Senators want data on prescription drug use - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Senators want data on prescription drug use

Several senators expressed concern Wednesday about increasing psychiatric drug usage among service members and called on top military health officials to provide detailed data about how many troops are on anti-depressants and other mind-altering drugs.

At a hearing on Capitol Hill, Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s military personnel panel, cited a recent Military Times report about the spike in psychotropic drug use in the military community, pointing to evidence that overall psychiatric drug usage has risen about 76 percent since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We’ve seen recent reports of increased prescription drug use that are deeply troubling … in fact, the data is stunning,” Webb told the surgeons general from the Army, Navy and Air Force and the Marine Corps’s top health official, who all appeared at the hearing on the military health system.

But military officials are backing off previous statements to lawmakers about psychiatric drug usage.

On Feb. 24, the Army’s top psychiatrist, Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton, testified before Congress that about 17 percent of the active-duty force uses some form of psychiatric medications.

But Sutton’s office contacted Military Times on March 23 to say that statement was inaccurate.

While one Army study showed 17 percent of soldiers in Afghanistan were taking mental health medications in 2007, a more accurate figure for the total force, Sutton’s office said, is between 2 percent and 4 percent.

However, in testimony Wednesday, the Army Surgeon General, Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, estimated “roughly 8 percent of the total force” is using such psychiatric medications.

When Webb asked Schoomaker about Sutton’s estimate of 17 percent, Schoomaker said only that “the implication that we have one in 6 [service members] with a serious mental disorder is a reach.”

Subcommittee members called on the military health officials who testified at the hearing to provide service-specific data about how many troops are using psychiatric medications.

“We will work with you to see if we can’t scrub this data,” Webb said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the panel’s senior Republican, also urged the surgeons general to provide reliable information.

"What are the real numbers so we can judge apples to apples?” Graham said. “This is anecdotal evidence of what Sen. Webb has been concerned about — to make sure were not wearing out the folks beyond their ability to respond to the nation’s call.”

Troops taking these medications require close medical supervision, partly because antidepressants carry warning labels about the increased risk for suicide, especially among young people ages 18 to 25, said Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md.

“Why has there been such a large increase in the use of anti-depressants?” Cardin asked.

“We need to have the answers to these questions. We need to know if there is proper medical supervision for those who are taking prescribed antidepressants … particularly during that first six-week period. There is a particular vulnerability during that first six-week period.”

“I think we need to have a better understanding of the relationship between the use of antidepressants and suicides within the military,” he said.

During a portion of the hearing that focused on sleeping pills, both Schoomaker, the Army surgeon general, and Graham, the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, said they both take sleep aids.

Schoomaker said he takes a sleep aid when he travels overseas.

Graham, an Air Force Reserve officer, said he recently picked up a prescription from his military doctor for a sleep aid because he is scheduled for military training overseas.

“I have already ordered some Ambien — I’m already feeling guilty for spiking up the numbers,” he said.

Related reading:

Military Times special report: Medicating the military