Gestor bibliográfico Crisis y Salud

Last week saw Spain become the latest debt-ridden European country to announce a drastic austerity budget, and in a Correspondence letter in today's issue, two researchers sum up what austerity means for science in Spain: "there is no hope". Unemployment, poverty, debt, and diminished public services also have direct implications for human health. Depression, and its associates suicide and alcohol-use disorders, are known consequences the world over. It is timely, then, that this year's World Mental Health Day on Oct 10 focuses on depression as a global crisis. The hard reality of mental illnesses such as depression must not be lost in controversies over psychiatric classification that have arisen during the revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In a Comment in this week's issue, Dilip Jeste asks "How can any sensible person believe that mental illnesses, which are disorders of the brain, are any less deserving of treatment than those that affect the lungs or liver?" The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act passed by the US Government in 2008, and the recent progress of the Mental Health (Discrimination) Bill in the UK, are welcome examples of legislators recognising the seriousness of mental illness.