TV Show House Goes Further in Its Support of Mental Illness -- Spoiler Alert

If you are a fan of the tv show HOUSE and haven't watched the April 6th episode, I'm warning you that there's a spoiler ahead. You've been warned.

In my February 3rd blog post "Popular TV Show HOUSE Uses Its Star Power to Support Mental Health" I applauded that the tv show has been raising a great deal of money to support the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

Tonight the show dealt with suicide and a search for the cause of that suicide. At the end of the show there was a public service announcement about what to do if you are in crisis. And then there was another announcement:

If viewers wanted to leave a message for the person who had killed himself -- they could go to www.fox.com/kutner and leave a message.

I had just written a blog post at www.FictionMarketing.com about when people act as if fictional characters are real. And my immediate reaction to the web page to leave messages for "Dr. Kutner" is that this blurring of what is fiction and what is reality has gone too far.

Yes, I cried during the show, but I was crying for the fictional character. No, I don't want to demean the death of real suicides by leaving messages for a fictional tv character.

What are your thoughts about this?
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL and the co-author of the Jewish holiday book SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION. She also blogs at Mrs. Lieutenant and Operation Support Jews in the Military, and she is the co-host of the BlogTalkRadio show Your Military Life. Her company Miller Mosaic LLC builds call-to-action websites for book authors and small businesses.

National Suicide Week Is Sept. 7-13 With No Help From the FDA

The September 3^rd Wall Street Journal article “Elevated Rise of Teen Suicide Stirs Concern” by Sarah Rubenstein made me see red. Here’s a paragraph from the article:

The rise in suicides coincided with Food and Drug Administration advisories about antidepressants that led to an October 2004 decision to require strong “black box” warning on all antidepressants’ labels.

Hello, what did anyone think was going to happen after the FDA required “black box” warnings on antidepressant labels, scaring parents who took their children off the medication?

I’m going to provide the pull-out box from the Journal article because the information in the box is so revealing:

· 1990-2003: The suicide rate for people 10 to 24 years old slid more than 28%.

· 2003-2004: The FDA issued advisories on antidepressants and required “black box” warnings on labels

· 2003-2004: The suicide rate for young people rose 8%.

· 2004-2005: The teen suicide rate slipped but remained elevated.

In my opinion it was criminal of the FDA to suggest that teen suicides were on a rise due to antidepressants, conveniently overlooking the fact that people who take antidepressant medication often take it because they are already suicidal.

I hope that any parents who yanked their children off antidepressants because of the FDA’s advisories have now taken their children to be re-evaluated by a mental health professional and have re-considered medication.

On the bright side of National Suicide Week, read my blog post at http://snipurl.com/armysuicides for some reassuring news about the U.S Army’s new approach to preventing suicides.

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