USA Today (5/26, Lee) reported that “veterans who tell the VA about participating in a state marijuana program say they have been forced to choose between their prescription narcotic painkillers…or marijuana, said Michael Krawitz, president of Veterans for Medical Marijuana Access.”

Even though physicians at the VA “cannot recommend marijuana as medicine to their patients, the VA does not explicitly ban patients from participating in state marijuana programs.” However, VA policy does allow patients to “have their treatments ‘modified.’”

For its part, the American Medical Association “is calling on more controlled studies of marijuana.” But, “for Dr. Jeff Goldsmith, incoming president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, marijuana is not a medicine because it has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and therefore has not met the standards of other approved drugs.”

Related Links:

— “Veterans face ultimatum: Pills or pot,” Jolie Lee, USA Today, May 23, 2014.

HealthDay (5/24, Preidt) reported that according to a study to be published in the July-August issue of the Journal of Criminal Justice, “poor teens are as likely as middle-class and rich teens to be victims of cyberbullying.” After analyzing “survey results from nearly 2,000 middle and high school students,” researchers “found that living in poor, crime-ridden neighborhoods was associated with a strong risk of physical, verbal and online bullying.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 30 percent of youths in the US have been involved in bullying, either as victims or as perpetrators.

Related Links:

— “Cyberbullying Knows No Socio-economic Bounds,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, May 23, 2014.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (5/25, McCoy) reported, “A University of Pittsburgh study exploring cyberbullying came up with a framework for guiding the design of social media that could counteract or prevent mean and cruel behavior online.” The framework includes “encouraging the would-be cyberbully to reflect before posting something, pointing to the consequences, encouraging a sense of empathy for the victim’s suffering, giving bullying targets a sense of empowerment, instilling fear of punishment, attention-getting messages and elements that would control or suppress cyberbullying content.”

Related Links:

— “Pitt study explores handling online bullying,” Adrian McCoy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 25, 2014.

The NPR (5/23, Singh) “Shots” blog reported that according to a study online published May 23 in the journal World Psychiatry, “mental disorders can reduce life expectancy by 10 to 20 years, as much as or even more than smoking over 20 cigarettes a day.” Researchers arrived at that conclusion after examining “data on 1.7 million patients, drawing from 20 recent scientific reviews and studies from mostly wealthy countries.”

HealthDay (5/24, Preidt) reported that “the average life expectancy was 10 to 20 years shorter than normal for people with schizophrenia, 9 to 20 years shorter for those with bipolar disorder, 7 to 11 years shorter for those with recurrent depression, and 9 to 24 years shorter for people with drug and alcohol abuse.” In comparison, “heavy smoking shortens life by an average of 8 to 10 years, the study authors noted.”

Related Links:

— “Mental Illness Can Shorten Lives More Than Chain-Smoking,” Maanvi Singh, National Public Radio, May 23, 2014.

The Stars And Stripes (DC) (5/23, Tritten) reports that military recruit “mental health screening…passed the House on Thursday as part of the massive 2015 defense budget.” The measure, “sponsored by Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., orders the National Institutes of Health to create a universal mental health evaluation for potential recruits that would catch past suicide attempts and psychiatric disorders.”

The screening “data could be used by the services to weed out candidates with potentially dangerous mental health issues.”

A similar proposal has also been introduced in the Senate.

Related Links:

— “House passes new mental health screening for recruits,” Travis J. Tritten, Stars and Stripes, May 22, 2014.

The Hill (5/22, Viebeck) reports that a mental-health reform measure introduced by psychologist Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) has lost “support among some Democrats, raising questions about the bill’s prospects.” In the past week, Reps. William Lacy Clay (D-MO), Gwen Moore (D-WI) and Marc Veasey (D-TX) “withdrew their co-sponsorships,” and Del. Donna Christensen (D-VI) “pulled away on April 2.” Meanwhile, on May 6, Rep. Ron Barber (D-AZ), backed by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), introduced a different mental-health reform bill.

Related Links:

— “GOP mental health bill loses Dem co-sponsors,” Elise Viebeck, The Hill, May 21, 2014.

Medscape (5/22) reports that according to a study published online May 21 in BJOG, “maternal depression is more common at four years postpartum than at any time during the first 12 months, especially among women who do not have another child during that four years.” The study of more than 1,500 women revealed that “women with one child at the four-year follow-up reported approximately double the prevalence of depressive symptoms at every time compared with women with two or more children.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

Medwire (5/22, McDermid) reports that according to a study published online May 16 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association, “the unexpected loss of a loved one can trigger a range of psychiatric disorders, including mania, in patients with no history of mental illness.”

After analyzing data on 27,534 people, researchers found that “the unexpected death of a loved one roughly doubled the risk for new-onset mania in people aged 30 years or older, after accounting for factors including previous psychiatric diagnoses.”

The study also revealed that “for some age groups (50–54 years and ≥70 years) the risk increase was more than fivefold.”

Related Links:

— “Unexpected death may trigger mania in loved ones,” Eleanor McDermid, Medwire News, May 22, 2014.

Under the headline “Patients Lose When Doctors Can’t Do Good Physical Exams,” Kaiser Health News (5/21, Boodman) offers an 1,800-word examination of an “increasingly commonplace” phenomenon “as medicine becomes more technology-driven: the waning ability of doctors to use a physical exam to make an accurate diagnosis.” The piece explains that crucial information that can be gleaned from simple observation has been largely “supplanted by a dizzying array of sophisticated, expensive tests.”

Related Links:

— “Patients Lose When Doctors Can’t Do Good Physical Exams,” Sandra G. Boodman, Kaiser Health News, May 20, 2014.

The New York Times (5/21, Hulse, Subscription Publication) reports that three ex-Senators, Republican Trent Lott and Democrats Tom Daschle and John B. Breaux, are working together “to push an expansion of tele-medicine as a way to improve health care access and cut costs.” On behalf of the Alliance for Connected Care, “a nonprofit collection of health care” professionals, “insurers, pharmacies, technology firms and telecommunications companies,” the three men are pursuing “legislative and regulatory changes to let more Americans essentially get much of their health care remotely.”

Related Links:

— “Ex-Senators on Both Sides of Aisle Join Forces on Health Care,” Carl Hulse, New York Times, May 20, 2014.