Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza suffered from anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders. Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis was driven by delusions. A psychologist said Alex Hribal was on the schizophrenia spectrum before stabbing his high school classmates. After every mass shooting or stabbing over the past three years, Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., has pushed […]
Category: Mental Health
La. Shooting to Spur More Debate on Guns and Mental Health
The shooting at a movie theater in Louisiana that killed two people and injured nine others is guaranteed to ignite yet another debate over people with mental-health issues obtaining guns, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik told Newsmax TV on Friday. “These are the things that you have no handle for,” he told […]
NIH: Boys More Likely to Be On Prescription Antipsychotics Than Girls
“Boys are more likely than girls to receive a prescription for antipsychotic medication regardless of age,” according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and published July 1 in JAMA Psychiatry. This study, done by Mark Olfson, M.D., of Columbia Psychiatry, Marissa King, Ph.D., of Yale, and Michael Schoenbaum, Ph.D., of […]
Va. Senator Attacked By Son Argues for Easing Patient Privacy Laws
Rep. Tim Murphy has found just the man to help him argue for softening patient privacy protections: The former state lawmaker once attacked by his mentally ill son. Creigh Deeds, the Virginia state senator and former gubernatorial candidate whose son stabbed him multiple times before committing suicide, testified Tuesday morning before a House panel considering […]
Sen. Markey Pushes For $60M for CDC to Study ‘Epidemic of Gun Violence’
Democratic lawmakers have introduced legislation to authorize $60 million in taxpayer money to go to the Centers of Disease Control (CDC) for research on gun violence prevention. The measure, introduced last week, would give $10 million a year “for each of fiscal years 2016 through 2021 for the purpose of conducting or supporting research on […]
Prosecutor: Germanwings Co-Pilot Contacted Dozens of Doctors
The co-pilot with a history of depression who crashed a Germanwings airliner into the French Alps had reached out to dozens of doctors ahead of the disaster, a state prosecutor said Friday — a revelation that suggests Andreas Lubitz was seeking advice about an undisclosed ailment. Meanwhile, the families of 30 of the 150 people […]
What Kinds of Deductibles Should Transabled Self-Mutilators Have Under Obamacare?
What kinds of deductibles should Transabled self-mutilators have under Obamacare? Meet the new civil rights group: healthy people who want to injure themselves: When he cut off his right arm with a “very sharp power tool,” a man who now calls himself One Hand Jason let everyone believe it was an accident. But he had […]
Psych Wards Not Covered by Medicaid Mental Health Rule
It may soon get easier for poor, mentally ill Americans to get treatment, but not in a psychiatric hospital. Medicaid plans got an initial roadmap from the federal government earlier this month, with a rule proposing directions for how they should conform to a 2008 law known as mental health parity. The law requires insurers […]
‘American Sniper’ Killer Moved to Psychiatric Prison
The man convicted of killing former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle and fellow veteran Chad Littlefield has been moved to a psychiatric prison. Eddie Ray Routh will be evaluated at a a prison with a wider array of medical facilities instead of the Abilene location where he began a life sentence without parole, The Associated Press […]
Michelle Obama: ‘My Husband Believes Strongly’ Getting Mental Health Treatment Is ‘Sign of Strength’
First lady Michelle Obama said Wednesday at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., that her husband, President Barack Obama “believes strongly” that getting support and treatment for a mental health issue “isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength.” “It’s time to tell everyone who’s dealing with a mental health issue that they’re not […]
Newsrooms Grapple With PTSD As Graphic Footage Becomes More Common
If you haven’t seen the recent execution of Jordanian pilot Moath al-Kasasbeh by ISIS, you’re lucky. It’s absolutely horrifying. In the video, ISIS burned to death al-Kasasbeh, who was captured on December 24. It ends with them dropping concrete debris on his charred body, destroying the cage they kept him in as he burned alive. This […]
Mental Illness History Ruled on Appeal to Not Bar Gun Ownership
A federal appeals court concluded that a history of mental illness shouldn’t bar citizens from owning a weapon in a first such ruling that may expand the rights of millions of U.S. gun owners. A federal law barring a Michigan man in 2011 from owning a gun because he was committed to a mental institution […]
