Friday, June 20, 2014

More warnings researchers give, few hear on PTSD

More claims from the DOD brass as more commit suicide about "changing." Yet how is it that I wrote in 2009 if they pushed Comprehensive Soldier Fitness, they would increase suicides? They still push it and in the process feed the stigma of "it is their fault" instead of helping them understand what it is, why they have it and how they can heal. This is more pure bullshit!
Veterans Wounded Times Seattle Times reported this in 2007 "The suit claims there are as many as "800,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans said to suffer or risk developing PTSD." The same year McClatchy reported that by 2006 the VA had 934,925 veterans being treated for PTSD. 148,000 of them were Vietnam veterans seeking help for the first time. Scientists and researchers have been sounding this warning since troops were sent into Afghanistan in 2001.
Flood of PTSD cases coming, scientists warn
USA TODAY
Gregg Zoroya
June 20, 2014

The Pentagon and VA are not ready for a potential flood of war-related post-traumatic stress disorder among troops and veterans, particularly from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, a panel of leading scientists report in a study released Friday.

"We are at the cusp of a wave of PTSD," says Sandro Galea, a physician, epidemiologist and professor at Columbia University who chaired the committee of 16 experts for the Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences.

The committee, directed by Congress, spent four years producing a 300-page report on how the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs handle PTSD.

"We greatly appreciate and respect the extensive scientific review and insights of the Institute of Medicine committee," says Robert Jesse, the VA acting undersecretary for health. "We will address these recommendations."

The Pentagon issued a statement acknowledging "critical gaps" and said corrective steps are being taken.
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