“WARNING: SUICIDAL THOUGHTS AND BEHAVIORS: Increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior in pediatric and young adult patients taking antidepressants.” —FDA black box warning
Another veteran served in the Kabul evacuation of 2021. A month after being prescribed the antidepressant mirtazapine, he shot himself dead.
Connor Brumfield and Hunter Whitley are two of the more than 155,000 veterans who have died by suicide since 2001. Shockingly, 70,000 of those deaths occurred after 2006—the very year the VA launched its “anti-suicide” program.
That death toll exceeds all US combat deaths since 9/11.
“Psychiatric drugs are that one thing that makes our modern warfare so much more deadly for our returning soldiers.”
By 2020, veterans were killing themselves at a rate 57 percent higher than the general population.
And for these servicemen and women, the enemy wasn’t some sniper lurking in an apartment window in Kabul, or a missile strike in Doha, Qatar’s capital city. It was something far more sinister waiting for them at home: death masquerading as help.
A 2019 Mad in America report found that the highest rates of suicide among veterans were those who had received psychiatric “diagnosis” and “treatment.”
Former Green Beret Hannis Latham, who served in the 1960s, put it bluntly: “Psychiatric drugs are that one thing that makes our modern warfare so much more deadly for our returning soldiers than any past war.… Instead of creating recovery programs for returning vets where they are recognized as normal people who have been through a very abnormal experience, our vets are often prescribed antipsychotics, tranquilizers, and antidepressants and told to suck it up and pull it together.”
But what about those black box warnings on the drug packages? It says right there that antidepressants can trigger suicide.
As Afghanistan War veteran and advocate Derek Blumke points out, “These warnings are protective only if doctors and nurse practitioners prescribing these drugs take the warnings seriously, and have robust conversations with their patients not only about their possible benefits, but also their risks and possible side effects.”
For Brumfield and Whitley and thousands of others, there were no such conversations and no informed consent. It was simply: Here’s your prescription. Have a nice day.
But what would you think of a platoon commander who sent you into an ambush without warning you of the snipers just over that rise ahead?
As a soldier, you’ve been trained to trust authority. That officer’s got the stripes that prove he knows more than you do. Or should.
Similarly, when a VA doctor with a white coat and a degree on his wall gives you a substance that is supposed to make you feel better, you trust him. After all, he’s got that white coat and that degree, so what could possibly go wrong?
A lot. Nearly 70 percent of all veterans under VA care are prescribed psychiatric drugs, often with no warning, despite the FDA black box label.
The result? Tens of thousands of self-inflicted, preventable deaths. The very agency sworn “to care for those who have served in our nation’s military and for their families, caregivers and survivors,” has failed its duty.
And, with “suicide prevention” spending over half a billion dollars in 2024 alone—even as suicide statistics soar—it’s clear that the VA won’t change on its own.
That’s why US Representatives Gus Bilirakis, Jack Bergman and Keith Self introduced HR 4837, the “Written Informed Consent Act.” Though less than half a page long, it would be a historic first: requiring doctors to obtain written informed consent before prescribing high-risk drugs—antipsychotics, antidepressants, anxiolytics, stimulants and narcotics—a mandate already in place for long-term opioid treatment for pain.
Think of it as a Miranda warning for veterans—a safeguard so they know the risks before swallowing a pill that could end their life.
On the battlefield, these service members were armed with weapons.
In the doctor’s office, their guard is down.
Experts believe the law could cut veteran suicides by 25 percent.
What does that mean in human terms? An annual 25 percent drop in suicides means 600 veterans saved each year. That’s 600 times taps will not echo through a cemetery, 600 coffins that won’t be draped with flags and 600 families spared unimaginable grief.
Seventeen national veterans’ organizations—including the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Navy SEAL Foundation and the Military Order of the Purple Heart—have already endorsed the bill.
According to Department of Defense reports, 90 percent of suicide attempts by service members were linked to central nervous system–acting drugs, primarily psychotropics.
“Our veterans deserve nothing less than complete transparency when it comes to their health,” said Representative Bilirakis.
