Posts Tagged ‘Health Care’
Psychiatry’s New Diagnostic Manual: “Don’t Buy It. Don’t Use It. Don’t Teach It.”
Tuesday, 14 May 2013 05:00
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I happen to know this guy who knows a lot about mental-health policy. And, well, okay, he happens to be my father. So my ears perked up recently when my dad mentioned that the DSM-5, the latest in a series of diagnostic manuals soon to be published by the American Psychiatric Association, is something of a disaster.

Indeed, at the end of April, the National Institute of Mental Health (the branch of the NIH that funds mental-health research) took the drastic step of renouncing the latest DSM (short for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) in advance of its publication—renouncing the whole DSM system, really—and replacing it with something called Research Domain Criteria. (Read more…)

“Basically, they said they would no longer use it as a main test in grant requests,” explains psychiatrist Allen Frances, who chaired the task force that produced the prior version, DSM-IV (past editions used roman numerals) during the 1990s. “They made it sound like DSM-5 and all the DSMs were invalid, and that we should wait for the new discoveries that were going to come from scientific endeavors.”

Frances considers the NIMH’s move misguided, but he’s no fan of the DSM either. That much is clear from his new book, Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life. (The New York Times reviews it here.) Given the current upheaval in psychiatry, and the impending release of the new diagnostic manual, Frances seemed like the man to bring us up to speed on how the DSM got so bloated, and why so many Americans are popping uppers and antidepressants that we don’t need.

Mother Jones: What you mean by “saving normal”?

Allen Frances: There’s been a rapid diagnostic inflation over the course of the last 35 years, turning problems of everyday life into mental disorders resulting in excessive treatment with medication. Pretty soon everyone’s going to have a mental disorder or two or three, and it’s time we reconsider how we want to define this and whether the definitions should be in the hands of the drug companies, which is very much what’s happened in recent years.

MJ: To what degree has this trend accelerated lately?

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Val Kilmer Was in DC This Week Lobbying for What?!
Friday, 10 May 2013 18:52
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Val Kilmer is a part-time Washington lobbyist now.

Earlier this week, the film and stage actor (Batman Forever, Top Gun, The Doors, MacGruber) was on Capitol Hill advocating for the Equitable Access to Care and Health Act, which would expand Americans’ ability to claim religious exemptions to Obamacare‘s health insurance mandate. Kilmer alerted the world to his latest foray into political advocacy with a series of tweets, which included a photo taken at the Hart Senate Office Building.

(Read more…)



The description of “lobbyist” here should not be taken literally; a search on the House lobbying disclosure webpage does not yield Kilmer’s name.

The EACH Act is sponsored by Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.), best known for getting his six-pack abs splashed on the cover of Men’s Health. Under the EACH Act, Americans can avoid the insurance mandate if they file an affidavit stating that their religious faith bars them from buying insurance. Various religious groups have fiercely opposed the law, and Obamacare already includes a “religious conscience exemption.”

Kilmer did not respond to requests for comment and it’s not known whom he met with (he reportedly had dinner with Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York). “We have no idea why he was at the Hill; we have nothing to do with that part of his life,” a representative for the actor said. “He doesn’t have a publicist now, and he doesn’t really do interviews.”

Kilmer’s visit is likely linked to his religious faith; he is a committed Christian Scientist. ”It is quite a challenging faith,” he told Esquire in 2005. Certain Christian Scientists’ beliefs about health care, particularly their denial of modern medical care to children, are controversial, to say the least.

This isn’t the 53-year-old actor first brush with politics. A few years ago, Kilmer considered making a run for governor of New Mexico, consulting with strategists and politicos; then-New Mexico governor Bill Richardson said he liked Kilmer’s prospects partly because “he was Batman.” He has engaged in some environmental activism and supported Ralph Nader in the 2008 presidential election. In 2010, Kilmer teamed up with the ACLU to win the right to convert his ranch near Santa Fe into a posh bed-and-breakfast.

It’s hard to say if Val Kilmer will continue his public charge for Obamacare religious exemptions. As for merging elements of his faith and profession, it’s still a work in progress: For more than a decade Kilmer has been working on a “tragicomic” film about Mark Twain—and Christian Science church founder Mary Baker Eddy.

 
America’s 10 Worst Prisons: Reeves County
Friday, 10 May 2013 05:00
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Burning down the Big House: Abysmal health care sparked riots at Reeves.
AP Photo/Pecos Enterprise, Smokey Briggs

Part 8 of 11 parts.

Serving time in prison is not supposed to be pleasant. Nor, however, is it supposed to include being raped by fellow prisoners or staff, beaten by guards for the slightest provocation, driven mad by long-term solitary confinement, or killed off by medical neglect. These are the fates of thousands of prisoners every year—men, women, and children housed in lockups that give Gitmo and Abu Ghraib a run for their money.

While there’s plenty of blame to go around, and while not all of the facilities described in this series have all of the problems we explore, some stand out as particularly bad actors. We’ve compiled this subjective list of America’s 10 worst lockups (plus a handful of dishonorable mentions) based on three years of research, correspondence with prisoners, and interviews with criminal-justice reform advocates concerning the penal facilities with the grimmest claims to infamy. We will roll out the remaining contenders in the coming days, complete with photos and video. Number 8 on our list is a corporate-managed Texas facility where Tylenol apparently passes for significant medical treatment.


Reeves County Detention Complex (Pecos, Texas)

Number of prisoners: ~3,750

Who’s in charge: Dwight Sims, (former) warden; George Zoley, CEO, the GEO Group; Matthew Nace, Chief, BOP Acquisitions Branch

The basics: Reeves houses so-called criminal aliens, held for various types of nonviolent violations—some three-quarters of them are held there merely for entering the country without permission. Like thousands of other migrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), they have been placed in the hands of a private prison company under contract with the Bureau of Prisons. The GEO Group, which operates Reeves, proudly declares itself “the largest detention/correctional facility under private management in the world.”

Border patrol at Reeves prison
Border Patrol agents stood watch during the riots. Dept. of Homeland Security

Overcrowded and understaffed, Reeves has a reputation for horrifically inadequate medical care. In 2008, an epileptic 32-year-old detainee named Jesus Manuel Galindo died of a seizure in his solitary confinement cell. His death, on the heels of at least four others at Reeves over the previous two years, followed repeated pleas from Galindo, his family, and fellow inmates to provide him with effective medication—the prison medical staff only offered him Tylenol—and to move him out of isolation so he could get help quickly when he had seizures.

The sight of Galindo’s body being carried out of the prison in what appeared to be a plastic garbage bag sparked the first of several riots in which detainees took hostages and set fire to parts of the mammoth detention complex.

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