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Cohen on the Perils of Overmedication

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“Medicating Normal,” a new documentary about the widespread use and resulting harms of anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medications, ADHD drugs and mood stabilizers, highlights research by Social Welfare Professor David Cohen, an authority on the benefits and risks of psychoactive drugs. The film notes that one in five Americans take these psychiatric medications daily but many are unaware of their potentially debilitating side effects. In the documentary and in online resources published by the filmmakers, Cohen weighs in on misconceptions about mental illness as brain damage; the challenges psychiatric patients face in providing fully informed consent; and the severe symptoms associated with withdrawal from benzodiazepines such as Xanax. He also spoke about the intense pressure on parents to medicalize their children’s problems, a break from previous generations. “You didn’t go to the doctor before if your kid misbehaved. You went to your sister-in-law or you went to your clergyman or you went to the Reader’s Digest,” Cohen said. “It’s hard right now in the contemporary world, in the 21st century, it’s hard for a parent to know, what should I do with my kid? … You get 20 different views on the internet, you are surrounded by opinions, and you’re supposed to do the right thing, the perfect thing.” Swayed by peer pressure, drug marketing and fear of making the wrong choice, many parents conclude that their children have a disorder and turn to medication, he said. “Medicating Normal,” which argues that profit-driven drug companies are concealing the harms caused by their products, was recently screened at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Informed Choices Regarding Mental Health

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As part of the Mental Health and Public Child Welfare Lecture series, Laura Delano, founder and executive director of Inner Compass Initiative (ICI), visited UCLA Luskin on Nov. 16 to discuss her efforts to reclaim care from the “psychiatric-pharmaceutical industrial complex.” Through the ICI, Delano has worked to provide information and resources to facilitate more informed choices regarding all things mental health. Speaking to her experiences as an ex-psychiatric patient, Delano said, “I fully embraced the mental health system and my diagnosis when I was so hopeless for a solution to the pain. I thought maybe if I embrace this diagnosis and do everything the doctor says, I will be able to survive.” Delano suggested that the system must change the way it portrays mental illness as being in opposition to “normalcy” in order to put an end to patients feeling ostracized because of their medical diagnoses. Click below to view a Flickr album of photos from the lecture by Bryce Carrington.

 

Social Welfare Lecture

Partnership of Social Workers and Medical Students Enters 2nd Year

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Thanks to a partnership between UCLA Luskin Social Welfare and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, medical students at UCLA are again learning from social workers about the issues they face in medical workplaces. The project, now entering its second year, was initially put together by former Social Welfare chair Todd Franke; Gerry Laviña MSW ’88, director of field education; and Michelle Talley MSW ’98, a member of UCLA Luskin’s field education faculty and a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW). Read more about the effort.

Christopher Ayala, a second-year Master of Social Welfare student, talks with medical students as part of the program. Photos by Gerry Lavina

More Than 45,000 Californians Living With HIV Would Be Impacted by Medicaid Cuts in Senate Health Plan According to a fact sheet from the California HIV/AIDS Policy Research Centers, the cuts would be felt by patients covered by Medi-Cal

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Tens of thousands of Californians living with HIV would be impacted by Medicaid cuts under the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), according to a fact sheet released by the California HIV/AIDS Policy Research Centers in collaboration with the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

The fact sheet highlights new data from the California Department of Public Health, Office of AIDS, which indicates that 45,033 people living with HIV received health coverage through Medi-Cal in 2014. These data also indicate that approximately 11,500 people living with HIV enrolled in Medi-Cal because of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, covers the cost of medications that help low-income people living with HIV achieve viral suppression, which both improves their health and prevents new infections.

Last week, the U.S. Senate released the BCRA, which would make dramatic cuts to Medicaid. A similar bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), would have cut Medicaid nationwide by $834 billion over 10 years.

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The BCRA would radically restructure the Medicaid program by converting it to a per capita cap or block grant and effectively end the ACA’s Medicaid expansion. Together, these changes would result in a massive fiscal shift from the federal government to the states and add billions in additional costs to the state of California.

“People living with HIV have complex health-care needs that require high-quality, consistent and affordable health care,” said Ian Holloway, director of the Southern California HIV/AIDS Policy Research Center and an assistant professor in the Department of Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

The CHPRC fact sheet emphasizes that limits on Medicaid financing and coverage would have a detrimental impact on California’s efforts to provide care and treatment for people living with HIV and to reduce new HIV infections.

“It is important for policymakers to understand the threats the BCRA poses to people living with HIV and other vulnerable communities in California,” Holloway said.