Vulnerable Vets

I will quote myself:

Now we have another vast, underserved, and traumatized population- returning veterans- who will be desperate for treatment, who will not receive the services, training, and economic support that greatly lessens the strain of emotional distress, and who will instead be treated as damaged brains and be subject to a largely unsupervised drug regimen.

And now a link to ABC News:

The investigation revealed that the VA waited three months to notify veterans in a VA experiment of the possible side effects from the anti-smoking drug Chantix.

All of the veterans enrolled in the Chantix study suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and had been recruited, with monthly $30 payments, for a behavioral study with the drug.

I plan to keep on top of this for several reasons: One, it illustrates the passivity of governmental regulators vis-a-vis the psychopharm industry. Two, it shows how vulnerable certain populations are to very minor incentives- in this case 30 lousy bucks a month.

And three, veterans' rights are an excellent platform for advocating against off-label uses of various psychotropic drugs as this is easy copy for journalists and the topic interests the political left, right, and center.

I can't emphasize enough the history behind this. The big drug companies have always targeted vulnerable populations. Hopefully, this group is too high profile for this to happen.