Health Impact News Editor Comments:

It is good to see a major media source, the New York Times, write such a comprehensive report on the problem of prescription drug use among our troops. This story was a collaboration of three writers, and it is an excellent piece of investigative reporting that has been sorely missed in most mainstream media sources. It is difficult to watch any of the major television networks and not see numerous advertisements from pharmaceutical companies, and wonder if they are using their influence to suppress the problem in the major media outlets, just as they use their powerful influence in the political realm to pretty much get their way. The New York Times, at least, has shown me via this article that they are interested in reporting about the prescription drug problem in the military. Hopefully their coverage of this issue will not stop with the military, but explore the abuses in the population as a whole.

James Dao, Benedict Carey and Dan Frosch write about how psychiatric drugs have been widely prescribed by the military among those returning from Iraq or Afghanistan – more than any previous war. Their report looks at the result of this widespread use of psychiatric drugs. A record 162 suicides were recorded in 2009, and another 100+ soldiers died between 2006 and 2009 from the toxic mixing of prescription drugs. Their report puts some faces on these deaths, by narrating some of the tragic stories of young men whose lives were cut short because of toxic drugs.

Read their excellent report here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/us/13drugs.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1297746706-fDdRfx5hsERhmzl8E7wm9w