http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display ... 68/1426957
July 9, 2009
Psychiatric Times. Vol. 26 No. 7
Point/Counterpoint
PTSD Is a Valid Diagnosis: Who Benefits From Challenging Its Existence?
Rachel Yehuda, PhD and Alexander C. McFarlane, MD
Dr Yehuda is director of the PTSD Program at James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center in the Bronx, and professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. Dr McFarlane is professor of psychiatry and head of CMVH University of Adelaide Node at the Centre for Military and Veterans’ Health at the University of Adelaide, Australia.
Acknowledgments: This work was supported by funding from Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense, and NIMH.
PTSD filled a nosological gap by providing a way to characterize the long-lasting effects of trauma exposure.1 This led to a plethora of previously lacking scientific observations. Now the existence of PTSD is being called into question because some of the original assumptions that helped make the case for it have proved to be incorrect.2-4 However, it is possible to update some of the flawed assumptions of PTSD without rescinding the diagnosis. There is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
It is true that when advocates argued for the centrality of trauma exposure as a cause of PTSD, they lacked the perspective that PTSD is only one of many possible outcomes following trauma exposure—including resilience.1 However, the diagnosis is not invalidated by the fact that trauma exposure does not always—but sometimes does—result in PTSD.5 In medicine, diagnoses are not invalidated when not all persons express symptoms associated with a pathogen. Not all persons who are infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis get clinically manifested pulmonary disease. Yet this does not call into question the role of the bacterium. Nor do we call into question the diagnoses of pulmonary tuberculosis because it shares symptoms with pneumonia and sarcoidosis.
The PTSD construct is valid independent of symptoms of overlapping disorders.5,6 The argument that “symptom overlap” calls the PTSD diagnosis into question reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of diagnostic categories—which is to organize symptoms around a common cause to effectively provide the needed intervention. Treating specific symptoms outside the framework of a diagnosis is problematic.7 The idea here is that one arguably treats behavioral manifestations of panic attacks that come “out of the blue” differently from similar physiological reactivity provoked by traumatic reminders in PTSD. The PTSD diagnosis implies a failure of homeostatic mechanisms involved in stress recovery.8 In the absence of trauma exposure, some of the same symptoms might reflect a different neurobiological process and treatment intervention.
We agree that the diagnosis of PTSD almost entered a cul-de-sac when it initially postulated—back in the days before functional neuroimaging in psychiatric research—that symptoms resulted from an organic brain change occurring secondary to stress-induced arousal. Fortunately, advances in neuroscience disconfirmed this, while providing the constructs for a more nuanced way of understanding enduring brain effects resulting from environmental perturbations—including gene-environment interactions, epigenetic modifications, and other molecular mechanisms.9-11 These advances have not only explained mechanisms involved in enduring stress effects but have also revealed individual differences that explain why long-term illness develops in only some traumaexposed persons.9 That initial theories about pathophysiology may have been erroneous does not jeopardize the validity of the PTSD construct any more than the concept of schizophrenia was jeopardized when its cause was considered to be the “schizophrenogenic mother.”12
So too, the “errors” that can be made in the diagnosis of PTSD underscore the need for better training. Also, there is every reason to believe that scientific advances will yield PTSD biomarkers that differentiate this condition from others, particularly, those with overlapping symptoms. Progress in this area has already been made, and the yield from the rapid development of methodologies for unbiased genome-wide genotyping, gene expression, and molecular approaches are only beginning to be realized.9-11 Soon it will be more difficult for those who have never seen PTSD clinically to dismiss the “validity” of the PTSD diagnosis.
What is it that really bothers people? Could it be the high price tag of caring for persons disabled with PTSD? Could it be resentment that some persons fake symptoms for secondary gain?
“Malingerophobia” is a strong fear for doctors, but being able to fake an illness does not invalidate it as a diagnostic entity.13 Could it be that if we continue to assert that trauma exposure really can result in a mental health syndrome, our society will need to shoulder some of the responsibility for primary prevention and start making the world safer from violence, accidents, and disasters that threaten our citizens?
The fact that many persons choose not to continue mental health treatment for PTSD after they become service-connected is often used to “prove” that the injury was never really there and that the diagnosis was only a vehicle for compensation. Anyone who works with veterans or civilians battling the courts in an attempt to obtain compensation for PTSD would understand that severity of PTSD would be high during this process. It is stressful to recount explicit details of traumatic material—even with appropriate support, corrective information, and anxiety-reduction techniques in therapy. Imagine needing to do so in the context of an adversarial process in which the veracity of one’s report of trauma or level of distress is questioned. It is unfortunate that some veterans link the experiences of seeking compensation with mental health treatment at the VA and do not return. It is also true that the compensation- seeking process promotes avoidance behavior, accounting for more dropouts. Because there are still barriers to care, it is important not to draw conclusions about the prevalence, severity, or reality of any mental illness based on treatment-seeking behavior. Indeed, only a minority of those with PTSD seek any treatment.14,15
A constructive solution to the problem of the high cost of PTSD-related disability is to invest in the development of novel PTSD treatments and strategies for its prevention. One of the benefits of asserting that PTSD is not a result of brain damage secondary to stress exposure is that this opens up many new vistas for intervention. The validity of PTSD does not depend on its being a permanent condition—this is another assumption that could be corrected without even altering the diagnostic criteria. When treatment options based on a more precise characterization of the cause and biology of PTSD become available, the price tag associated with PTSD disability will be reduced. Rescinding the diagnosis will stand in the way of these developments.
It seems disingenuous, invoking DSM-V to use the convenience of having been wrong about some things to obliterate a diagnosis that has been so on-target in so many ways for so many trauma survivors. It is not clear why the dialogue is set up in a binary manner to either confirm or deny the existence of PTSD as currently formulated. The question going into DSM-V is whether we can restructure a more precise diagnosis that will be more resistant to the superficial criticisms currently used to challenge its existence. Once we acknowledge that PTSD is a specific type of response to trauma, many of the conceptual “problems” related to refining Criterion A, bracket creep, or symptom overlap dissipate.
The issues regarding PTSD have faced other diagnoses that are also sometimes difficult to delineate as a result of symptom overlap or because some patients fall into the cracks of often arbitrary and dichotomously parsed diagnostic criteria. That PTSD has become the whipping post for the challenges that emerging knowledge brings to the classification of mental disorders suggests it has had a strong cultural impact . . . let’s not shoot the messenger.
1. Yehuda R, McFarlane AC. Conflict between current knowledge about posttraumatic stress disorder and its original conceptual basis. Am J Psychiatry. 1995; 152:1705-1713.
2. Weathers FW, Keane TM. The Criterion A problem revisited: controversies and challenges in defining and measuring psychological trauma. J Trauma Stress. 2007;20:107-121.
3. Spitzer RL, First MB, Wakefield JC. Saving PTSD from itself in DSM-V. J Anxiety Disord. 2007;21:233-241.
4. McHugh PR, Treisman G. PTSD: a problematic
diagnostic category. J Anxiety Disord. 2007;21:211-222.
5. North CS, Suris AM, Davis M, Smith RP. Toward validation of the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder. Am J Psychiatry. 2009;166:34-41.
6. Elhai JD, Grubaugh AL, Kashdan TB, Frueh BC.
Empirical examination of a proposed refinement to DSM-IV posttraumatic stress disorder symptom criteria using the National Comorbidity Survey Replication data [published correction appears in J Clin Psychiatry. 2008;69:1985]. J Clin Psychiatry. 2008;69:
597-602.
7. McFarlane AC, Yehuda R. Clinical treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder: conceptual challenges raised by recent research. Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2000;34:940-953.
8. Yehuda R. Post-traumatic stress disorder. N Engl J Med. 2002;346:108-114.
9. Yehuda R, LeDoux J. Response variation following trauma: a translational neuroscience approach to understanding PTSD. Neuron. 2007;56:19-32.
10. Koenen KC, Nugent NR, Amstadter AB. Geneenvironment interaction in posttraumatic stress disorder: review, strategy and new directions for future research. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2008; 258:82-96.
11. Malhi GS, Lagopoulos J. Making sense of neuroimaging in psychiatry. Acta Psychiatr Scand. 2008; 117:100-117.
12. Banati R, Hickie IB. Therapeutic signposts: using biomarkers to guide better treatment of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Med J Aust. 2009;190 (suppl 4):S26-S32.
13. Pilowsky I. Malingerophobia. Med J Aust. 1985; 143:571-572.
14. Kessler RC. Posttraumatic stress disorder: the burden to the individual and to society. J Clin Psychiatry. 2000;61(suppl 5):4-14.
15. Spinazzola J, Blaustein M, van der Kolk BA. Posttraumatic stress disorder treatment outcome research: the study of unrepresentative samples? J Trauma Stress. 2005;18:425-436.
PTSD and Brain Trauma...
by J.B. Stone » 07/ 12/ 09 6:24 pm
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J.B. Stone - Posts: 47725
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by J.B. Stone » 07/ 14/ 09 12:29 pm
PTSD linked with almost double dementia risk, study finds
Published on 13 July 2009
http://insciences.org/article.php?article_id=6095
Older veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder were almost twice as likely to develop dementia as veterans without PTSD in a study of more than 180,000 veterans led by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco.
The results were announced at the Alzheimer’s Association 2009 International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease in Vienna, Austria by lead author Kristine Yaffe, MD, chief of geriatric psychiatry at SFVAMC and associate chair of research for psychiatry and professor of psychiatry, neurology, and epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF.
“These findings are important because PTSD has become a common consequence of combat and exposure to trauma,” says Yaffe. She notes that other studies have suggested that PTSD occurs in 15 to 20 percent of military personnel who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Using data from the Department of Veterans Affairs National Patient Care Database, the researchers analyzed the 1997-2000 records of 53,155 veterans diagnosed with PTSD and 127,938 without PTSD. None of the veterans were diagnosed as demented when the study began. Their average age was 68.8 years, and 97 percent were male.
The veterans were then followed from 2001 to 2007 and assessed for development of dementia according to standard medical diagnosis codes. By 2007, veterans with PTSD had a dementia rate of 10.6 percent, while veterans without PTSD had a dementia rate of 6.6 percent.
The association between PTSD and dementia remained after adjustment for demographics, medical and psychiatric conditions, and number of clinic visits, and after exclusion of subjects with traumatic brain injury, substance abuse, or depression.
“It is critical that we identify the mechanisms linking these two important disorders,” says Yaffe, who observes that, according to current projections, Alzheimer’s disease will more than double in the United States by 2047, increasing from less than four million cases today to more than eight million.
“We would like to replicate this study among non-veterans,” she says.
Co-authors of the study are Eric Vittinghoff, PhD, of UCSF, and Karla Lindquist, MS, Deborah E. Barnes, PhD, Kenneth E. Covinsky, MD, Thomas Neylan, MD, Molly Kluse, BA, and Charles Marmar, MD, of SFVAMC and UCSF.
The study was supported by funds from the US Army Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center that were administered by the Northern California Institute for Research and Education.
NCIRE - The Veterans Health Research Institute is the largest research institute associated with a VA medical center. Its mission is to improve the health and well-being of veterans and the general public by supporting a world-class biomedical research program conducted by the UCSF faculty at SFVAMC.
SFVAMC has the largest medical research program in the national VA system, with more than 200 research scientists, all of whom are faculty members at UCSF.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
Contact: Steve Tokar, 415-221-4810 x5202, steve.tokar@ncire.org
Source: The University of California, San Francisco
~~~~~~~~~
AND, ON ANOTHER NOTE....
Published on 13 July 2009
http://insciences.org/article.php?article_id=6095
Older veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder were almost twice as likely to develop dementia as veterans without PTSD in a study of more than 180,000 veterans led by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco.
The results were announced at the Alzheimer’s Association 2009 International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease in Vienna, Austria by lead author Kristine Yaffe, MD, chief of geriatric psychiatry at SFVAMC and associate chair of research for psychiatry and professor of psychiatry, neurology, and epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF.
“These findings are important because PTSD has become a common consequence of combat and exposure to trauma,” says Yaffe. She notes that other studies have suggested that PTSD occurs in 15 to 20 percent of military personnel who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Using data from the Department of Veterans Affairs National Patient Care Database, the researchers analyzed the 1997-2000 records of 53,155 veterans diagnosed with PTSD and 127,938 without PTSD. None of the veterans were diagnosed as demented when the study began. Their average age was 68.8 years, and 97 percent were male.
The veterans were then followed from 2001 to 2007 and assessed for development of dementia according to standard medical diagnosis codes. By 2007, veterans with PTSD had a dementia rate of 10.6 percent, while veterans without PTSD had a dementia rate of 6.6 percent.
The association between PTSD and dementia remained after adjustment for demographics, medical and psychiatric conditions, and number of clinic visits, and after exclusion of subjects with traumatic brain injury, substance abuse, or depression.
“It is critical that we identify the mechanisms linking these two important disorders,” says Yaffe, who observes that, according to current projections, Alzheimer’s disease will more than double in the United States by 2047, increasing from less than four million cases today to more than eight million.
“We would like to replicate this study among non-veterans,” she says.
Co-authors of the study are Eric Vittinghoff, PhD, of UCSF, and Karla Lindquist, MS, Deborah E. Barnes, PhD, Kenneth E. Covinsky, MD, Thomas Neylan, MD, Molly Kluse, BA, and Charles Marmar, MD, of SFVAMC and UCSF.
The study was supported by funds from the US Army Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center that were administered by the Northern California Institute for Research and Education.
NCIRE - The Veterans Health Research Institute is the largest research institute associated with a VA medical center. Its mission is to improve the health and well-being of veterans and the general public by supporting a world-class biomedical research program conducted by the UCSF faculty at SFVAMC.
SFVAMC has the largest medical research program in the national VA system, with more than 200 research scientists, all of whom are faculty members at UCSF.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
Contact: Steve Tokar, 415-221-4810 x5202, steve.tokar@ncire.org
Source: The University of California, San Francisco
~~~~~~~~~
AND, ON ANOTHER NOTE....
BREAKTHROUGH FOR THE VETS
SPREAD THE WORD!
By: John LeBoutillier
Do you want to know what was—and still is—unbelievably sad? Incredibly wrong? And just plan un-American?
That at one time over 200,000 of our soldiers who had served in the Vietnam War and had come home were in prison—many for problems related either to PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)—once called ’combat fatigue’—or related addictions to drugs or alcohol.
Many of our troops during Vietnam had gotten hooked on drugs or booze just to cope with the agonies of that war or injuries sustained there. Then they came home and were often treated like ‘war criminals,’ as the New Left labeled them in those days.
And then, sure enough, when they ran into problems with the criminal justice system and an unforgiving pubic attitude toward their problems, they were thrown into jail as if they were apart of the criminal element.
This was—and remains—one of the most disgraceful examples of betrayal in American history.
Now, once again, we are faced with hundreds of thousands of returning veterans from multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with many of the same severe problems: brain injuries and severe concussions (from IEDs)—often mis or un-diagnosed—and PTSD and addictions to prescription and non-prescription drugs and alcohol.
These vets are now also running into trouble back home trying to re-adjust to life stateside.
Here is a typical example: a US Army veteran who served three tours in Iraq. He had been trained to never go anywhere in Baghdad without his firearm firmly in his holster. OK. He survives that Hell-hole over there and returns to his home in New York City, where he remains in the Army Reserve. He does not feel safe without that firearm still strapped to his belt; his Army training had kept him alive and he could not and would not abandon its lessons. Sure enough—without doing a thing—he is arrested under NYC’s very strict new gun laws. Mere possession of a hand-gun means an automatic one-to-three year prison sentence. And that heroic veteran was sent to state prison!
This is true!
And it is just plain wrong!
Are we going to repeat the mistakes of the Vietnam War Era? Are we going to turn our back on these wonderful men and women who risk life and limb for us?
This week in New York City there was an announcement that someday will be viewed as an epic turning point in the care of our returning veterans:
Three District Attorneys—from Brooklyn, Queens and Nassau County—joined with the Chief Judge of New York State, Thomas Lippman, and the Veterans Administration and some generous private charities to announce the first-in-the-nation Veterans Mental Health Court Initiative.
This program will handle those cases which involve veterans who commit non-violent crimes and who should receive treatment for their mental illness rather than be incarcerated. This will be the largest and most comprehensive program of its kind in the nation, involving two urban counties (Brooklyn & Queens) and one suburban county (Nassau) with a combined population of 6 million persons.
The New York Times story can be found here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/nyreg ... 1&emc=eta1
...and the NEWSDAY story here:
http://www.newsday.com/news/printeditio ... 8679.story
The real impetus for this program is to avoid that indifference we showed the returning Viet Nam Vets. They became addicts in combat or from the addictive pain medication received for their wounds. And then when they used drugs, or sold drugs to feed their habits, rather than treat them we put them in prison, often for many years.
This Veterans Mental Health Court Initiative will be very, very popular around the nation when veterans and their families hear about it.
We need every District Attorney in every county and municipality in our nation to implement a similar program, with the appropriate training for the judges who will preside over these special courts.
All our vets out there need to prod their DAs to follow the example this week of these pioneering DAs in New York.
This week’s announcement here in New York City is a turning point in our history. We are changing from the disgraceful way we used to treat our vets into a smart, flexible system which adjusts to the realities of war.
Please spread the word far and wide!!!
"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."
http://www.etherzone.com/2009/lebo071009.shtml
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Opinions posted on Free Dominion are those of the individual posters and are not necessarily the opinion of Free Dominion or its operators. Free Dominion does not advocate violence, hate speech or an overthrow of the government.
you the.... BEST... In
BEAVER PRODUCTS
For over 200 Years...!!!
~~~~~
Our Motto: We DO give a dam!!!
Opinions posted on Free Dominion are those of the individual posters and are not necessarily the opinion of Free Dominion or its operators. Free Dominion does not advocate violence, hate speech or an overthrow of the government.
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J.B. Stone - Posts: 47725
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by J.B. Stone » 08/ 10/ 09 1:56 pm
DANGER....USE OF DEET INSECT REPELLENT COULD EXACERBATE PTSD SYMPTOMS AND LONG-TERM HEALTH:
Common insect repellent affects nervous system: study
By Marlowe Hood (AFP) –
PARIS — One of the world's most common insect repellents acts on the central nervous system in the same way as some insecticides and nerve gases, according to a study released on Wednesday.
Moderate use of the chemical compound, called deet, is most likely safe, the researchers say.
But experiments on insects, as well as on enzymes extracted from mice and human neurons, showed for the first time that it can interfere with the proper functioning of the nervous system.
The researchers say further studies are "urgently needed" to assess deet's potential toxicity to humans, especially when combined with other chemical compounds.
Their findings may also shed some light on the so-called "Gulf War Syndrome," the name given to a complex and variable mix of neurological symptoms reported by tens of thousands of US military veterans who served in the first Gulf War against Iraq in 1990-1991.
Developed by US Department of Agriculture scientists just after World War II, deet has been available as a bug repellent for more than five decades.
Sold as lotions, creams and sprays in concentrations from five to 100 percent, it has been widely used not just by weekend campers but as a frontline barrier against malaria, dengue fever and other mosquito-borne diseases.
Some 200 million people use deet-based products every years, according to the study, published in the British-based open-access journal BMC Biology.
Scientists still don't know exactly how the compound works on blood-seeking insects. Some say it blocks the sensory neurons that would be titillated by a potential meal, while others hypothesise that bugs are simply put off by the smell.
More surprising still, there is relatively little research on the effects of deet in humans.
"It has been used for many years, but there are recent studies now that show a potential toxicity," said Vincent Corbel, a researcher at the Institute for Development Research in Montpellier, France, and lead author of the study.
"What we have done is identify a neurological target for this compound," he told AFP by phone.
In experiments, Corbel and a team of scientists co-led by Bruno Lapied of the University of Angers discovered that deet interferes with the normal breaking down of acetylcholine (ACh), the most common neurotransmitter in the central nervous system.
It does so by blocking the enzyme that normally degrades ACh, acetylcholinesterase, or AChE. The result is a toxic build-up of ACh that ultimately prevents the transmission of signals across the neuron synapse, the study found.
A class of insecticides called carbamates, as well as the nerve gas sarin, work in the same way, only the effects are stronger and last much longer.
Which is where the Gulf War Syndrome comes in.
"Many of the pesticides used in the Gulf War, as well as PB and nerve agents, exert toxic effects on the brain and nervous system by altering levels of ACh," a US government report issued last November concluded.
PB, or pyridostigmine bromide, was widely used to protect against nerve gas exposure.
The 450-page report, entitled "Gulf War Illness and the Health of Gulf War Veterans," points to earlier evidence that overexposure to deet may be toxic for the nervous system, but fails to recognize its potential role as a booster for the more potent chemicals to which soldiers had been exposed.
"For US soldiers, the cocktail of high doses of PB and insect repellents to protect against mosquito bites may have caused symptoms, as both act on the central nervous system in the same way," said Corbel.
Fortunately, deet is "reversible," meaning its impact is short-lived. But further studies are needed to determine at what concentration it may become dangerous to people, especially small children and pregnant women, he added.
Common insect repellent affects nervous system: study
By Marlowe Hood (AFP) –
PARIS — One of the world's most common insect repellents acts on the central nervous system in the same way as some insecticides and nerve gases, according to a study released on Wednesday.
Moderate use of the chemical compound, called deet, is most likely safe, the researchers say.
But experiments on insects, as well as on enzymes extracted from mice and human neurons, showed for the first time that it can interfere with the proper functioning of the nervous system.
The researchers say further studies are "urgently needed" to assess deet's potential toxicity to humans, especially when combined with other chemical compounds.
Their findings may also shed some light on the so-called "Gulf War Syndrome," the name given to a complex and variable mix of neurological symptoms reported by tens of thousands of US military veterans who served in the first Gulf War against Iraq in 1990-1991.
Developed by US Department of Agriculture scientists just after World War II, deet has been available as a bug repellent for more than five decades.
Sold as lotions, creams and sprays in concentrations from five to 100 percent, it has been widely used not just by weekend campers but as a frontline barrier against malaria, dengue fever and other mosquito-borne diseases.
Some 200 million people use deet-based products every years, according to the study, published in the British-based open-access journal BMC Biology.
Scientists still don't know exactly how the compound works on blood-seeking insects. Some say it blocks the sensory neurons that would be titillated by a potential meal, while others hypothesise that bugs are simply put off by the smell.
More surprising still, there is relatively little research on the effects of deet in humans.
"It has been used for many years, but there are recent studies now that show a potential toxicity," said Vincent Corbel, a researcher at the Institute for Development Research in Montpellier, France, and lead author of the study.
"What we have done is identify a neurological target for this compound," he told AFP by phone.
In experiments, Corbel and a team of scientists co-led by Bruno Lapied of the University of Angers discovered that deet interferes with the normal breaking down of acetylcholine (ACh), the most common neurotransmitter in the central nervous system.
It does so by blocking the enzyme that normally degrades ACh, acetylcholinesterase, or AChE. The result is a toxic build-up of ACh that ultimately prevents the transmission of signals across the neuron synapse, the study found.
A class of insecticides called carbamates, as well as the nerve gas sarin, work in the same way, only the effects are stronger and last much longer.
Which is where the Gulf War Syndrome comes in.
"Many of the pesticides used in the Gulf War, as well as PB and nerve agents, exert toxic effects on the brain and nervous system by altering levels of ACh," a US government report issued last November concluded.
PB, or pyridostigmine bromide, was widely used to protect against nerve gas exposure.
The 450-page report, entitled "Gulf War Illness and the Health of Gulf War Veterans," points to earlier evidence that overexposure to deet may be toxic for the nervous system, but fails to recognize its potential role as a booster for the more potent chemicals to which soldiers had been exposed.
"For US soldiers, the cocktail of high doses of PB and insect repellents to protect against mosquito bites may have caused symptoms, as both act on the central nervous system in the same way," said Corbel.
Fortunately, deet is "reversible," meaning its impact is short-lived. But further studies are needed to determine at what concentration it may become dangerous to people, especially small children and pregnant women, he added.
SEE ALSO:
DEET
Repellent Fact Sheet
CAROLINE COX / Journal of Pesticide Reform v.25, n.3, Fall 2005 17oct2005
http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/2005 ... ct2005.htm
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J.B. Stone - Posts: 47725
- Joined: 04/ 11/ 03 10:01 am
- Location: Northwest Montana
by J.B. Stone » 08/ 24/ 09 5:10 pm
Secretary Shinseki Moves to Simplify PTSD Compensation Rules
http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayRelea ... 942&EDATE=
WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is taking steps to assist Veterans seeking compensation for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
"The hidden wounds of war are being addressed vigorously and comprehensively by this administration as we move VA forward in its transformation to the 21st century," said Secretary Shinseki.
The VA is publishing a proposed regulation today in the Federal Register to make it easier for a Veteran to claim service connection for PTSD by reducing the evidence needed if the stressor claimed by a Veteran is related to fear of hostile military or terrorist activity. Comments on the proposed rule will be accepted over the next 60 days. A final regulation will be published after consideration of all comments received.
Under the new rule, VA would not require corroboration of a stressor related to fear of hostile military or terrorist activity if a VA psychiatrist or psychologist confirms that the stressful experience recalled by a Veteran adequately supports a diagnosis of PTSD and the Veteran's symptoms are related to the claimed stressor.
Previously, claims adjudicators were required to corroborate that a non-combat Veteran actually experienced a stressor related to hostile military activity. This rule would simplify the development that is required for these cases.
PTSD is a recognized anxiety disorder that can follow seeing or experiencing an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury to which a person responds with intense fear, helplessness or horror, and is not uncommon in war.
Feelings of fear, confusion or anger often subside, but if the feelings don't go away or get worse, a Veteran may have PTSD.
VA is bolstering its mental health capacity to serve combat Veterans, adding thousands of new professionals to its rolls in the last four years. The Department also has established a suicide prevention helpline (1-800-273-TALK) and Web site available for online chat in the evenings at www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/Veterans.
SOURCE U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
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J.B. Stone - Posts: 47725
- Joined: 04/ 11/ 03 10:01 am
- Location: Northwest Montana
by J.B. Stone » 08/ 24/ 09 5:15 pm
U.S. soldiers, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and depression
With the United States actively engaged in two wars, an alarming number of U.S. soldiers are returning home suffering from depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. The statistics are high, nearly 1 in 5 U.S. soldiers are returning home from the battlefield and are diagnosed with either PTSD or depression. For many, the combat and fighting seen and experienced causes emotional and physical scars that may take years to heal. Though physical ailments are easily recognized, it’s the emotional scars and damage that might be left untreated. It isn’t until the soldier returns to home, begins readjusting to civilian or home life, and then discovers that the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or depression are present.
The United States Army is placing a greater emphasis on soliders’ mental and emotional health and well-being, especially after combat. Some soldiers find that they begin using alcohol to deal with the pain of the experiences they’ve encountered. Graphic scenes of death, violence, and carnage are often a reality for those in combat, and it can be overwhelming for the mind to deal with the pain, loss, fear, and horror that are associated with war. Sleeplessness, insomnia, and anxiety are a few of the early symptoms that signify a soldier is suffering from PTSD or depression. Other times, soldiers might oversleep and use alcohol or abuse other substances as a means of escape.
Implementing new training techniques, the Army has been providing soldiers with treatment for both PTSD and depression. In some instances, they will determine whether a soldier is suffering from the condition then provide them with treatment. To identify soldiers in need of emotional and mental help, all active duty and reserve soldiers are required to take a survey consisting of 170 questions. The survey is a useful tool, as many soldiers feel that admitting they are suffering from PTSD or depression might make them appear weak. The U.S. Army is working to change soldiers’ impression of PTSD as well. Acknowledging that there is a problem is the first step in beginning treatment, there is nothing to be ashamed of.
The United States Army has released a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You can find more information here: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Information
http://www.behavioralhealth.army.mil/ptsd/index.html
http://www.ptsd.va.gov/
With the United States actively engaged in two wars, an alarming number of U.S. soldiers are returning home suffering from depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. The statistics are high, nearly 1 in 5 U.S. soldiers are returning home from the battlefield and are diagnosed with either PTSD or depression. For many, the combat and fighting seen and experienced causes emotional and physical scars that may take years to heal. Though physical ailments are easily recognized, it’s the emotional scars and damage that might be left untreated. It isn’t until the soldier returns to home, begins readjusting to civilian or home life, and then discovers that the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or depression are present.
The United States Army is placing a greater emphasis on soliders’ mental and emotional health and well-being, especially after combat. Some soldiers find that they begin using alcohol to deal with the pain of the experiences they’ve encountered. Graphic scenes of death, violence, and carnage are often a reality for those in combat, and it can be overwhelming for the mind to deal with the pain, loss, fear, and horror that are associated with war. Sleeplessness, insomnia, and anxiety are a few of the early symptoms that signify a soldier is suffering from PTSD or depression. Other times, soldiers might oversleep and use alcohol or abuse other substances as a means of escape.
Implementing new training techniques, the Army has been providing soldiers with treatment for both PTSD and depression. In some instances, they will determine whether a soldier is suffering from the condition then provide them with treatment. To identify soldiers in need of emotional and mental help, all active duty and reserve soldiers are required to take a survey consisting of 170 questions. The survey is a useful tool, as many soldiers feel that admitting they are suffering from PTSD or depression might make them appear weak. The U.S. Army is working to change soldiers’ impression of PTSD as well. Acknowledging that there is a problem is the first step in beginning treatment, there is nothing to be ashamed of.
The United States Army has released a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You can find more information here: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Information
http://www.behavioralhealth.army.mil/ptsd/index.html
http://www.ptsd.va.gov/
-
J.B. Stone - Posts: 47725
- Joined: 04/ 11/ 03 10:01 am
- Location: Northwest Montana
by J.B. Stone » 08/ 30/ 09 4:35 pm
Kids of deployed soldiers show psychological effects
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Kids+ ... story.html
By Amy Norton, Reuters
NEW YORK - Recent studies have shown that U.S. veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are coming back with high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health problems. Now research suggests that deployment may be taking a toll on their kids, too: Children of U.S. service members deployed overseas may have an elevated risk of anxiety and other emotional difficulties.
In a study of 116 spouses of deployed Army personnel, researchers found that one-third of the participants' school-aged children were at high risk of so-called psychosocial problems. The most common ones were "internalizing" symptoms, such as being anxious, worried or crying more often.
The results, published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, are based on a screening questionnaire -- which means that the children deemed at "high risk" of psychosocial problems do not necessarily have them.
Still, the percentage that fell into the high-risk category is more than twice the U.S. norm. And in an older study of military children whose parents were not deployed, only 18 percent were found to be at high risk of psychological and social problems.
"Deployment and being separated from your family is a way of life in the military, and most families are pretty resilient," lead researcher Dr. Eric M. Flake told Reuters Health.
However, deployment during wartime is different, he pointed out.
"There's very little data in the new global war on terrorism on how kids are being affected," said Flake, who was based at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington, at the time of the study, and is now at the Keesler Air Force Base Medical Center in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Many factors could potentially affect a child's well-being when a parent is deployed, according to Flake and his colleagues. In addition to having a parent in a wartime situation, children may also deal with other changes at home -- such as when the at-home parent decides to move back with his or her family during the deployment.
But the study also suggested ways to protect kids.
Flake's team found that 42 percent of surveyed parents -- who were mostly mothers -- reported high levels of parenting stress. These parents, in turn, were more likely to report psychosocial problems in their children.
In contrast, parents who said they turned to available military resources or other sources of support, such as their church or a community group, generally reported less stress and fewer problems in their children.
Flake said he thinks the military has "responded well," by developing programs for at-home parents and families to deal with their stress. Bases, for example, offer "family life consultants" who help families cope with deployment or other issues.
There is also an online resource, MilitaryOneSource.com, that families can use as a "springboard" for getting any additional help they may need, Flake said. Yet, he added, there are still many families who do not know the site exists.
In addition to taking advantage of such services, parents could also take steps before deployment, Flake noted. He suggested that they try to identify and minimize any current stressors in their life, and set a structure for their children's daily routine that they keep up after a parent's deployment.
SOURCE: Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, August 2009.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Kids+ ... story.html
By Amy Norton, Reuters
NEW YORK - Recent studies have shown that U.S. veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are coming back with high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health problems. Now research suggests that deployment may be taking a toll on their kids, too: Children of U.S. service members deployed overseas may have an elevated risk of anxiety and other emotional difficulties.
In a study of 116 spouses of deployed Army personnel, researchers found that one-third of the participants' school-aged children were at high risk of so-called psychosocial problems. The most common ones were "internalizing" symptoms, such as being anxious, worried or crying more often.
The results, published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, are based on a screening questionnaire -- which means that the children deemed at "high risk" of psychosocial problems do not necessarily have them.
Still, the percentage that fell into the high-risk category is more than twice the U.S. norm. And in an older study of military children whose parents were not deployed, only 18 percent were found to be at high risk of psychological and social problems.
"Deployment and being separated from your family is a way of life in the military, and most families are pretty resilient," lead researcher Dr. Eric M. Flake told Reuters Health.
However, deployment during wartime is different, he pointed out.
"There's very little data in the new global war on terrorism on how kids are being affected," said Flake, who was based at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington, at the time of the study, and is now at the Keesler Air Force Base Medical Center in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Many factors could potentially affect a child's well-being when a parent is deployed, according to Flake and his colleagues. In addition to having a parent in a wartime situation, children may also deal with other changes at home -- such as when the at-home parent decides to move back with his or her family during the deployment.
But the study also suggested ways to protect kids.
Flake's team found that 42 percent of surveyed parents -- who were mostly mothers -- reported high levels of parenting stress. These parents, in turn, were more likely to report psychosocial problems in their children.
In contrast, parents who said they turned to available military resources or other sources of support, such as their church or a community group, generally reported less stress and fewer problems in their children.
Flake said he thinks the military has "responded well," by developing programs for at-home parents and families to deal with their stress. Bases, for example, offer "family life consultants" who help families cope with deployment or other issues.
There is also an online resource, MilitaryOneSource.com, that families can use as a "springboard" for getting any additional help they may need, Flake said. Yet, he added, there are still many families who do not know the site exists.
In addition to taking advantage of such services, parents could also take steps before deployment, Flake noted. He suggested that they try to identify and minimize any current stressors in their life, and set a structure for their children's daily routine that they keep up after a parent's deployment.
SOURCE: Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, August 2009.
-
J.B. Stone - Posts: 47725
- Joined: 04/ 11/ 03 10:01 am
- Location: Northwest Montana
by J.B. Stone » 10/ 09/ 09 12:36 am
Vets Prevail Launches Clinical Trial to Study Effects of Online Post-Deployment Resiliency Training
Download this press release as an Adobe PDF document.
Prevail Health Solutions LLC is excited to announce that its patent-pending training technology, Vets Prevail, has been approved for its first clinical trial through the Quorum Review IRB. Vets Prevail is a cutting edge post-deployment training tool, delivered online, helping veterans readjust to civilian life by teaching resiliency techniques based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The novel solution offers convenient, anonymous training that helps modern warriors navigate the difficult transition back to civilian life upon their return from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Chicago, IL (PRWEB) September 22, 2009 -- Vets Prevail is a cutting edge post-deployment training tool, delivered online, helping veterans readjust to civilian life by teaching resiliency techniques based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The novel solution offers convenient, anonymous training that helps modern warriors navigate the difficult transition back to civilian life upon their return from Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a very real problem with very real consequences, as over a third of the returning warriors are suffering from combat stress, depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or re-assimilation issues, while the suicide rate among veterans has climbed to a three-decade high.
Over the past two months Vets Prevail has provided its service to veterans in a usability test, and Prevail Health Solutions LLC now is excited to announce that its patent-pending training technology has been approved for its first clinical trial through the Quorum Review IRB . The independent program evaluator and Principal Investigator of the clinical study will be Dr. Benjamin Van Voorhees. The clinical trial has two specific aims:
Specific Aim 1: Efficacy--symptom levels
To determine if symptoms of combat stress, depressive symptoms, and mental health burden decline after using the Vets Prevail intervention. Study organizers hypothesize that self reported symptoms and burden will be reduced significantly by week 8 compared to baseline.
Specific Aim 2: Satisfaction with internet training
To determine if the user perceived the internet training to be effectively conveyed. Study organizers hypothesize that users will rate training domains (internet program) in the strongly positive range.
The trial and research are being supported by the McCormick Foundation in partnership with Major League Baseball's "Welcome Back Veterans" initiative. Vets Prevail has also received financial support from the National Science Foundation's Small Business Innovation Research Program.
If you are a veteran, and interested in participating, click here to sign up.
About Vets Prevail:
Vets Prevail is a service of Prevail Health Solutions LLC, a veteran-owned and operated company. Created For Vets, By Vets, Vets Prevail integrates proprietary, cutting edge technology, designed to help our soldiers' transition to life after military service and tackle post deployment re-adjustment challenges, often times associated with the effects of combat depression and PTSD. The training solution is quickly scalable, helping to provide immediate care as our men and women in uniform return home in record numbers.
For More Information
Visit http://www.vetsprevail.com/
Fan Vets Prevail on Facebook
Follow Vets Prevail on Twitter
###
Trackback URL: http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/Q291cC1 ... AtWmVybw==
Download this press release as an Adobe PDF document.
Prevail Health Solutions LLC is excited to announce that its patent-pending training technology, Vets Prevail, has been approved for its first clinical trial through the Quorum Review IRB. Vets Prevail is a cutting edge post-deployment training tool, delivered online, helping veterans readjust to civilian life by teaching resiliency techniques based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The novel solution offers convenient, anonymous training that helps modern warriors navigate the difficult transition back to civilian life upon their return from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Chicago, IL (PRWEB) September 22, 2009 -- Vets Prevail is a cutting edge post-deployment training tool, delivered online, helping veterans readjust to civilian life by teaching resiliency techniques based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The novel solution offers convenient, anonymous training that helps modern warriors navigate the difficult transition back to civilian life upon their return from Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a very real problem with very real consequences, as over a third of the returning warriors are suffering from combat stress, depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or re-assimilation issues, while the suicide rate among veterans has climbed to a three-decade high.
Over the past two months Vets Prevail has provided its service to veterans in a usability test, and Prevail Health Solutions LLC now is excited to announce that its patent-pending training technology has been approved for its first clinical trial through the Quorum Review IRB . The independent program evaluator and Principal Investigator of the clinical study will be Dr. Benjamin Van Voorhees. The clinical trial has two specific aims:
Specific Aim 1: Efficacy--symptom levels
To determine if symptoms of combat stress, depressive symptoms, and mental health burden decline after using the Vets Prevail intervention. Study organizers hypothesize that self reported symptoms and burden will be reduced significantly by week 8 compared to baseline.
Specific Aim 2: Satisfaction with internet training
To determine if the user perceived the internet training to be effectively conveyed. Study organizers hypothesize that users will rate training domains (internet program) in the strongly positive range.
The trial and research are being supported by the McCormick Foundation in partnership with Major League Baseball's "Welcome Back Veterans" initiative. Vets Prevail has also received financial support from the National Science Foundation's Small Business Innovation Research Program.
If you are a veteran, and interested in participating, click here to sign up.
About Vets Prevail:
Vets Prevail is a service of Prevail Health Solutions LLC, a veteran-owned and operated company. Created For Vets, By Vets, Vets Prevail integrates proprietary, cutting edge technology, designed to help our soldiers' transition to life after military service and tackle post deployment re-adjustment challenges, often times associated with the effects of combat depression and PTSD. The training solution is quickly scalable, helping to provide immediate care as our men and women in uniform return home in record numbers.
For More Information
Visit http://www.vetsprevail.com/
Fan Vets Prevail on Facebook
Follow Vets Prevail on Twitter
###
Trackback URL: http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/Q291cC1 ... AtWmVybw==
-
J.B. Stone - Posts: 47725
- Joined: 04/ 11/ 03 10:01 am
- Location: Northwest Montana
by J.B. Stone » 10/ 26/ 09 12:21 pm
http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2009 ... 1-sun.html
Falling through the gaps
It's been eight years since the Canadian Forces ombudsman complained about the way soldiers' mental health was being handled. There have been improvements, but services remain inadequately funded at a time when demand from troubled veterans and their families is rising, writes Free Press reporter Randy Richmond.
By RANDY RICHMOND
Last Updated: 26th October 2009
ST. THOMAS -- It almost starts like a joke. Did you hear the one about the three national icons -- the soldier, the Tims and the Canadians?
A Canadian soldier walks into a Tim Hortons and sits beside a group of Canadian civilians enjoying a national pastime -- drinking coffee and complaining.
The soldier was Capt. Bill Arnot, 55, just returned from Afghanistan.
"When you get back from something like Afghanistan, your frustration levels are quick to jump for all kinds of reasons," Arnot says.
"Several people were sitting next to us and one was going on and on about how bad things were. I finally looked at the people, and said, 'You have no idea, no idea how good you have it. So please, keep your bitching to yourself.' Well, it didn't go over very well."
The customers complained to the manager and the manager suggested Arnot not talk to ordinary people in quite that tone.
"I am much better now," Arnot says, but adds with a big smile, "I don't do well with whining."
Arnot grew up big and strong and outdoors all the time in Toronto beaches and Sutton. His dad was a police officer and after a short stint in the army marred by leg injuries, Arnot joined the Mississauga police force.
Over the years, he worked his way up to firearms trainer, then an instructor at the police college at Aylmer. During the 1990s, he turned back to the past, going back on the street as a St. Thomas police officer and joining the reserves. He's now a full-time reservist and deputy commanding officer at 31 Combat Engineer Regiment in St. Thomas.
In May 2008, Arnot headed to Afghanistan to work in headquarters at Kandahar Airfield as an engineer operations officer.
He and a partner were available 24/7 to help oversee every operation involving engineers, from repairing roads to moving troops and equipment to large-scale reconstruction projects such as dams, roads, schools and medical facilities.
They worked 18-hour days, mostly 6O days a week. Working just as hard to rebuild their country were their Canadian comrades and Afghans.
Arnot still marvels seeing local workers pave, with hand tools only, an 800-metre section of road while he was there.
He came home convinced progress was being made.
He came home looking forward to seeing his wife, son and daughter and taking some time off.
"I went absolutely nuts," he says. "You are going constantly for 9O months. To come back and stop all of a sudden . . . "
Arnot got to know a military social worker while he helped out a family of a wounded soldier several years earlier. Talking to that worker and other military friends helped him ease into life in Canada.
So did his wife of 33 years, Donna.
"I think many people are afraid of me. They look at my size and say, 'I'm not going to say anything. My wife, she would just look at me and I'd realize, OK, time to slow down a little bit."
Arnot's lucky.
Young and single soldiers, without marital support, have the highest rates of depression and post-traumatic stress disorders, a national survey led by London psychiatrist Don Richardson found in 2007.
Arnot and other area soldiers also have the good fortune of living close to the Operational Stress Injury Clinic at Parkwood Hospital, where Richardson is a consulting psychiatrist.
"The number of people we are seeing from Afghanistan is continually growing," Richardson says.
Since December 2007, the clinic has experienced a 50% increase in clients, now up to about 225, says clinic co-ordinator Rita Wiltsie.
The clinic helps both veterans and current soldiers. For a long time, the bulk of clients were peacekeepers from areas such as the Balkans and Africa.
The single biggest group now, at 26%, consists of people who served in Afghanistan, Wiltsie says.
London's was one of the original five clinics funded by the federal government, which recently opened four more clinics with two more to come after two reports critical of how the military was treating stress among soldiers,
In 2002, the Canadian Forces ombudsman prepared a report critical of the Canadian Forces and Department of National Defence's handling of soldiers' mental health.
A review six years later found much had been improved, mainly in identifying disorders in soldiers and beefing up mental health programs.
But there are still problems, and still people falling through the gaps.
For example, the families of soldiers face far more stress and mental illnesses than originally thought, the 2008 ombudsman report said.
"They may suffer indirectly as a result of having to care for the military member. They may develop stress-related mental health problems themselves. Or the dynamics within families may be adversely affected."
Whatever the problem, Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence must do more to help military families, the report concluded.
Military Family Resource Centres told investigators they lack resources to help more families.
The London Military Family Resource Centre is supposed to offer counselling and other services to families across Southwestern Ontario, but until last year, had only a London office.
Last year, the centre created outreach offices in Windsor, Hamilton and Cambridge, putting stress on the budget.
"Last year, we came up $100,000 short," says executive director Gary Willaert. "It doesn't look good this year because of cutbacks."
National Defence contributes the bulk of the funding, with the rest from fundraising.
Last year, the centre needed a $50,000 emergency bailout from the local military budget to keep the outreach centres going.
Next spring, about 180 soldiers from Southwestern Ontario will head to Afghanistan, putting even more pressure on the resource centre.
Centre staff will help families before the soldier leaves, while he's gone and when he comes back.
"The reunion is one of the most difficult parts of deployment. Everybody expects this happy forever after ending," says Kym Wolfe, a personal development co-ordinator at the centre.
But spouses may find their routines upset and children discover their fathers need some space, she said.
"Family members don't always expect how high a level of stress they will feel," adds Beverly Robbins, co-ordinator for family separation and reunion programs. "They are so worried about the soldiers when they should be looking for their own red flags."
Growing up as a navy brat, Londoner Dianne Boudreau remembers her father coming home from sea and the entire household being thrown into chaos.
Her father wanted to sweep the family up in his arms and celebrate, but her mother had to keep the house running, she says.
"Dad would say, 'They don't have to do this, let's just go in the yard and play some ball or go for a drive,' and mom would always be saying, 'The kids have things they had to do.' "
Three of her own sons are in the military.
When one went to Afghanistan, "I just went right off the deep end."
She's a huge supporter of the centre and uses her own family to point out not just spouses and children, but the parents and siblings and aunts and uncles of soldiers need support.
Deployment and reunion can be even harder on the extended family of reservists, Robbins says.
"The regular force families, they know the whole military lifestyle. A reservist family may not know what to expect."
Reservists come from all over the province, with families, especially parents, often not living near a military base, she says.
"Parents sometimes have no idea what to expect," Robbins says.
It doesn't help that soldiers themselves often only talk to their spouses about deployment, but leave their parents out of the mix, Robbins says.
That reflects one of the largest challenges the military has in helping soldiers come home -- the attitude of soldiers themselves.
The 2002 ombudsman investigation found soldiers diagnosed with stress disorder were seen as "fakers, malingerers or as being weak and incapable." About one-quarter of the 31 original recommendations were aimed at changing military culture.
Six years later, the stigma remains, the followup investigation found. Training programs that arose from the original recommendations had stalled and few brass at military establishments across the country were issuing any direction on training to help soldiers with stress.
In June, the military responded, launching a Canadian Forces mental health awareness campaign to educate soldiers and their leaders and change the culture.
"The support is there," Arnot says. "Half the battle is the individual needs to ask. You can only push so hard."
The attitude within the military, from the brass to soldiers, is changing, says Wiltsie.
"I think there has been a lot of work done to create a climate of acceptance," she says.
"People are now coming forward, from military personnel to family members, and are telling their stories."
Falling through the gaps
It's been eight years since the Canadian Forces ombudsman complained about the way soldiers' mental health was being handled. There have been improvements, but services remain inadequately funded at a time when demand from troubled veterans and their families is rising, writes Free Press reporter Randy Richmond.
By RANDY RICHMOND
Last Updated: 26th October 2009
ST. THOMAS -- It almost starts like a joke. Did you hear the one about the three national icons -- the soldier, the Tims and the Canadians?
A Canadian soldier walks into a Tim Hortons and sits beside a group of Canadian civilians enjoying a national pastime -- drinking coffee and complaining.
The soldier was Capt. Bill Arnot, 55, just returned from Afghanistan.
"When you get back from something like Afghanistan, your frustration levels are quick to jump for all kinds of reasons," Arnot says.
"Several people were sitting next to us and one was going on and on about how bad things were. I finally looked at the people, and said, 'You have no idea, no idea how good you have it. So please, keep your bitching to yourself.' Well, it didn't go over very well."
The customers complained to the manager and the manager suggested Arnot not talk to ordinary people in quite that tone.
"I am much better now," Arnot says, but adds with a big smile, "I don't do well with whining."
Arnot grew up big and strong and outdoors all the time in Toronto beaches and Sutton. His dad was a police officer and after a short stint in the army marred by leg injuries, Arnot joined the Mississauga police force.
Over the years, he worked his way up to firearms trainer, then an instructor at the police college at Aylmer. During the 1990s, he turned back to the past, going back on the street as a St. Thomas police officer and joining the reserves. He's now a full-time reservist and deputy commanding officer at 31 Combat Engineer Regiment in St. Thomas.
In May 2008, Arnot headed to Afghanistan to work in headquarters at Kandahar Airfield as an engineer operations officer.
He and a partner were available 24/7 to help oversee every operation involving engineers, from repairing roads to moving troops and equipment to large-scale reconstruction projects such as dams, roads, schools and medical facilities.
They worked 18-hour days, mostly 6O days a week. Working just as hard to rebuild their country were their Canadian comrades and Afghans.
Arnot still marvels seeing local workers pave, with hand tools only, an 800-metre section of road while he was there.
He came home convinced progress was being made.
He came home looking forward to seeing his wife, son and daughter and taking some time off.
"I went absolutely nuts," he says. "You are going constantly for 9O months. To come back and stop all of a sudden . . . "
Arnot got to know a military social worker while he helped out a family of a wounded soldier several years earlier. Talking to that worker and other military friends helped him ease into life in Canada.
So did his wife of 33 years, Donna.
"I think many people are afraid of me. They look at my size and say, 'I'm not going to say anything. My wife, she would just look at me and I'd realize, OK, time to slow down a little bit."
Arnot's lucky.
Young and single soldiers, without marital support, have the highest rates of depression and post-traumatic stress disorders, a national survey led by London psychiatrist Don Richardson found in 2007.
Arnot and other area soldiers also have the good fortune of living close to the Operational Stress Injury Clinic at Parkwood Hospital, where Richardson is a consulting psychiatrist.
"The number of people we are seeing from Afghanistan is continually growing," Richardson says.
Since December 2007, the clinic has experienced a 50% increase in clients, now up to about 225, says clinic co-ordinator Rita Wiltsie.
The clinic helps both veterans and current soldiers. For a long time, the bulk of clients were peacekeepers from areas such as the Balkans and Africa.
The single biggest group now, at 26%, consists of people who served in Afghanistan, Wiltsie says.
London's was one of the original five clinics funded by the federal government, which recently opened four more clinics with two more to come after two reports critical of how the military was treating stress among soldiers,
In 2002, the Canadian Forces ombudsman prepared a report critical of the Canadian Forces and Department of National Defence's handling of soldiers' mental health.
A review six years later found much had been improved, mainly in identifying disorders in soldiers and beefing up mental health programs.
But there are still problems, and still people falling through the gaps.
For example, the families of soldiers face far more stress and mental illnesses than originally thought, the 2008 ombudsman report said.
"They may suffer indirectly as a result of having to care for the military member. They may develop stress-related mental health problems themselves. Or the dynamics within families may be adversely affected."
Whatever the problem, Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence must do more to help military families, the report concluded.
Military Family Resource Centres told investigators they lack resources to help more families.
The London Military Family Resource Centre is supposed to offer counselling and other services to families across Southwestern Ontario, but until last year, had only a London office.
Last year, the centre created outreach offices in Windsor, Hamilton and Cambridge, putting stress on the budget.
"Last year, we came up $100,000 short," says executive director Gary Willaert. "It doesn't look good this year because of cutbacks."
National Defence contributes the bulk of the funding, with the rest from fundraising.
Last year, the centre needed a $50,000 emergency bailout from the local military budget to keep the outreach centres going.
Next spring, about 180 soldiers from Southwestern Ontario will head to Afghanistan, putting even more pressure on the resource centre.
Centre staff will help families before the soldier leaves, while he's gone and when he comes back.
"The reunion is one of the most difficult parts of deployment. Everybody expects this happy forever after ending," says Kym Wolfe, a personal development co-ordinator at the centre.
But spouses may find their routines upset and children discover their fathers need some space, she said.
"Family members don't always expect how high a level of stress they will feel," adds Beverly Robbins, co-ordinator for family separation and reunion programs. "They are so worried about the soldiers when they should be looking for their own red flags."
Growing up as a navy brat, Londoner Dianne Boudreau remembers her father coming home from sea and the entire household being thrown into chaos.
Her father wanted to sweep the family up in his arms and celebrate, but her mother had to keep the house running, she says.
"Dad would say, 'They don't have to do this, let's just go in the yard and play some ball or go for a drive,' and mom would always be saying, 'The kids have things they had to do.' "
Three of her own sons are in the military.
When one went to Afghanistan, "I just went right off the deep end."
She's a huge supporter of the centre and uses her own family to point out not just spouses and children, but the parents and siblings and aunts and uncles of soldiers need support.
Deployment and reunion can be even harder on the extended family of reservists, Robbins says.
"The regular force families, they know the whole military lifestyle. A reservist family may not know what to expect."
Reservists come from all over the province, with families, especially parents, often not living near a military base, she says.
"Parents sometimes have no idea what to expect," Robbins says.
It doesn't help that soldiers themselves often only talk to their spouses about deployment, but leave their parents out of the mix, Robbins says.
That reflects one of the largest challenges the military has in helping soldiers come home -- the attitude of soldiers themselves.
The 2002 ombudsman investigation found soldiers diagnosed with stress disorder were seen as "fakers, malingerers or as being weak and incapable." About one-quarter of the 31 original recommendations were aimed at changing military culture.
Six years later, the stigma remains, the followup investigation found. Training programs that arose from the original recommendations had stalled and few brass at military establishments across the country were issuing any direction on training to help soldiers with stress.
In June, the military responded, launching a Canadian Forces mental health awareness campaign to educate soldiers and their leaders and change the culture.
"The support is there," Arnot says. "Half the battle is the individual needs to ask. You can only push so hard."
The attitude within the military, from the brass to soldiers, is changing, says Wiltsie.
"I think there has been a lot of work done to create a climate of acceptance," she says.
"People are now coming forward, from military personnel to family members, and are telling their stories."
-
J.B. Stone - Posts: 47725
- Joined: 04/ 11/ 03 10:01 am
- Location: Northwest Montana
by J.B. Stone » 10/ 28/ 09 8:00 am
Soldier suicides on the rise
Military denies trend, insists rate steady throughout Afghan war
By MURRAY BREWSTER The Canadian Press
Wed. Oct 28
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1149851.html
OTTAWA — More Canadian soldiers killed themselves in 2008 than the year before, but the military says the overall suicide rate has remained steady throughout the war in Afghanistan, despite the obvious stresses of the mission.
Fifteen active-duty members of the military took their own lives last year — a rate of 23 per 100,000 — versus 11 confirmed suicides in 2007, according to newly released Defence Department statistics.
But the average rate of suicide over three years, from 2005 to 2008, was 17.9 per 100,000. Those are the years which involved the heaviest combat in Afghanistan and the highest number of troop rotations.
Surprisingly, the military does not track suicides among reservists who are filling an ever-increasing number of the positions in the battle groups that are deployed for six month rotations in Kandahar.
The figures, from the military’s medical branch, come amid greater public awareness of the issue following the apparent suicide of Maj. Michelle Mendes in Afghanistan and media coverage of the growing number of cases among U.S. soldiers.
There were 128 confirmed U.S. army suicides in 2008 — a rate of 20.2 deaths per 100,000. The U.S. Marine Corps suicide rate was 19 per 100,000.
A broadcast report last year claimed the number of suicides in the Canadian Forces had doubled, but that information was based on data that was compiled from military police logs, which included other kinds of "sudden" deaths, such as accidents.
In considering the latest numbers, the Canadian military’s top doctor zeroed in on the three-year average and said Canadians appeared to be faring better than their biggest ally when it comes to dealing with the stresses of war.
Commodore Hans Jung said there are some important differences that contribute to the slightly better rate, including the fact that Canadian troops deploy for six month tours. American units serve between nine and 15 months in war zones.
"That tour length is a huge issue," the military’s surgeon-general said in an interview.
Since Canadians became involved in major combat in 2006, there have been regular debates within the upper ranks of the Defence Department about extending Canadian tour lengths for battle group soldiers, but the idea has always been vetoed. Troops who serve with support elements, such as the headquarters, are deployed for longer stretches.
Jung said the invoking of stop-loss orders on U.S. soldiers, which essentially prevent them from leaving the military even though their term is up, is another factor in the higher, average suicide rate there.
Canada’s military also has a superior mental health-education and support system, Jung claimed.
Part of the reason is the size.
"They’re so much larger and they deploy for such a long time; I think they have higher stresses," said Jung.
The death of Mendes, a 30-year-old rising star within the officer corps, brought the question of suicide prevention within the military into sharp focus.
Specific questions about screening and whether she should have been deployed for a second tour into one of the most senior intelligence positions in southern Afghanistan remain unanswered six months after her death.
The Canadian Forces National Investigative Service has not released the findings of its probe and claimed last month it was still awaiting autopsy results from the Ontario coroner — a report that has apparently now been delivered.
What’s troubling to some opposition members is the lack of attention paid to reservists who take their own lives.
Generally, suicides among part-time soldiers are brought to the attention of the military by civilian authorities, but a plan is underway to cross-reference the names of all military members since 1972 onward to Statistics Canada’s mortality database.
Liberal MP Dan McTeague, who championed the plight of wounded soldiers and reservists, said absence of such data eight years after the war started is startling and speaks to how the contribution of citizen soldiers is downplayed.
Military denies trend, insists rate steady throughout Afghan war
By MURRAY BREWSTER The Canadian Press
Wed. Oct 28
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1149851.html
OTTAWA — More Canadian soldiers killed themselves in 2008 than the year before, but the military says the overall suicide rate has remained steady throughout the war in Afghanistan, despite the obvious stresses of the mission.
Fifteen active-duty members of the military took their own lives last year — a rate of 23 per 100,000 — versus 11 confirmed suicides in 2007, according to newly released Defence Department statistics.
But the average rate of suicide over three years, from 2005 to 2008, was 17.9 per 100,000. Those are the years which involved the heaviest combat in Afghanistan and the highest number of troop rotations.
Surprisingly, the military does not track suicides among reservists who are filling an ever-increasing number of the positions in the battle groups that are deployed for six month rotations in Kandahar.
The figures, from the military’s medical branch, come amid greater public awareness of the issue following the apparent suicide of Maj. Michelle Mendes in Afghanistan and media coverage of the growing number of cases among U.S. soldiers.
There were 128 confirmed U.S. army suicides in 2008 — a rate of 20.2 deaths per 100,000. The U.S. Marine Corps suicide rate was 19 per 100,000.
A broadcast report last year claimed the number of suicides in the Canadian Forces had doubled, but that information was based on data that was compiled from military police logs, which included other kinds of "sudden" deaths, such as accidents.
In considering the latest numbers, the Canadian military’s top doctor zeroed in on the three-year average and said Canadians appeared to be faring better than their biggest ally when it comes to dealing with the stresses of war.
Commodore Hans Jung said there are some important differences that contribute to the slightly better rate, including the fact that Canadian troops deploy for six month tours. American units serve between nine and 15 months in war zones.
"That tour length is a huge issue," the military’s surgeon-general said in an interview.
Since Canadians became involved in major combat in 2006, there have been regular debates within the upper ranks of the Defence Department about extending Canadian tour lengths for battle group soldiers, but the idea has always been vetoed. Troops who serve with support elements, such as the headquarters, are deployed for longer stretches.
Jung said the invoking of stop-loss orders on U.S. soldiers, which essentially prevent them from leaving the military even though their term is up, is another factor in the higher, average suicide rate there.
Canada’s military also has a superior mental health-education and support system, Jung claimed.
Part of the reason is the size.
"They’re so much larger and they deploy for such a long time; I think they have higher stresses," said Jung.
The death of Mendes, a 30-year-old rising star within the officer corps, brought the question of suicide prevention within the military into sharp focus.
Specific questions about screening and whether she should have been deployed for a second tour into one of the most senior intelligence positions in southern Afghanistan remain unanswered six months after her death.
The Canadian Forces National Investigative Service has not released the findings of its probe and claimed last month it was still awaiting autopsy results from the Ontario coroner — a report that has apparently now been delivered.
What’s troubling to some opposition members is the lack of attention paid to reservists who take their own lives.
Generally, suicides among part-time soldiers are brought to the attention of the military by civilian authorities, but a plan is underway to cross-reference the names of all military members since 1972 onward to Statistics Canada’s mortality database.
Liberal MP Dan McTeague, who championed the plight of wounded soldiers and reservists, said absence of such data eight years after the war started is startling and speaks to how the contribution of citizen soldiers is downplayed.
-
J.B. Stone - Posts: 47725
- Joined: 04/ 11/ 03 10:01 am
- Location: Northwest Montana
by J.B. Stone » 10/ 28/ 09 10:47 am
THE EFFECTS KEEP SPREADING......
A Groundbreaking Court Decision for Vets With PTSD
Wed Oct 28, 2009
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- A groundbreaking verdict for accused Veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was decided in Canyon City, Oregon on October 19 when former soldier Jesse Bratcher, on trial for murder, was found guilty by reason of insanity. It was the first trial in the U.S. where a Veteran's PTSD was successfully considered to mitigate the circumstances of a crime.
Dr. William Brown and Dr. Robert Stanulis from The Bunker Project, who work on Veteran defense cases throughout Oregon and Washington, provided research and testimony for Bratcher's attorney who argued that his PTSD and the influence of the Military Total Institution shaped his actions in the killing of Jose Ceja Medina. Bratcher believed his girlfriend had been raped by the man he shot to death. Bratcher is VA rated as 100% disabled due to PTSD he developed while deployed in Iraq. Bratcher was a model citizen before joining the Army, with no criminal or juvenile history.
Bratcher strictly adhered to the rules of engagement in Iraq, twice refusing to fire on civilians. There, he witnessed the death of a friend from an IED explosion, which commanders reported drastically changed Bratcher's mental state.
Dr. Brown is a Vietnam Veteran and college professor who dedicates time to assisting defense cases of Veterans. He teaches Criminology at Western Oregon University.
"This is a significant decision, for Jesse and for Vets around the country,
who were law abiding citizens before they went to war and who have been
accused of crimes since returning home," said NVF President Shad Meshad, who consulted with Project Bunker on the case. "The military and the VA have not done enough to diagnose soldiers and Veterans with PTSD and provide them with needed counseling and support to ease their readjustment to civilian life."
Shad Meshad has been working with Veterans since 1970. He was a Medical Service Officer during the Vietnam War, where he counseled soldiers who suffered from psychological and emotional problems resulting from their experiences in combat, including what would later become known as PTSD. The NVF is a national nonprofit, non-governmental organization dedicated to bettering the lives of veterans and their families. For more information on the case, visit http://www.nvf.org/blog/item/50.
SOURCE National Veterans Foundation
Shad Meshad, President and Founder of National Veterans Foundation,
1-888-777-4443, shad@nvf.org
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRel ... RN20091028
A Groundbreaking Court Decision for Vets With PTSD
Wed Oct 28, 2009
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- A groundbreaking verdict for accused Veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was decided in Canyon City, Oregon on October 19 when former soldier Jesse Bratcher, on trial for murder, was found guilty by reason of insanity. It was the first trial in the U.S. where a Veteran's PTSD was successfully considered to mitigate the circumstances of a crime.
Dr. William Brown and Dr. Robert Stanulis from The Bunker Project, who work on Veteran defense cases throughout Oregon and Washington, provided research and testimony for Bratcher's attorney who argued that his PTSD and the influence of the Military Total Institution shaped his actions in the killing of Jose Ceja Medina. Bratcher believed his girlfriend had been raped by the man he shot to death. Bratcher is VA rated as 100% disabled due to PTSD he developed while deployed in Iraq. Bratcher was a model citizen before joining the Army, with no criminal or juvenile history.
Bratcher strictly adhered to the rules of engagement in Iraq, twice refusing to fire on civilians. There, he witnessed the death of a friend from an IED explosion, which commanders reported drastically changed Bratcher's mental state.
Dr. Brown is a Vietnam Veteran and college professor who dedicates time to assisting defense cases of Veterans. He teaches Criminology at Western Oregon University.
"This is a significant decision, for Jesse and for Vets around the country,
who were law abiding citizens before they went to war and who have been
accused of crimes since returning home," said NVF President Shad Meshad, who consulted with Project Bunker on the case. "The military and the VA have not done enough to diagnose soldiers and Veterans with PTSD and provide them with needed counseling and support to ease their readjustment to civilian life."
Shad Meshad has been working with Veterans since 1970. He was a Medical Service Officer during the Vietnam War, where he counseled soldiers who suffered from psychological and emotional problems resulting from their experiences in combat, including what would later become known as PTSD. The NVF is a national nonprofit, non-governmental organization dedicated to bettering the lives of veterans and their families. For more information on the case, visit http://www.nvf.org/blog/item/50.
SOURCE National Veterans Foundation
Shad Meshad, President and Founder of National Veterans Foundation,
1-888-777-4443, shad@nvf.org
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRel ... RN20091028
-
J.B. Stone - Posts: 47725
- Joined: 04/ 11/ 03 10:01 am
- Location: Northwest Montana
by J.B. Stone » 10/ 31/ 09 2:28 pm
Veterans Administration Moves to Simplify PTSD Compensation Rules
Posted at 8:56 PM on Saturday, August 29, 2009 by WiVSO
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is taking steps to assist Veterans seeking compensation for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
“The hidden wounds of war are being addressed vigorously and comprehensively by this administration as we move VA forward in its transformation to the 21st century,” said Secretary Shinseki.
The VA is publishing a proposed regulation today in the Federal Register to make it easier for a Veteran to claim service connection for PTSD by reducing the evidence needed if the stressor claimed by a Veteran is related to fear of hostile military or terrorist activity. Comments on the proposed rule will be accepted over the next 60 days. A final regulation will be published after consideration of all comments received.
Under the new rule, VA would not require corroboration of a stressor related to fear of hostile military or terrorist activity if a VA psychiatrist or psychologist confirms that the stressful experience recalled by a Veteran adequately supports a diagnosis of PTSD and the Veteran's symptoms are related to the claimed stressor.
Previously, claims adjudicators were required to corroborate that a non-combat Veteran actually experienced a stressor related to hostile military activity. This rule would simplify the development that is required for these cases.
PTSD is a recognized anxiety disorder that can follow seeing or experiencing an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury to which a person responds with intense fear, helplessness or horror, and is not uncommon in war.
Feelings of fear, confusion or anger often subside, but if the feelings don't go away or get worse, a Veteran may have PTSD.
The VA is bolstering its mental health capacity to serve combat Veterans, adding thousands of new professionals to its rolls in the last four years. The Department also has established a suicide prevention helpline (1-800-273-TALK) and Web site available for online chat in the evenings at www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/Veterans.
Posted at 8:56 PM on Saturday, August 29, 2009 by WiVSO
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is taking steps to assist Veterans seeking compensation for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
“The hidden wounds of war are being addressed vigorously and comprehensively by this administration as we move VA forward in its transformation to the 21st century,” said Secretary Shinseki.
The VA is publishing a proposed regulation today in the Federal Register to make it easier for a Veteran to claim service connection for PTSD by reducing the evidence needed if the stressor claimed by a Veteran is related to fear of hostile military or terrorist activity. Comments on the proposed rule will be accepted over the next 60 days. A final regulation will be published after consideration of all comments received.
Under the new rule, VA would not require corroboration of a stressor related to fear of hostile military or terrorist activity if a VA psychiatrist or psychologist confirms that the stressful experience recalled by a Veteran adequately supports a diagnosis of PTSD and the Veteran's symptoms are related to the claimed stressor.
Previously, claims adjudicators were required to corroborate that a non-combat Veteran actually experienced a stressor related to hostile military activity. This rule would simplify the development that is required for these cases.
PTSD is a recognized anxiety disorder that can follow seeing or experiencing an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury to which a person responds with intense fear, helplessness or horror, and is not uncommon in war.
Feelings of fear, confusion or anger often subside, but if the feelings don't go away or get worse, a Veteran may have PTSD.
The VA is bolstering its mental health capacity to serve combat Veterans, adding thousands of new professionals to its rolls in the last four years. The Department also has established a suicide prevention helpline (1-800-273-TALK) and Web site available for online chat in the evenings at www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/Veterans.
-
J.B. Stone - Posts: 47725
- Joined: 04/ 11/ 03 10:01 am
- Location: Northwest Montana
by J.B. Stone » 10/ 31/ 09 7:12 pm
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic ... #post44328
Veterans of Foreign Wars VFW wrote on April 2, 2009 at 6:46am:
Correcting Assumptions: On PTSD
By Alex Melonas
Mike Hawley had experienced a particularly rough tour in Iraq, seeing friends shot and his platoon sergeant blown out of his armored vehicle. He was also involved in an infamous incident in August 2006, when his armored unit, three days after returning from Iraq, was immediately redeployed to Iraq. The soldiers exploded with rage at a bar near their base in Anchorage, Alaska, picking a fight with the locals. Six members of Hawley’s Army unit were injured, and Hawley was knocked out with a lead pipe. “I date the anger issues I’ve had back to that incident,” Hawley said. “I felt betrayed and went back to Iraq tense, and with an attitude. After I finally got back, I’d alternate most of the time between anger and wanting to cry all the time.”
Dr. Gerald Cross, the undersecretary for health at the Veterans Health Administration, recently testified in a federal courthouse that of the 300,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars treated at VA hospitals, more than half were diagnosed with a serious mental condition, 68,000 – nearly 23% of the total number of veterans treated – of which were cases of PTSD. The Rand Corporation suggests that nearly 20% of OIF and OEF veterans have symptoms of PTSD or major depression.
“Mental illness,” PTSD specifically, is a particularly loaded concept. “Illness” denotes bad health, disease, and sickness. Most then assume that biological evidence of so-called mental problems should be present to be substantiated, and if evidence is not found many challenge the very validity of the illness itself. Plainly, if PTSD is an “illness” medial proof – biological evidence – will confirm it. If not, there is a tendency to stigmatize the cluster of symptoms as a result of weakness, over sensitivity, malingering or an over abundance of emotion.
However, as Dr. Edna Foa (a leading expert in the field) argues, research into biological correlates of PTSD has not yielded reliable results. There isn’t consistent brain chemistry separating the mentally ill from the rest; there is no blood test, no definitive medical test for PTSD. But this contradicts how we think about the issue. The evidence supports not PTSD as a disease but PTSD as relating to unconscious thought processes – common to most – that are uniquely affected by an extraordinary event.
There are consequences to this general misunderstanding.
The Army’s first study of the mental health of troops showed that less than half of those with mental health related problems sought help, mostly out of fear of being stigmatized or hurting their careers. In the latest study, only 38 percent to 40 percent of those who indicated mental health disorders were interested in getting help; 23 to 40 percent reported seeing someone for help. They cited concerns about how they would be seen by peers and potential damage to their careers. According to Dr. Charles W. Hoge, the study points to the need to “reduce the barriers and make it more likely for people to come in and get the help that they need.”
It’s reasonable to link these “barriers” and the stigma to the ignorance surrounding PTSD.
Various people have offered different theories of PTSD. Some theorize that PTSD emerges do to the development of thought processes that elicits escape and avoidance behavior. Other theories focus on the impact of the trauma on a person’s belief system and the adjustment that is necessary to reconcile the traumatic even with prior beliefs and expectations. While others posit a conception of PTSD focused more on the actual content of the thoughts and propose that basic assumptions about the world and oneself are shattered.
It is important to note that in each of these theories, the unconscious is crucial. PTSD doesn’t signal excessive emotionalism or even conscious processing. It is an effect of differing schemas: thought processes, cognitions (thoughts) and adaptive techniques that have become second nature through one’s development and maturation. This does not relate to masculinity or femininity. It is how we have learned to think about situations and the world in which we live, which is in large part beyond our control.
In contrast to the “illness” model, PTSD should instead be understood as a reaction by normal people to an abnormal situation. “The traumatic events,” according to HELPGUIDE.net, “that lead to post-traumatic stress disorder are usually so overwhelming and frightening that they would upset anyone. When your sense of safety and trust are shattered, it’s normal to feel crazy, disconnected, or numb – and most people do. The only difference between people who go on to develop PTSD and those who don’t is how they cope with the trauma,” which are techniques engrained in us prior to the event itself.
We must re-understand PTSD to dig into the truth of this problem and avoid the judgment, stigma and stereotypes. PTSD is real and destructive, but it isn’t a disease, nor is it abnormal. Our medicalization of PTSD has shaped how we think about it and led to bad conclusions that have had a truly damaging impact on real people, really suffering.
From Anger Management Resource: “An Iraqi War vet that said “it wasn’t the fire fights in Baghdad that he was having trouble with, it was the little girl who was cut in half by automatic fire and the dog eating her arm.” Now picture going through these types of events and not being allowed to feel the emotions of these events. Instead, you run around doing as you were modified to do, meanwhile storing the real memories of these events deep inside yourself. Eventually you come home and leave the service. Your very essence has been drained and shrouded with this darkness where there seems to be no way of escaping it. To many, death seems to be the ONLY choice. The environment that held you together is now gone. Everyone else isn’t, for the most part, trained to repress and hold in the intensity inside. You are standing there, alone, with this darkness inside.”
“Jonathan Schulze was awarded two Purple Hearts in 2005 after a lengthy tour of duty in Iraq. But the Marine veteran couldn’t escape the war inside his head. Drugs and alcohol temporarily numbed his pain. Yet the guilt he carried around with him having been one of a handful of soldiers in his unit to survive combat was impossible to run away from. On January 16, 2007, Schulze placed a framed photograph of his one-year-old daughter beside him. He wrapped an electrical cord around his neck and hung himself in the basement of a friend’s house in New Prague, Minnesota. He was 25 years old” (Scoop: Independent News).
There isn’t medical evidence to be found, just an understanding that the bad dreams, outbursts, feelings of helplessness and numbness that plague servicemembers and veterans aren’t strange or even unique. PTSD is the common result, albeit in varying degrees in different people, of traumatic past experiences.
Alex Melonas can be reached via his Facebook profile page at:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id= ... 418&ref=ts
Veterans of Foreign Wars VFW wrote on April 2, 2009 at 6:46am:
Correcting Assumptions: On PTSD
By Alex Melonas
Mike Hawley had experienced a particularly rough tour in Iraq, seeing friends shot and his platoon sergeant blown out of his armored vehicle. He was also involved in an infamous incident in August 2006, when his armored unit, three days after returning from Iraq, was immediately redeployed to Iraq. The soldiers exploded with rage at a bar near their base in Anchorage, Alaska, picking a fight with the locals. Six members of Hawley’s Army unit were injured, and Hawley was knocked out with a lead pipe. “I date the anger issues I’ve had back to that incident,” Hawley said. “I felt betrayed and went back to Iraq tense, and with an attitude. After I finally got back, I’d alternate most of the time between anger and wanting to cry all the time.”
Dr. Gerald Cross, the undersecretary for health at the Veterans Health Administration, recently testified in a federal courthouse that of the 300,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars treated at VA hospitals, more than half were diagnosed with a serious mental condition, 68,000 – nearly 23% of the total number of veterans treated – of which were cases of PTSD. The Rand Corporation suggests that nearly 20% of OIF and OEF veterans have symptoms of PTSD or major depression.
“Mental illness,” PTSD specifically, is a particularly loaded concept. “Illness” denotes bad health, disease, and sickness. Most then assume that biological evidence of so-called mental problems should be present to be substantiated, and if evidence is not found many challenge the very validity of the illness itself. Plainly, if PTSD is an “illness” medial proof – biological evidence – will confirm it. If not, there is a tendency to stigmatize the cluster of symptoms as a result of weakness, over sensitivity, malingering or an over abundance of emotion.
However, as Dr. Edna Foa (a leading expert in the field) argues, research into biological correlates of PTSD has not yielded reliable results. There isn’t consistent brain chemistry separating the mentally ill from the rest; there is no blood test, no definitive medical test for PTSD. But this contradicts how we think about the issue. The evidence supports not PTSD as a disease but PTSD as relating to unconscious thought processes – common to most – that are uniquely affected by an extraordinary event.
There are consequences to this general misunderstanding.
The Army’s first study of the mental health of troops showed that less than half of those with mental health related problems sought help, mostly out of fear of being stigmatized or hurting their careers. In the latest study, only 38 percent to 40 percent of those who indicated mental health disorders were interested in getting help; 23 to 40 percent reported seeing someone for help. They cited concerns about how they would be seen by peers and potential damage to their careers. According to Dr. Charles W. Hoge, the study points to the need to “reduce the barriers and make it more likely for people to come in and get the help that they need.”
It’s reasonable to link these “barriers” and the stigma to the ignorance surrounding PTSD.
Various people have offered different theories of PTSD. Some theorize that PTSD emerges do to the development of thought processes that elicits escape and avoidance behavior. Other theories focus on the impact of the trauma on a person’s belief system and the adjustment that is necessary to reconcile the traumatic even with prior beliefs and expectations. While others posit a conception of PTSD focused more on the actual content of the thoughts and propose that basic assumptions about the world and oneself are shattered.
It is important to note that in each of these theories, the unconscious is crucial. PTSD doesn’t signal excessive emotionalism or even conscious processing. It is an effect of differing schemas: thought processes, cognitions (thoughts) and adaptive techniques that have become second nature through one’s development and maturation. This does not relate to masculinity or femininity. It is how we have learned to think about situations and the world in which we live, which is in large part beyond our control.
In contrast to the “illness” model, PTSD should instead be understood as a reaction by normal people to an abnormal situation. “The traumatic events,” according to HELPGUIDE.net, “that lead to post-traumatic stress disorder are usually so overwhelming and frightening that they would upset anyone. When your sense of safety and trust are shattered, it’s normal to feel crazy, disconnected, or numb – and most people do. The only difference between people who go on to develop PTSD and those who don’t is how they cope with the trauma,” which are techniques engrained in us prior to the event itself.
We must re-understand PTSD to dig into the truth of this problem and avoid the judgment, stigma and stereotypes. PTSD is real and destructive, but it isn’t a disease, nor is it abnormal. Our medicalization of PTSD has shaped how we think about it and led to bad conclusions that have had a truly damaging impact on real people, really suffering.
From Anger Management Resource: “An Iraqi War vet that said “it wasn’t the fire fights in Baghdad that he was having trouble with, it was the little girl who was cut in half by automatic fire and the dog eating her arm.” Now picture going through these types of events and not being allowed to feel the emotions of these events. Instead, you run around doing as you were modified to do, meanwhile storing the real memories of these events deep inside yourself. Eventually you come home and leave the service. Your very essence has been drained and shrouded with this darkness where there seems to be no way of escaping it. To many, death seems to be the ONLY choice. The environment that held you together is now gone. Everyone else isn’t, for the most part, trained to repress and hold in the intensity inside. You are standing there, alone, with this darkness inside.”
“Jonathan Schulze was awarded two Purple Hearts in 2005 after a lengthy tour of duty in Iraq. But the Marine veteran couldn’t escape the war inside his head. Drugs and alcohol temporarily numbed his pain. Yet the guilt he carried around with him having been one of a handful of soldiers in his unit to survive combat was impossible to run away from. On January 16, 2007, Schulze placed a framed photograph of his one-year-old daughter beside him. He wrapped an electrical cord around his neck and hung himself in the basement of a friend’s house in New Prague, Minnesota. He was 25 years old” (Scoop: Independent News).
There isn’t medical evidence to be found, just an understanding that the bad dreams, outbursts, feelings of helplessness and numbness that plague servicemembers and veterans aren’t strange or even unique. PTSD is the common result, albeit in varying degrees in different people, of traumatic past experiences.
Alex Melonas can be reached via his Facebook profile page at:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id= ... 418&ref=ts
-
J.B. Stone - Posts: 47725
- Joined: 04/ 11/ 03 10:01 am
- Location: Northwest Montana
by J.B. Stone » 10/ 31/ 09 7:29 pm
PTSD DISCRIMINATION....
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ON WEBMASTER AND VIETNAM VETERAN JACK CUNNINGHAM AND HIS U.S. MARINE BUDDY GEORGE DROS.
http://www.americans-working-together.c ... /id37.html
UPDATE: FBI Agrees To Look Into Jack Cunningham's Corruption Charges Against The State of New Jersey http://www.americans-working-together.com/id519.html
~ WATCH YOUR ASS, MARINE! ~
http://www.americans-working-together.c ... m/id6.html
The Office of Attorney Ethics is caught protecting the law firms of lawyer committee members from legal malpractice.
http://www.americans-working-together.c ... /id50.html
A High Level Federal Government Official Admits to Perjury, which violates a disabled veteran's civil right to Due Process. Please press the below link for the details.
http://www.americans-working-together.c ... /id53.html
New Jersey Vice-Chairman of Attorney Ethics Robert Correale, Esq, his Law Firm, MAYNARD & TRULAND and their state government supporters participated in what can only be described as deplorable malfeasance.
http://www.americans-working-together.c ... /id22.html
Please Press Here To Learn Details About Who Is Jack Cunningham.
Freshman U.S. Senator Robert Menendez Fights State Corruption And Supports A Disabled Veteran's Civil Rights. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg supports a PTSD disabled veteran's request for United States Attorney General Gonzales to investigation the same state corruption and Civil Rights Issue.
It's been almost a six year battle, but I might be finally getting my Due Process. I pray that U.S. Attorney General Gonzales opens up an investigation. Six years is a long time for a veteran to battle for something that every American has as a Civil Right.
Jack Cunningham http://www.CapVeterans.com
UPDATE LETTERS: http://www.americans-working-together.c ... /id22.html
(Is this too much to ask an honorable PTSD veteran?) I still have NOT received a return letter from the below listed Ccs concerning this letter...
http://home.earthlink.net/~ptsd_discrimination/
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ON WEBMASTER AND VIETNAM VETERAN JACK CUNNINGHAM AND HIS U.S. MARINE BUDDY GEORGE DROS.
http://www.americans-working-together.c ... /id37.html
UPDATE: FBI Agrees To Look Into Jack Cunningham's Corruption Charges Against The State of New Jersey http://www.americans-working-together.com/id519.html
~ WATCH YOUR ASS, MARINE! ~
http://www.americans-working-together.c ... m/id6.html
The Office of Attorney Ethics is caught protecting the law firms of lawyer committee members from legal malpractice.
http://www.americans-working-together.c ... /id50.html
A High Level Federal Government Official Admits to Perjury, which violates a disabled veteran's civil right to Due Process. Please press the below link for the details.
http://www.americans-working-together.c ... /id53.html
New Jersey Vice-Chairman of Attorney Ethics Robert Correale, Esq, his Law Firm, MAYNARD & TRULAND and their state government supporters participated in what can only be described as deplorable malfeasance.
http://www.americans-working-together.c ... /id22.html
Please Press Here To Learn Details About Who Is Jack Cunningham.
Freshman U.S. Senator Robert Menendez Fights State Corruption And Supports A Disabled Veteran's Civil Rights. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg supports a PTSD disabled veteran's request for United States Attorney General Gonzales to investigation the same state corruption and Civil Rights Issue.
It's been almost a six year battle, but I might be finally getting my Due Process. I pray that U.S. Attorney General Gonzales opens up an investigation. Six years is a long time for a veteran to battle for something that every American has as a Civil Right.
Jack Cunningham http://www.CapVeterans.com
UPDATE LETTERS: http://www.americans-working-together.c ... /id22.html
(Is this too much to ask an honorable PTSD veteran?) I still have NOT received a return letter from the below listed Ccs concerning this letter...
http://home.earthlink.net/~ptsd_discrimination/
-
J.B. Stone - Posts: 47725
- Joined: 04/ 11/ 03 10:01 am
- Location: Northwest Montana
by J.B. Stone » 11/ 13/ 09 9:11 pm
Fort Hood Shooting
Thursday, Nov 12, 2009 12:13 PST
The media's silly Fort Hood coverage
Everyone wants to debate terrorism and political correctness, but the real story is the failure of Army medicine
By Mark Benjamin
The conventional narrative of the Fort Hood shootings, one week later, has been distinguished by the reporting of unconfirmed -- and sometimes incorrect -- details and the drawing of dubious conclusions. The only thing that suggests the current story will withstand the test of time better than the initial Pat Tillman myth (that he died in combat, rather than by friendly fire), or the overheated tale of heroism by Jessica Lynch in 2003 (which Lynch herself protested), is that two basic facts seem clear: The shootings certainly happened, and given the number of eyewitnesses, it's almost certain that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan did it.
The fact that it was first incorrectly reported that Hasan died in the shootings, and that he was in cahoots with other perpetrators, may well be fairly chalked up to confusion during that first chaotic day. Other details, however, continue to unravel a week later. The media debate provoked by the Hasan incident is equally off-topic and unreliable. As someone who's been asked to talk about the shootings because of my work covering the poor psychological care given to returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, I've had a front-row seat on the way preconceived biases are distorting the debate.
First, the ongoing factual unraveling of the narrative. As the New York Times reported this Thursday, initial information seized on by talk shows that Sgt. Kimberly Munley, a petite police officer, bravely brought down Hasan in a hail of gunfire in which she was also wounded was, well, also not true. Munley, it seems, just got shot. Senior Sgt. Mark Todd actually shot Hasan to the ground and cuffed him after Munley had already been wounded.
Also on Thursday, the Washington Post raised solid questions about previous reports that Hasan had tried to get out of his military service because of what he saw as a growing schism between his religious and military duties. While Hasan's aunt has said he wanted to get out of the military, the Post quotes an Army source who claims Hasan "did not formally seek to leave the military as a conscientious objector or for any other reason."
Despite some print publications attempting to keep track of these kinds of facts, a lot of media folks continue to ask the wrong questions and/or provide some of their own unlikely, or unsubstantiated, answers.
The Monday after the shootings, I got my first taste of how the story was embarking on a life of its own as I settled into a chair at one of MSNBC’s Washington studios to do Dylan Ratigan's “Morning Meeting.”
“One question being asked, among many, is whether political correctness stalled the response to possible warning signs from Maj. Hasan,” Ratigan said in his introduction. Ratigan then asked me if there had been “too much tolerance in this instance.”
Too much political correctness in the military? You know, the place where they fire you if you admit you’re gay? The Army has its share of challenges, but in a decade of covering the military, I certainly haven’t come across any evidence that the institution is somehow paralyzed by the burden of gratuitous political correctness. And while that might provide a convenient way for Army officials to explain, anonymously, why nobody prevented Hasan from killing 13 people -- “We are just too afraid of criticizing Muslims” -- I haven’t seen a shred of evidence to suggest this might be true.
The cover of Time magazine depicts another befuddling sideshow to the Fort Hood story. The cover is a picture of Hasan with the word “Terrorist?” over his eyes. “It is a story about why Maj. Hasan is a terrorist,” Time managing editor Richard Stengel explained on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” one week after the killings.
I’d heard this one before – the debate about whether we should label Hasan a terrorist, or the shooting as an act of terrorism. Right-wing media host Laura Ingraham railed at me on this subject on her radio show this week after I had referred to Hasan as being partly motivated by a “religious thing,” but I had failed to use the word "terrorism." “I say that you won’t call it what it is,” she shouted, “which is terrorism!” (I had called it "Muslim extremism" but that wasn't good enough for Ingraham.)
The obsession with that label “terrorist” seems beside the point. The real question is why the shootings were allowed to occur, and who, exactly, dropped the ball -- not what we call it all afterward.
Stengel explained on "Morning Joe" why he thinks that label is so important that it should grace the cover of his magazine, and he anchored his argument with some of the same tenuous logic I’d tangled with on "Morning Meeting." Once we come to terms with calling Hasan a religiously motivated terrorist, he argued, we can begin to tackle the real reason the Army failed to stop the shootings -- political correctness.
“People in the military say there is a lot of political correctness here,” Stengel explained. “There is a lot of fear of criticizing Muslims in the military and as a result, a guy like Hasan can get promoted up through the ranks. He became a major,” he explained. “I think we need to address this issue.”
In addition, one of Stengel’s key pieces of evidence that Hasan was a terrorist was the following: “This is a man who stood up before he killed people and said ‘God is great’ in Arabic,” Stengel announced.
That may be true, though I’ve been unable to find an original or credible source for this information. The original source seems to be a question from NBC's Matt Lauer to Fort Hood's Lt. Gen. Robert Cone on Nov. 6, the morning after the shootings. Lauer cited a relative of a witness to the shooting claiming that Hasan had said "God is great" in Arabic before opening fire. Cone responded: "There are firsthand accounts here from soldiers that are similar to that." Fort Hood, however, will not confirm this aspect of the story. “We are not at liberty to discuss questions related to this case,” spokesman Chris Haug said in an e-mail when I asked about the "God is great" story. “There is an ongoing investigation.”
Meanwhile, most members of the media continue to ignore the much more mundane, but seemingly more promising, avenues of inquiry that might explain why Hasan got away with murder.
Hasan was a military psychiatrist toiling in an overburdened, desperate Army healthcare system that will hold onto any warm body with a medical degree. Remember the Walter Reed scandal? The horrific treatment of traumatic brain injury and PTSD that has gone on for years? Army medicine has been dropping the ball on these issues for a long time. Given that history, it's not hugely surprising they'd miss warning signs with Hasan and just let him go on being a doctor.
Army medical officials, at least to my knowledge, haven’t been asked even the most basic questions. Why, for example, was Hasan allowed to continue counseling troops suffering stress from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan after, for example, delivering a PowerPoint presentation in June 2007 at Walter Reed warning of “adverse events” if Muslims were forced to kill other Muslims in battle. It’s hard to imagine Hasan being particularly empathetic with his patients. Imagine coming back from Iraq with mental problems from combat, and this is the psychiatrist who is supposed to help you heal? So far, the only reaction from Army medical officials to these issues seems to have been the decision to move him to the war front in Afghanistan, so he could be even closer to the troops when they suffer adverse mental reactions. That’s odd.
As for Hasan getting promoted to major, the Washington Post Thursday suggested a more likely scenario than political correctness. They need more bodies. The Army is short 2,000 majors and the dearth is particularly acute in Army medicine. As the Post put it, “virtually all Army captains are being promoted to major.”
The passionate determination to hang the "terrorist" label on Hasan, or rail against "political correctness" in the military, are just more symptoms of media stars more excited about hot-headed debate than covering the real story. And the real story may be sadly familiar: It looks like Army medicine blew it, once again.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/ ... newsletter
~~~~~~~~~~
AND, SO.....THE TRAVESTY CONTINUES.....
Thursday, Nov 12, 2009 12:13 PST
The media's silly Fort Hood coverage
Everyone wants to debate terrorism and political correctness, but the real story is the failure of Army medicine
By Mark Benjamin
The conventional narrative of the Fort Hood shootings, one week later, has been distinguished by the reporting of unconfirmed -- and sometimes incorrect -- details and the drawing of dubious conclusions. The only thing that suggests the current story will withstand the test of time better than the initial Pat Tillman myth (that he died in combat, rather than by friendly fire), or the overheated tale of heroism by Jessica Lynch in 2003 (which Lynch herself protested), is that two basic facts seem clear: The shootings certainly happened, and given the number of eyewitnesses, it's almost certain that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan did it.
The fact that it was first incorrectly reported that Hasan died in the shootings, and that he was in cahoots with other perpetrators, may well be fairly chalked up to confusion during that first chaotic day. Other details, however, continue to unravel a week later. The media debate provoked by the Hasan incident is equally off-topic and unreliable. As someone who's been asked to talk about the shootings because of my work covering the poor psychological care given to returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, I've had a front-row seat on the way preconceived biases are distorting the debate.
First, the ongoing factual unraveling of the narrative. As the New York Times reported this Thursday, initial information seized on by talk shows that Sgt. Kimberly Munley, a petite police officer, bravely brought down Hasan in a hail of gunfire in which she was also wounded was, well, also not true. Munley, it seems, just got shot. Senior Sgt. Mark Todd actually shot Hasan to the ground and cuffed him after Munley had already been wounded.
Also on Thursday, the Washington Post raised solid questions about previous reports that Hasan had tried to get out of his military service because of what he saw as a growing schism between his religious and military duties. While Hasan's aunt has said he wanted to get out of the military, the Post quotes an Army source who claims Hasan "did not formally seek to leave the military as a conscientious objector or for any other reason."
Despite some print publications attempting to keep track of these kinds of facts, a lot of media folks continue to ask the wrong questions and/or provide some of their own unlikely, or unsubstantiated, answers.
The Monday after the shootings, I got my first taste of how the story was embarking on a life of its own as I settled into a chair at one of MSNBC’s Washington studios to do Dylan Ratigan's “Morning Meeting.”
“One question being asked, among many, is whether political correctness stalled the response to possible warning signs from Maj. Hasan,” Ratigan said in his introduction. Ratigan then asked me if there had been “too much tolerance in this instance.”
Too much political correctness in the military? You know, the place where they fire you if you admit you’re gay? The Army has its share of challenges, but in a decade of covering the military, I certainly haven’t come across any evidence that the institution is somehow paralyzed by the burden of gratuitous political correctness. And while that might provide a convenient way for Army officials to explain, anonymously, why nobody prevented Hasan from killing 13 people -- “We are just too afraid of criticizing Muslims” -- I haven’t seen a shred of evidence to suggest this might be true.
The cover of Time magazine depicts another befuddling sideshow to the Fort Hood story. The cover is a picture of Hasan with the word “Terrorist?” over his eyes. “It is a story about why Maj. Hasan is a terrorist,” Time managing editor Richard Stengel explained on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” one week after the killings.
I’d heard this one before – the debate about whether we should label Hasan a terrorist, or the shooting as an act of terrorism. Right-wing media host Laura Ingraham railed at me on this subject on her radio show this week after I had referred to Hasan as being partly motivated by a “religious thing,” but I had failed to use the word "terrorism." “I say that you won’t call it what it is,” she shouted, “which is terrorism!” (I had called it "Muslim extremism" but that wasn't good enough for Ingraham.)
The obsession with that label “terrorist” seems beside the point. The real question is why the shootings were allowed to occur, and who, exactly, dropped the ball -- not what we call it all afterward.
Stengel explained on "Morning Joe" why he thinks that label is so important that it should grace the cover of his magazine, and he anchored his argument with some of the same tenuous logic I’d tangled with on "Morning Meeting." Once we come to terms with calling Hasan a religiously motivated terrorist, he argued, we can begin to tackle the real reason the Army failed to stop the shootings -- political correctness.
“People in the military say there is a lot of political correctness here,” Stengel explained. “There is a lot of fear of criticizing Muslims in the military and as a result, a guy like Hasan can get promoted up through the ranks. He became a major,” he explained. “I think we need to address this issue.”
In addition, one of Stengel’s key pieces of evidence that Hasan was a terrorist was the following: “This is a man who stood up before he killed people and said ‘God is great’ in Arabic,” Stengel announced.
That may be true, though I’ve been unable to find an original or credible source for this information. The original source seems to be a question from NBC's Matt Lauer to Fort Hood's Lt. Gen. Robert Cone on Nov. 6, the morning after the shootings. Lauer cited a relative of a witness to the shooting claiming that Hasan had said "God is great" in Arabic before opening fire. Cone responded: "There are firsthand accounts here from soldiers that are similar to that." Fort Hood, however, will not confirm this aspect of the story. “We are not at liberty to discuss questions related to this case,” spokesman Chris Haug said in an e-mail when I asked about the "God is great" story. “There is an ongoing investigation.”
Meanwhile, most members of the media continue to ignore the much more mundane, but seemingly more promising, avenues of inquiry that might explain why Hasan got away with murder.
Hasan was a military psychiatrist toiling in an overburdened, desperate Army healthcare system that will hold onto any warm body with a medical degree. Remember the Walter Reed scandal? The horrific treatment of traumatic brain injury and PTSD that has gone on for years? Army medicine has been dropping the ball on these issues for a long time. Given that history, it's not hugely surprising they'd miss warning signs with Hasan and just let him go on being a doctor.
Army medical officials, at least to my knowledge, haven’t been asked even the most basic questions. Why, for example, was Hasan allowed to continue counseling troops suffering stress from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan after, for example, delivering a PowerPoint presentation in June 2007 at Walter Reed warning of “adverse events” if Muslims were forced to kill other Muslims in battle. It’s hard to imagine Hasan being particularly empathetic with his patients. Imagine coming back from Iraq with mental problems from combat, and this is the psychiatrist who is supposed to help you heal? So far, the only reaction from Army medical officials to these issues seems to have been the decision to move him to the war front in Afghanistan, so he could be even closer to the troops when they suffer adverse mental reactions. That’s odd.
As for Hasan getting promoted to major, the Washington Post Thursday suggested a more likely scenario than political correctness. They need more bodies. The Army is short 2,000 majors and the dearth is particularly acute in Army medicine. As the Post put it, “virtually all Army captains are being promoted to major.”
The passionate determination to hang the "terrorist" label on Hasan, or rail against "political correctness" in the military, are just more symptoms of media stars more excited about hot-headed debate than covering the real story. And the real story may be sadly familiar: It looks like Army medicine blew it, once again.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/ ... newsletter
~~~~~~~~~~
AND, SO.....THE TRAVESTY CONTINUES.....
-
J.B. Stone - Posts: 47725
- Joined: 04/ 11/ 03 10:01 am
- Location: Northwest Montana
by J.B. Stone » 11/ 16/ 09 2:55 pm
Website helps PTSD victims
http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Glob ... S=11507670
Posted: Nov 14, 2009 11:14 PM
Updated: Nov 14, 2009 11:14 PM
Reporting from KRTV in Great Falls
A new website is helping veterans connect and begin recovering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
It's an issue that Montana Senator Max Baucus brought to light earlier this week at a veteran healthcare roundtable in Great Falls.
A group called Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America says one-third of returning military members from those conflicts suffer from some type of combat-stress injury.
http://iava.org/
They've launched a social networking site for veterans with forums about everything from the GI bill to coping with anxiety, and how to talk to friends and family about being in combat.
"No one can talk to a vet like another vet” explained the group’s Tom Tarantino. “No one can understand what's going through, what a combat vet is going through, other than someone who has also seen combat."
Soldiers say that talking to fellow soldiers is already making a difference.
http://iava.org/transition-home
http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Glob ... S=11507670
Posted: Nov 14, 2009 11:14 PM
Updated: Nov 14, 2009 11:14 PM
Reporting from KRTV in Great Falls
A new website is helping veterans connect and begin recovering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
It's an issue that Montana Senator Max Baucus brought to light earlier this week at a veteran healthcare roundtable in Great Falls.
A group called Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America says one-third of returning military members from those conflicts suffer from some type of combat-stress injury.
http://iava.org/
They've launched a social networking site for veterans with forums about everything from the GI bill to coping with anxiety, and how to talk to friends and family about being in combat.
"No one can talk to a vet like another vet” explained the group’s Tom Tarantino. “No one can understand what's going through, what a combat vet is going through, other than someone who has also seen combat."
Soldiers say that talking to fellow soldiers is already making a difference.
http://iava.org/transition-home
-
J.B. Stone - Posts: 47725
- Joined: 04/ 11/ 03 10:01 am
- Location: Northwest Montana
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