Astonishing, poor psychiatric treatment of Australian veterans

A 2022 review of psychiatric drug treatment of Australian veterans finds dangerous polypharmacy rampant.

Multiple diagnoses, multiple drugs addressing only symptoms

A 2022 study, Polypharmacy in Australian Veterans with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder upon Admission to a Mental Health Facility: A Retrospective Chart Review, found astonishing levels of polypharmacy occurring in the treatment of Australian military veterans

The study’s conclusion is:

“This cohort of inpatient veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder had a high prevalence of general, psychotropic and sedative polypharmacy, and were at high risk for drug-related adverse events. This highlights the importance of increasing awareness of polypharmacy and potentially inappropriate drug combinations, and the need for improved medication review by prescribers.“

Mellor R, Khoo A, Saunders-Dow E, Raguz E, Taing MW, Hanjani LS, Freeman C, Crawford D. Polypharmacy in Australian Veterans with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder upon Admission to a Mental Health Facility: A Retrospective Chart Review. Drugs Real World Outcomes. 2022. ¹

The mean age of the 219 members of the study group was 62.5 years. While all members of the study group had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, 90.9% were also given a further diagnosis of at least one psychiatric condition. 96.8% had a further diagnosis of at least one non-psychiatric condition.

79.9% were subjected to psychiatric polypharmacy (in this case 2 or more psychiatric drugs at the same time)

75.3% were subjected to sedative polypharmacy (in this case 2 or more sedative drugs at the same time).

Psychotropic drugs breakdown

The most commonly prescribed combinations of psychotropic medications were antidepressants with anxiolytics (45.7%, n = 100), followed by antidepressants and opioids (32.0%), antidepressants and antipsychotics (28.8%), and antidepressants and antiepileptics (25.1%). Anxiolytics were prescribed with opioids in 22.8% of participants and with antipsychotics in 17.4% of participants

While any one of these drugs can potentially have debilitating side effects it is not known what the complete combined side effects of these drug cocktails are.

There are of course disturbing contradictions. For example, a known side effect of benzodiazepine drugs is depression, and yet patients are being given antidepressants concurrently to handle depression.

Based on the known faulty DSM diagnosis system not addressing individual conditions

The diagnosis system in use that has brought this appalling situation about is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

This document is notoriously lacking in science and fails as a useful diagnostic tool.

A main complaint with it is that is a “box ticking” exercise rather than understanding what is going on with the person in front of the practitioner and so drugs are handed out based on multiple diagnoses to cover up more and more symptoms, rather than addressing the individual patient.

This is exactly what is happening here:

“Re: DSM V “Steven E. Hyman, the former director of NIMH condemned the whole enterprise. It was, he pronounced, ‘totally wrong in a way [its authors] couldn’t have imagined. So in fact what they produced was an absolute scientific nightmare. Many people who get one diagnosis get five diagnoses, but they don’t have five diseases – they have one underlying condition.’“

S E Hyman. Director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Director of the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) 1996 – 2001. From A Scully. From: Mad Science: The Treatment of Mental Illness Fails to Progress [Excerpt] Scientific American. 2015. ²

3. Psychiatry’s lack of science masked by pharmaceuticals

The chance ‘discovery’ of psychotropic drugs saved psychiatry from oblivion by masking the subject’s lack of scientific foundation …

4. ‘Mental health’ is defined and controlled by profit-driven commercial interests

For decades, psychiatry in collusion with pharmaceutical companies and to a lesser degree device manufacturers, has turned the subject of mental health into a for-profit free-for-all where patients have become repeat customers …

1. Mellor R, Khoo A, Saunders-Dow E, Raguz E, Taing MW, Hanjani LS, Freeman C, Crawford D. Polypharmacy in Australian Veterans with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder upon Admission to a Mental Health Facility: A Retrospective Chart Review. Drugs Real World Outcomes. 2022 ↩︎
2. A Scully. Mad Science: The Treatment of Mental Illness Fails to Progress [Excerpt] Scientific American. 2015. ↩︎