rear-ended by a 1997 Dodge Caravan. The van wasn’t moving fast, but as it passed by, it suddenly swerved, knocking the carriage on its side. Miller and his son, John, were fine. But his wife, Elizabeth, who was cradling 6-week-old Ada Mae, was thrown from the carriage and landed on top of her daughter.

Ada Mae stopped breathing. An autopsy would list the cause of death as “crush injury to the chest.”

A year later, after the driver pleaded guilty to homicide, William Miller wrote to the sentencing judge.

“Words like grief, helplessness, anxiety, fear and lonesomeness come to mind,” he wrote. “I would have scarcely thought it possible such a small infant could have left such a void. And the consequences and results have been far reaching and long lasting.”

At first glance, the 2009 crash that killed Ada Mae would seem to have nothing to do with problems at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Tomah 60 miles away, which earned the nickname “Candy Land” for its skyrocketing rate of opiate prescriptions. Some veterans called its chief of staff, psychiatrist Dr. David Houlihan, the “Candy Man.” He was in charge for nearly a decade — and was one of the hospital’s top prescribers.

But the man behind the wheel of the Dodge van that day was a Marine Corps veteran, and he was stoned on painkillers and tranquilizers from the Tomah VA. Brian Witkus was a known addict who “would fall or injure himself,” court records say, to get “more pills or a higher dose of medication.” His doctor, Witkus says, was Houlihan.

Ada Mae’s death is one of dozens of tragedies that begin to hint at how the flood of narcotics from the VA scarred this region.

It begins with the veterans themselves, who have become addled and addicted and who have overdosed. The collateral damage ranges from distraught sisters to fatherless children and dead girlfriends.

The ripples do not stop there.
read more here

Driver gets prison time in fatal buggy crash

Ex-VA doctor says she was forced out after limiting opiate prescriptions

The stories we need to know!
RETURNING HOME TO BATTLE

Ex-VA doctor says she was forced out after limiting opiate prescriptions
The Center for Investigative Reporting
Aaron Glantz
The Center for Investigative Reporting
Byron Pitts
ABC News
Feb 25, 2014

Dr. Basimah Khulusi says she was forced out of her job as a rehabilitation specialist at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Kansas City, Mo., after patients complained that she would not prescribe high doses of opiates. She says many of her patients had been addicted to opiates for years yet received escalating doses from VA doctors as their tolerance built.
Credit: ABC News

On the eve of a congressional hearing about the Department of Veterans Affairs’ skyrocketing use of narcotic painkillers, a former VA doctor has stepped forward with new allegations about the agency’s prescription practices.

In an exclusive interview with The Center for Investigative Reporting and ABC News, Dr. Basimah Khulusi said she was forced out last year after patients complained that she would not prescribe high doses of opiates.

“I had to do something about it. And I tried,” said Khulusi, a rehabilitation specialist who worked at the VA hospital in Kansas City, Mo., for five and a half years. “And then, you know, I was let go.”

In September, CIR revealed that VA prescriptions for four opiates – hydrocodone, oxycodone, methadone and morphine – surged by 270 percent between 2001 and 2012.

That far outpaced the increase in VA patients and contributed to a fatal overdose rate of nearly double the national average, the agency’s own scientists found.

CIR’s report helped spark a congressional hearing. At that hearing in October, VA officials promised to present a plan to address problems with opiate prescriptions within 30 days. A follow-up oversight hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

Khulusi said the majority of veterans she saw in the pain clinic already were addicted to prescription opiates – receiving doses as high as 900 narcotic pain pills a month and 1,000 milligrams of morphine a day, 10 times the level she considered safe.
read more here VA's lack of pain treatment options led to opiate addiction, veteran says VA’s opiate overload feeds veterans’ addictions, overdose deaths

Shocking truth on what is behind military suicides

In a perfect world what the military has been doing would be called death by design and people would be held accountable. This is not a perfect world, so everyone responsible for the rise in suicides in the military and in the veteran community have continued to do as they please and treat servicemen and women like lab rats.

WWII Veterans, Vietnam, Gulf War, Afghanistan veterans need to know all of this!

There are great people in the DOD and VA but even they cannot undo the damage done by people higher up on the food chain. Congress won't. Only we can change what has been happening all along. Watch the video and read this article.

THE HIDDEN ENEMY
DOCUMENTARY
EXPOSES THE COVERT OPERATION
BEHIND MILITARY SUICIDES

In early 2013, the official website of the United States Department of Defense announced the startling statistic that the number of military suicides in 2012 had far exceeded the total of those killed in battle—an average of nearly one a day. A month later came an even more sobering statistic from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: veteran suicide was running at 22 a day—about 8000 a year.

The situation became so dire that the U.S. Secretary of Defense called suicide in the military an “epidemic.”

Some have claimed that this spate of self-harm is because of the stresses of war. But the facts reveal that 85% of military suicides have not seen combat—and 52% never even deployed.

So what unsuspected factor is causing military suicide rates to soar?

According to the new documentary The Hidden Enemy: Inside Psychiatry’s Covert Agenda, all evidence points in one direction: the soaring rates of psychiatric drug prescribing since 2003. Known medication side effects of these drugs such as increased aggression and suicidal thinking are reflected in similar uptrends in the rates of military domestic violence, child abuse and sex crimes, as well as self-harm.

Pull the string further and you’ll find psychiatrists ever widening the definitions of what it means to be “mentally ill,” especially when it comes to post traumatic stress disorder in soldiers—and PTSD in veterans. And in psychiatry, diagnoses of psychological disorders such as PTSD, personality disorder and social anxiety disorder are almost inevitably followed by the prescription of at least one psychiatric drug.

Psychiatrists know that their drugs do not actually cure anything, but merely mask symptoms. They are well aware of their many dangerous side effects, including possible addiction. However, they claim that the risks of the medication side effects are exceeded by their benefits. And while the soldier’s real problem goes unaddressed, his health deteriorates.

In the face of these grim military suicide statistics, more and more money is being lavished on psychiatry: the U.S. Pentagon now spends $2 billion a year on mental health alone. The Veterans Administration’s mental health budget has skyrocketed from less than $3 billion in 2007 to nearly $7 billion in 2014—all while conditions continue to worsen.

The Hidden Enemy reveals the entire situation in stark relief, while urging that soldiers and vets become educated on the true dangers of psychiatry and psychiatric drugs. The answer lies in their right to full and honest informed consent—as well as exercising their right to refuse treatment. Our service members need to know there are safe and effective non-psychiatric solutions to the horrors of combat stress, and that these solutions will not subject them to dangerous and toxic treatments that will only send their health spiraling downward.

If you doubt this, read these links for medications
Mentally Ill Forced to Fight

Potent Mixture: Zoloft and A Rifle

Those reports go back to 2006

If you want to know the other part of the increase in suicides, read THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR

Despite warnings against using drugs for PTSD, they did it anyway

VA GIVES TRANQUILIZERS TO 30 PERCENT OF PTSD PATIENTS, DESPITE WARNINGS
Nextgov
By Bob Brewin
March 18, 2013

In September 2011, the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury almost shouted its warning against benzodiazepines, emphasizing the guidance in bold-face type on its website: “There is evidence against the use of benzodiazepines in PTSD management as it may cause HARM. Strongly recommend against the use of benzodiazepines for treatment of PTSD.”

The Veterans Affairs Department treats more than 30 percent of veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder with tranquilizers such as Xanax and Valium, despite clinical practice guidelines issued in 2010 warning against their use, VA’s National Center for PTSD reported.

The 2010 PTSD clinical practice guidelines, which also apply to the Defense Department, cautioned providers against using benzodiazepines to manage PTSD due to “the lack of efficacy data and growing evidence for the potential risk of harm,” the PTSD center said in in the March edition of its research quarterly publication.

Research shows that treatment of PTSD with benzodiazepine drugs “may interfere with the extinction of fear conditioning or potentiate the acquisition of fear responses, actually worsening recovery from trauma,” the center reported. This, in turn, may interfere with “first line” treatment such as exposure therapy, in which a trained therapist helps a veteran relive traumatic events.

More than 50 percent of combat veterans diagnosed with PTSD also suffer from alcoholism or substance abuse, and treatment with benzodiazepines can lead to addiction, the center said.
read more here

A Potential Therapy for PTSD?

A Potential Therapy for PTSD?
TIME
By Remington Nevin
Feb. 13, 2013

The latest edition of the medical journal Psychiatric Annals features military researchers discussing how a procedure known as stellate ganglion block can effectively treat post-traumatic stress disorder (or PTSD).

Injecting a local anesthetic agent into the sympathetic nerve tissue at the base of the neck — a so-called stellate ganglion block (or SGB) – acts to numb signals which travel to centers deep in the brainstem and brain, commonly thought to be most responsible for PTSD.

The prospect of using a medical procedure to treat PTSD would be a paradigm shift for psychiatry.

That PTSD can be thought of an injury – something whose symptoms could be alleviated by injecting numbing medicine – would support the assertion that former Vice Army Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli has been advocating for some time that PTSD should be renamed PTSI – with an I for injury.

“It might seem counterintuitive that treating the peripheral nervous system could affect psychiatric conditions presumably mediated in the brain,” writes Dr. Cam Ritchie, my colleague and retired Army psychiatrist, in a press release for the journal heralding the news.

Unlike Dr. Ritchie, I am not so surprised by these findings.

My research focuses on the harmful effects of a class of drugs called quinolines, most notably the antimalarial drug mefloquine (or Lariam), which has been widely prescribed to deployed troops in Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan at high risk of PTSD. Many of the unpleasant symptoms caused by mefloquine, including anxiety, panic attacks, nightmares, and sleep problems, can often be difficult to distinguish from those attributed to PTSD.
read more here

PTSD veterans still "faking" after all these years?

This article is about a lot of things veterans face including being given dangerous drugs to "battle" PTSD. From getting "help" in the form of drugs to being told by a commander that he is "faking" it. We've been sold a bunch of lies that add up to dangerous conditions for our veterans trying to heal from where we sent them.

How is it that one soldier will get all the help and support they need to not only heal but return to the duty they love when others are accused of lying and drugged up to numb their pain instead of being helped to heal as well?

One woman's crusade on the dangers of PTSD treatment
Jul 10, 2012
By AJ Giardina
BILOXI, MS (WLOX)

According to military statistics, as many as 30 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Up until a few weeks ago, the military was treating the men and women with multiple drugs. It's a treatment that was deadly for one coast military man.

Alicia McElroy says her husband died from multiple drug toxicity as a result of medications to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Staff Sergeant James McElroy returned from his second tour in Afghanistan in 2010.

McElroy, a native of Vancleave, met her husband Mac on Valentine's Day 2005 in Mobile.

"We ended up getting married in 2007 and he was still in the military working at Camp Shelby. We bought a house in 2007. I just finished grad school and started my job. Everything was great. We had a baby that year. It was the perfect year."

McElroy said her husband served in the Marines from 1998 through 2002 and did one tour of duty in Afghanistan. He decided to move to Mississippi after he got out of the Marines and joined the Army National Guard in 2004.

McElroy said she, her husband, and their son, Dane, were so happy. That is until Mac was sent to Afghanistan in May of 2010. He returned to Hattiesburg on leave in October of that year.

"He was starting to adjust to living together and Dane was getting used to Daddy being home. Mac took a turn for the worse."

She said Mac was always depressed, agitated and wasn't sleeping.

"I went into the room to check on him, like I always did throughout the day. He was just balled up in the sheets crying. Like, okay, it's alright. What's wrong? He wouldn't talk, and I really couldn't comfort him. I sat there held his hand and rubbed his back and he looked up at me and said, 'I need help. Help me, please.'"

She said she took her husband to the emergency room at Keesler Medical Center and later checked in at the VA. McElroy said a doctor told her Mac needed to be treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

She said things were going well with his treatment until he was released from the military, because his commanders thought he was faking his illness.
read more here

Army investigating body building drug connection to soldiers' deaths

Army Probes Health Supplement's Link to Deaths

December 16, 2011
Stars and Stripes
by Travis J. Tritten

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa – The U.S. Army said it is investigating whether a popular bodybuilding and weight-loss supplement might be to blame for two soldier deaths and serious health problems in others, including liver and kidney damage.

The two soldiers suffered heart attacks and died earlier this year during physical training with their units at an Army base in the southwestern United States and the dietary supplement DMAA was discovered in their bodies following toxicology tests, according to Army spokeswoman Maria Tolleson.

The Army launched an ongoing safety review after recording a number of other serious health effects among known and potential users of products containing DMAA including “kidney and liver failure, seizures, loss of consciousness, heat injury and muscle breakdown during exertion, and rapid heartbeat,” Tolleson said in a written response to Stars and Stripes this week.

Bodybuilding and weight-loss pills and powders containing DMAA, which is widely marketed by the fitness supplement industry as geranium extract and 1,3 dimethylamylamine, were pulled from shelves at Army and Air Force Exchange Service and Navy Exchange stores around the world following a military product recall Dec. 3.

Retailer GNC and at least one maker of the products said Friday that products containing DMAA have been tested as safe and have not been linked to any other health problems.

“There is no scientific or medical evidence that demonstrates any causal link between DMAA and any adverse medical condition, let alone a death,” according to GNC spokesman Greg Miller.
read more here

When The Cure Is Worse Than The Disease

When The Cure Is Worse Than The Disease

November 22, 2011: After four decades of use, the U.S. Army is banning the use of mefloquine (an anti-malaria drug) because of side effects. Malaria is a debilitating (and sometimes fatal) disease found in most tropical areas. The medication to prevent it has always been unpleasant, either in terms of taste (no longer a problem) and side effects. These uncomfortable side effects are the big problem now. Sometimes it's a huge problem. Two years ago, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) was found to interact in a fatal way with mefloquine. PTSD sufferers taking mefloquine resulted in more anxiety and suicidal behavior.

Once this interaction was discovered, troops with PTSD could no longer use the mefloquine. This impacted a lot of troops, and prevented them from being sent to some areas (like the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan) where malaria is a risk. The number of troops affected was considerable. In some parts of the world, less effective drugs, like doxycycline, could be substituted. But for doxycycline to work troops had to take the pill daily, without fail. The troops don’t always do that, partly because of the side effects (digestion problems and additional skin sensitivity) and the press of battlefield business.
read more here

Anti smoking drug may increase suicide risk, study says again and again

These reports started to come out in 2008 but as you can see from this report from CNN, they haven't done anything about it.

Anti smoking drug may increase suicide risk, study says
November 3rd, 2011
The popular quit-smoking drug Chantix may increase the risk of suicide and suicidal thoughts in some patients, says a new report.

Researchers looked at more than 3,000 reports of "neuropsychiatric adverse events" - unexpected problems that result in risk or harm to the patient -relating to smoking cessation drugs, and found that more than 90% of the reports were associated with Chantix use.

"We compared people who took nicotine replacement therapy, Zyban and Chantix," said Dr. Curt Furberg, a study author, and professor of public health sciences at Wake Forrest Baptist Medical Center. "There was an increase in suicides even with nicotine replacement therapies, but Chantix was 8-10 times worse."

But the findings were in stark contrast to a report released just last week by the Food and Drug Administration, which claimed no difference in suicide risk between the three therapies. Furberg says the FDA's report was woefully underpowered.

[The FDA report] looked at hospitalized events," he said. "82% of all serious adverse events do not lead to hospitalization, so that means they missed 82% of all of the serious adverse events."
read more here

ANTHONY J. PRINCIPI DEFENDS HIMSELF
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Anti-smoking drug study investigated
Audrey Hudson (Contact)
Sunday, July 20, 2008

Officials with the Department of Veterans Affairs are preparing to determine who was at fault for failing to quickly notify participants in a smoking-cessation study about the potentially dangerous side effects of a drug they were prescribed and whether the study will be ended.

Dr. Tom Puglisi, chief officer of the VA's Office of Research Oversight, says he has several concerns that veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were prescribed the smoking-cessation drug Chantix without receiving timely written information or warnings about its possible side effects, which can include psychosis and suicidal behavior.
click link above

A few more links showing this has been an ongoing problem that has still not been corrected.
VA $30 lab rats and Chantix Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Anti-addiction drugs linked to depression Thursday, April 24, 2008

Congressional Hearing On Meds and Suicide of Veterans

February 12, 2011 Dr. Peter Breggin testifies before congress on the connection between medications and suicides among veterans.

Lilly reported "no drug affect" connection with suicides after study. The FDA compared Prozac to Trazodone and found increased suicides along with attempted suicides. Double the rate of suicides in young adults equals young soldier age group.

VA's Disclosure Policy Lauded in New England Journal of Medicine

VA's Disclosure Policy Lauded in New England Journal of Medicine

WASHINGTON (September 29, 2010)- The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
policy on disclosure of adverse medical events was praised as a
"valuable resource for all health care institutions" in an article in a
recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

"At VA we strive every day to deliver superior health care," said Dr.
Robert Petzel, VA's Under Secretary for Health. "When mistakes occur, we
immediately acknowledge them and learn how we can do better in the
future."

Adverse events, such as incomplete cleaning of medical instruments, may
affect significant numbers of patients over time. However, prompt
disclosure also presents an opportunity to quickly assess risk to
patients and to learn how to improve health care delivery and processes.

The article, entitled The Disclosure Dilemma, states that although many
health care organizations have adopted policies encouraging disclosure
of adverse events to individual patients, these policies seldom address
large scale adverse events. It adds, however, that VA's own disclosure
policy is "a notable exception."

The authors, including Denise Dudzinski, Ph.D., an associate professor
and Director of Graduate Studies at the Department of Bioethics &
Humanities at the University of Washington School of Medicine in
Seattle, go on to say that VA's policy outlines "a clear and systematic
process" for disclosure decisions regarding large scale adverse events
-a process that can include convening a multidisciplinary advisory board
with representation from diverse stakeholder groups and experts,
including ethicists. A co-author of the article is VA employee Mary
Beth Foglia, RN, Ph.D., of the National Center for Ethics in Health Care
and affiliate faculty at the Department of Bioethics and Humanities the
University of Washington.

The VA policy endorses transparency and expresses an obligation to
disclose adverse events that cause harm to patients. Its provisions can
include the convening of a multidisciplinary advisory board to review
large-scale adverse events, recommend whether to disclose and provide
guidance on the manner of disclosure.

The authors of the article conclude with the following observation,
which summarizes VA's philosophy on the matter: "Disclosure should be
the norm, even when the probability of harm is extremely low. Although
risks to the institution are associated with disclosure, they are
outweighed by the institution's obligation to be transparent and to
rectify unanticipated patient harm."

For additional information, contact the VA Office of Public Affairs
at 202-461-7600.

FDA advisers vote to take Vicodin, Percocet off market

FDA advisers vote to take Vicodin, Percocet off market
Story Highlights
NEW: Panel votes to kill prescription drugs that combine acetaminophen, narcotics
Panel advises lower maximum doses of nonprescription acetaminophen drugs
Those drugs include Tylenol, NyQuil, Pamprin and Allerest

CDC estimates acetaminophen was the likely cause of most acute liver failures

(CNN) -- A government advisory panel voted Tuesday to recommend eliminating prescription drugs that combine acetaminophen with narcotics -- such as Vicodin and Percocet -- because of their risk for overdose and for severe liver injury.


Acetaminophen, found in drugs such as Tylenol, is one of the most commonly used drugs in the United States.

The panel, assembled by the Food and Drug Administration, voted 20 to 17 to advise the FDA to remove such prescription combination drugs from the market.

The group recommended that the FDA "send a clear message that there's a high likelihood of overdose from prescription narcotics and acetaminophen products," Dr. Sandra L. Kweder of the FDA's Office of New Drugs said at a news conference after Tuesday's meeting.
go here for more
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/30/acetaminophen.fda.hearing/index.html

E-mails suggest Pfizer tried to suppress study on drug Neurontin

E-mails suggest Pfizer tried to suppress study on drug
Suits say company misled on Neurontin

By Liz Kowalczyk
Globe Staff / October 8, 2008

Top drug company marketing executives suppressed a large European study suggesting their blockbuster medication Neurontin was ineffective for chronic nerve pain, and they privately strategized about how to silence a British researcher who wanted to go public with the data, according to newly filed documents and e-mails that are part of a Boston court case.
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