Another Day, Another Post Article

The Washington Post continues to enravel the mental health system in the DC area. It's a fucking mess, of course, but apparently the WaPost's reporters weren't paying attention earlier, or their editors were looking for a news hook. Then again, maybe this is big news to everyone.

Either way, it's a decent article, as these things go. The reporter falls into two traps however: he cites the 1998 number for people with severe and merpsistent mental illness killing cops (it was 12 that year, for a rate of 5.5 times the general population, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center's slightly-flawed stats), and, once again, there is no mention of the fact that psych meds ain't proving to be quite the buffer against mental illness that they are claimed to be. Right now, to ignore what's up with meds while calling for increased psych beds in the DC area along with strengthened outpatient commitment is tantamount to saying a treatment for leprosy is working just fine when lepers arms are falling off.

The 5.5 rate stat continues to annoy me, principally because if they looked at 2005's stats (from TAC itself), then they'd see a rate of about one-third 1998's. Looks like we've either got a case of lazy reporting or someone's buying someone else's agenda a bit too easily.

But yes there is clearly a lack of inpatient beds in the DC area. If one good thing comes of the recent nonsense in Virginia, then I hope it is an increase in short-term psych beds. There will also be a re-examination of outpatient commitment laws, and that's appropriate. But not to question how well the actual treatment itself is performing for patients long-term is criminal. Or does the WaPost anticipate skipping that bit of news for now and, later, running a series on patients who have to take so many meds that they are turned into zombies? Or their kidneys explode? Or they develop diabetes?

Beyond that, I find it interesting that only officials from NAMI and TAC are quoted. There is no indication that the reporter contacted NMHA or the Bazelon Center, or, hell, MindFreedom for that matter. These questions are complex enough to demand a full and complete airing of all the issues around mental illness.

The mentally-ill deserve nothing less. In fact, they deserve a lot more than they are currently getting under standard-operating procedure treatments in America.

NOTE: I find it amusing that, over the last week, people keep finding this site through a search using the terms Treatment Advocacy Center and Philip Dawdy. Golly, I wonder who could be that interested. ;)