300 new mental-health drugs unveiled

• By JOHN BOYD
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jul 25, 2008 - Page: 6B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Twitter
• Social Media

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America Thursday announced the development of more than 300 new medications in development to treat mental illness and substance abuse.

Among the new drugs are 66 medicines designed to treat depression, 26 for addictive disorders, 54 to treat anxiety disorders, 80 for dementia and 45 to treat schizophrenia.

The announcement came at a press conference at the Capitol Area Human Services District Office.

Mental health has been a critical issue in Louisiana following hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Generally after natural disasters, the incidence of mental-health problems grows for the five to eight months immediately following the event before eventually tailing off, PhRMA spokesman Ken Johnson said.

Mental-health problems among Katrina and Rita survivors, however, continue to grow nearly three years later. According to a recent Harvard study, cases of anxiety and mood disorder have increased by more than 30 percent.

PhRMA, a Washington D.C.-based pharmaceutical trade association, dumped $100 million in monetary and prescription drug aid into the Gulf region following the hurricanes,  Johnson said.

PhRMA now will ally itself with the Louisiana Substance Abuse and Mental Health Caucus, a newly formed legislative group tasked with keeping mental-health issues in the forefront of health care policy.

“Right now it’s very popular to talk about mental health and these issues,” Sen. Cheryl Gray, D-New Orleans, said Thursday. “But we have to make sure that a year or two from now we don’t go back to not talking about these issues.”

Emmy Award-winning actor and PhRMA spokesman Joe Pantoliano also spoke at the Thursday press conference.

Pantoliano, star of movies such as “The Matrix,” “Bad Boys” and the HBO drama “The Sopranos,” was diagnosed with depression three years ago.

“I felt a tremendous amount of pain,” he said. “I felt that I couldn’t feel my family, I couldn’t feel my children, I couldn’t feel my wife.”

Pantoliano said medications now have helped erase the “numbness” he felt for many years and curb addictive tendencies towards alcohol, shopping, sex and surfing the internet.