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From fiscal year 2000 to fiscal year 2006, the Pentagon's prescription drug spending more than tripled from $1.6 billion to $6.2 billion, according to an April, 2008 Government Accountability Office report.
The head of the DOD's pharmaceutical program, Rear Admiral Thomas McGinnis, banned his own staff from going on company-paid trips, but other military pharmacy staff took about 400 trips, the Center points out.
Drug spending hit $6.8 billion in 2008, said McGinnis, and "the GAO expects DOD pharmaceutical spending to reach $15 billion by 2015," according to the summary.
In a May 19, 2009, report for MSNBC titled, "U.S. military: Heavily armed and medicated, Melody Petersen pointed out that military physicians "can be swayed by the aggressive promotional efforts of the pharmaceutical industry just like civilian doctors often are."
Military rules limit the handouts doctors can take from drug companies, she says. "A doctor can go to a dinner paid for by a drug company, but the meal's value can't be more than $20, and the value of all gifts received from a company over the course of a year can't exceed $50. "
However, drug companies find ways to work around the limits. For instance, Petersen reports that when "thousands of military and federal health-care professionals met in November (2008) for the annual meeting of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States (AMSUS), more than 80 pharmaceutical companies and other health-care firms were on hand."
"The companies helped pay for that San Antonio event in exchange for the opportunity to set up booths in the convention hall, where sales reps pressed doctors to prescribe their products or to use their medical equipment and devices," she notes.
The 6-day meeting also included a celebration, she reports, "15 military and federal doctors and other health professionals received awards that included cash prizes provided by various drug companies."
On March 17, 2010, Navy Times ran the headline, "Medicating the Military," to report a Military Times investigation that found 1 in 6 service members is on some form of psychiatric drug.
"And many troops are taking more than one kind, mixing several pills in daily "cocktails" -- for example, an antidepressant with an antipsychotic to prevent nightmares, plus an anti-epileptic to reduce headaches -- despite minimal clinical research testing such combinations," the Times noted.
The investigation also found that drugs originally developed to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are now commonly used to treat symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, such as headaches, nightmares, nervousness and fits of anger.
"It's really a large-scale experiment. We are experimenting with changing people's cognition and behavior," says Dr Grace Jackson, a former Navy psychiatrist and author of the book, "Drug-Induced Dementia: A Perfect Crime," in the article.
Troops and military health care providers told Military Times that these drugs are also being prescribed, consumed, shared and traded in combat zones, despite some restrictions on the deployment of troops using those drugs.
The Times investigation of records obtained from the Defense Logistics Agency showed $1.1 billion was spent on common psychiatric and pain medications from 2001 to 2009, and the use of psychiatric drugs had increased 76% overall, since the start of the current wars.
Orders for antipsychotics rose by more than 200%, and annual spending more than quadrupled, from $4 million in 2001, to $16 million in 2009. Orders for anti-anxiety drugs and sedatives increased 170%, and spending rose from $6 million to about $17 million. Annual orders of anticonvulsants had a 70% increase, with spending more than doubled, from $16 million to $35 million.
Antidepressants orders had a 40% gain, but an overall decrease in spending, from $49 million in 2001 to $41 million in 2009, due to the arrival in recent years of cheaper generic versions of the drugs.
