Mental health crisis could cost world $16 tn

French health watchdog calls for ban on sunbeds

LONDON, Oct 10, (Agencies): Mental health disorders are on the rise in every country in the world and could cost the global economy up to $16 trillion between 2010 and 2030 if a collective failure to respond is not addressed, according to an expert report on Tuesday.

The “Lancet Commission” report by 28 global specialists in psychiatry, public health and neuroscience, as well as mental health patients and advocacy groups, said the growing crisis could cause lasting harm to people, communities and economies worldwide.

While some of the costs will be the direct costs of healthcare and medicines or other therapies, most are indirect – in the form of loss of productivity, and spending on social welfare, education and law and order, the report’s co-lead author Vikram Patel said.

The wide-ranging report did not give the breakdown of the potential $16 trillion economic impact it estimated by 2030.

“The situation is extremely bleak,” Patel, a professor at Harvard Medical School in the United States, told reporters.

He said the burden of mental illness had risen “dramatically” worldwide in the past 25 years, partly due to societies ageing and more children surviving into adolescence, yet “no country is investing enough” to tackle the problem.

“No other health condition in humankind has been neglected as much as mental health has,” Patel said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that around 300 million people worldwide have depression and 50 million have dementia. Schizophrenia is estimated to affect 23 million people, and bipolar disorder around 60 million.

The Lancet report found that in many countries, people with common mental disorders such as depression, anxiety and schizophrenia routinely suffer gross human rights violations – including shackling, torture and imprisonment.

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Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the medical journal the Lancet, which commissioned the report, said it highlighted the “shameful and shocking treatment of people with mental ill health around the world”.

It called for a human rights-based approach to ensure that people with mental health conditions are not denied fundamental human rights, including access to employment, education and other core life experiences.

It also recommended a wholesale shift to community-based care for mental health patients, with psychosocial treatments such as talking therapies being offered not just by medical professionals but also by community health workers, peers, teachers and the clergy.

The report was published ahead of a first global ministerial mental health

summit in London this week.

PARIS:

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The French health watchdog Wednesday urged the government to outlaw sunlamps and sunbeds because of the “proven” risk of skin cancer, in line with similar bans already in place in Australia and Brazil.

“We recommend banning all activities linked to artificial tanning, along with ultraviolet sunlamps sold for esthetic purposes, especially those sold on the private market,” Olivier Merckel, an expert at the Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES), told AFP.

Of 10,722 cases of malignant melanoma – the deadliest form of skin cancer – reported in French adults over age 30 in 2015, 382 could be directly linked to the use of sunbeds and sunlamps, ANSES estimated recently.

Skin specialists, the French academy of medicine, and some politicians have already spoken out in favour of a ban, but the French government has so far opted to merely tighten regulations.

In 2013, it banned people under age 18 from using commercial tanning parlours, and outlawed advertising for them. A total ban is now needed, according to Merckel.

“Scientific data is growing, there isn’t any doubt any more, we have solid proof, the risk of cancer is proven, we have figures on the risk to young people, to everyone, so now we’re calling for action from the authorities,” he said.

There is a “proven” link between artificial sunlight and human cancer, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a body of the World Health Organisation, warned as early as 2009.

People under 35 who resort at least once to artificial tanning increase the likelihood of developing skin melanoma by 59 percent, according to ANSES.

Brazil banned sunbeds in 2009 and Australia outlawed them in 2015.

AUSTRIA:

Austria is tiring of its reputation as “the ashtray of Europe” – at least according to the results of a nationwide petition backing a ban on smoking in cafes and restaurants.

Pressure is now mounting on Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) to drop its opposition to a referendum on the issue after the petition organised by Austria’s medical association garnered 881,569 signatures.

The result, which represents 14 percent of the electorate and more than 10 percent of the population overall, is the seventh largest for a petition of its kind, according to public radio Oe1.

Austria is one of the last European countries where smoking is still permitted in bars and restaurants despite calls for bans dating back 13 years, prompting anti-smoking groups to dub it the “ashtray of Europe”.