VCS Supports Senator Webb’s Military and Veterans Education Reform Act of 2012

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Team VCS

 

Below is the text of an official letter of support from Veterans for Common Sense

in support of  important legislation designed to ensure our military recieve a quality education. Please tell your elected officials to support this reform

—

 

The Honorable Jim Webb

United States Senate 248 Russell Senate Office Bldg

Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Webb:

Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) strongly supports your urgently needed legislation, ”The Military and Veterans Education Reform Act of 2012”. VCS supports the critical reforms contained in this bill. We must protect the integrity of our higher education system and the promise of the Post 9/11 GI Bill and DOD tuition assistance programs. These benefits are to help our service members and veterans succeed when they come home; we owe it to them to ensure that success to the best of our abilities.

When our military and veterans chose to pursue a higher education they should have the confidence that the institution and the courses it offers meet basic standards. To that end our military and veterans need full access to all the information relevant to making a fully informed decision about their education. VCS has been troubled by serious problems among a number of for-profit colleges. VCS is concerned in particular with the aggressive, misleading and manipulative recruiting tactics, as well as the lack of transparency regarding basic facts about the performance and the accreditation credentials of a number of these for-profit colleges. VCS believes that “The Military and Veterans Education Reform Act of 2012”, addresses and will seek to correct many of these deficiencies.

Protecting our service members and veterans’ future should be our highest priority; the future of America depends on it. VCS supports “The Military and Veterans Education Reform Act of 2012”, and we hope the bill receives prompt hearings and a quick passage.

Sincerely,

Patrick Bellon, MPA

Iraq Veteran 

Executive Director

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged | Comments Off on VCS Supports Senator Webb’s Military and Veterans Education Reform Act of 2012

Webb: Limit GI Bill at for-profit schools

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Team VCS

 

By Rick Maze – Staff writer Posted : Friday Mar 9, 2012 11:20:35 EST The father of the Post-9/11 GI Bill has launched a battle to preserve the benefit by proposing new restrictions on tuition payments to for-profit schools.

The modern-day GI Bill has cost more than $17.2 billion in an era of belt-tightening, and about 37 percent of the money has gone to for-profit institutions. Some of these schools have been under fire because of a series of investigations that revealed high-pressure and deceptive recruiting practices, and questions about the value of the courses they teach.

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., the lawmaker behind the landmark veterans’ benefit, worries that the GI Bill could be ruined by some schools that use questionable recruiting practices and offer a lower-quality education.

More on the GI Bill

Delayed GI Bill funds leave students scrambling (March 9)

In a move he says could save the 3-year-old program, Webb introduced a bill Thursday that would set strict, specific standards for schools to receive both the Post-9/11 GI Bill and military tuition assistance.

Service members deserve to know their GI Bill benefits “will not be lost or squandered on an education that fails to equip them with the skills and knowledge they need to be successful,” Webb said as he introduced the bill.

The Military and Veterans Educational Reform Act of 2012, S 2179, would impose new requirements on schools. Among other things, schools seeking to receive GI Bill or tuition assistance money would have to:

• Meet the same federal requirements that apply to receiving Pell Grants and other federal aid. These standards include having an undergraduate dropout rate of no more than 33 percent.

• Disclose graduation rates and default rates on loans.

• Provide support services to students using GI Bill or tuition assistance funds, and one-on-one counseling before enrolling to plan a course of education, if the school has more than 20 such students.

In addition, state agencies responsible for screening schools would have to conduct audits, and the Veterans Affairs and Defense departments would have to develop a centralized complaint process to report fraud or misrepresentation.

These requirements are similar to regulations proposed by the Defense Department for schools receiving tuition assistance.

Webb is a Naval Academy graduate, former Marine Corps officer, decorated Vietnam War combat veteran and former Navy secretary who made passage of the Post-9/11 GI Bill his top priority when he became a senator in 2007. He modeled the benefit after the World War II GI Bill of Rights, with veterans eligible for full tuition, a monthly living stipend, a book allowance and money for tutors and tests.

About 700,000 people have used the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Webb is proud, calling it “the greatest GI Bill our veterans and military members have ever seen.”

Webb is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s personnel panel and a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, positions that give him an inside position to push the restrictions. But his power could be waning because he is not running for a second term. By November, he will be a so-called “lame duck” member of Congress with limited powers beyond his personal persuasiveness.

His cosponsors are Democratic Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; Tom Carper of Delaware; and Claire McCaskill of Missouri; and Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, an Army National Guard officer who serves with Webb on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

Harkin and Carper have been involved in a prolonged attack on for-profit schools over deceptive sales tactics and enrollment practices that in many cases have targeted service members and veterans. A Feb. 23 report prepared by Harkin’s staff found almost 50 percent of the $563 million spent last year by the Defense Department on tuition assistance for active-duty troops went to for-profit schools.

The for-profit school industry had no immediate comment on the bill. But the president of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, who testified before the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee the same day Webb introduced the bill, has defended the industry.

“Every sector of higher education has dealt with individual episodes of abuse or misbehavior,” said Steve Gunderson, as he testified about pending veterans’ education and employment legislation. “It is incumbent upon Congress to ensure that the actions of the few are not held against the many.”

Veterans attend for-profit schools “because we have consistently offered flexible administrative and academic policies, career-focused curricula, credit for past training and experience, and support services that strive to meet their unique academic and personal needs,” Gunderson said.

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged | Comments Off on Webb: Limit GI Bill at for-profit schools

Wars’ Amputees: 4 of 5 Say “Life Is Full”

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Team VCS

From Time’s the battleland blog

By Mark Thompson | @MarkThompson_DC | March 12, 2012 |

 

 

 

 

Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Michael J. Carden Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Michael J. Carden Marine Corporal Raymond Hennagir plays basketball with fellow military amputees in 2010

Nine of 10 have mental disorders. Two of every three suffer from PTSD, and 40{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} suffer from traumatic brain injury. Nine of 10 are on 100{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} disability. Four of five also suffer from diseases of the nervous system, and diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue. Many are living with moderate to extreme pain.

Yet amid all this bleakness, there is some good news: more than four of every five also say their “life is full.”

They are the 838 U.S. military veterans who lost a leg or arm in Afghanistan and Iraq (2.6{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} had three or four limb amputations). A new study from the Department of Veterans Affairs focuses on troops who suffered at least one “major amputation”: the loss of a leg at or above the ankle, or of an arm at or above the wrist. As of last Oct. 1, 1,288 U.S. military personnel had suffered such wounds; 450 remained on active duty, either undergoing rehabilitation or back with regular units. Among the 838 vets, 681 had lost some or all of a leg, and 149 had only an upper-extremity amputation.

The Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general, responding to a request from Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, decided to conduct “the first ever study to characterize the population of 1,288 Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn servicemembers with major traumatic amputations.” It combed military and VA data seeking information on the 838 vets with amputations, and conducted telephone and face-to-face interviews with many of them.

“Despite the challenge of major limb amputation, we estimated the majority (91.0 percent of lower limb and 80.0 percent of upper limb only) of veterans considered (agreed or strongly agreed) their `life is full,’” the study concluded. “In fact, we were very inspired by the high spirit of veterans we visited.”

While “some” veterans “reported receiving excellent care at VA facilities, many veterans indicated that VA needed to improve care” when it comes to prosthetic expertise and access to care.

The report says that “in response to the growing need to provide patient-centered amputation care to a younger population of combat-injured veterans, VA developed the ASoC” – the Amputation System of Care – which is a nationwide network of facilities designed to help vets cope with their wounds.

 

 

VA Where the amputees live, and where they are treated (click on map to enlarge) The report says the troops who have suffered amputations:

– averaged 25.3 years old when they were wounded.

– 98.3{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} are male.

– 68.3{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} were in the Army

– 28{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} were in the Marines

– 3.6{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} were in the Air Force or Navy

– 7{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} were officers (roughly half their proportion in the force)

– 62.8{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} were wounded in Iraq

– 37.2{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} were wounded in Afghanistan

Those who lost a leg did better than those who lost an arm:

We found that OEF/OIF/OND veterans generally were adapting to living with their amputations. Veterans with lower extremity amputations have good mobility…Veterans with upper extremity amputations only are functioning similarly to their counterparts in the general population; however, over half of these veterans reported experiencing moderate to severe pain. We found that veterans with upper extremity amputations consistently did not fare as well as those veterans with lower extremity amputations in their psychosocial adaptation, activity limitation, and prosthetic satisfaction.

There are inspirational tales:

One veteran we interviewed had relocated and was going to college full-time. He had one leg amputated at the hip, the other leg amputated high above the knee, and one arm amputated below the elbow. He praised his prosthetist, stating he never would have been able to walk again if it was not for the detailed time and attention he got from the prosthetist. He reported using a manual wheelchair to get around at school. He uses forearm crutches to walk with his prosthesis, for limited distances. He reported a high satisfaction with life and his prosthetic limbs.

And:

Even though he has a right above knee amputation and left below knee amputation, one young veteran continues to participate in activities he enjoyed before he was injured including mountain climbing, hunting, skydiving, and water sports. He attends a local university and has a goal of becoming an engineer. To “give back,” he is an advocate and spokesman for various community and VA programs. This veteran is able to live alone, continues to maintain his independence, and has a close relationship with his father.

But not all are so lucky:

A veteran who initially had a[n ankle] amputation was able to run a marathon but later developed complications which resulted in several surgeries on his residual limb, that is now an above the knee amputation. He continues to have pain, skin breakdown, and infections that have made fitting his prosthesis difficult. He told us that now he would simply like to be able to mow his own yard again.

It’s a strange inspector general’s report. The reader is quietly pulling for every veteran, and silently cheers each marker of progress or success the IG documents. But then there are sections that give one pause:

Among the 838 amputee veterans, 8 had 3 or 4 limbs amputated. We tried to contact all of the eight for an in-person visit and for telephone interviews, but were able to interview only one by telephone; however, this veteran’s responses to our telephone interview were inconsistent. Thus, we excluded him from our analysis. We were able to interview two in person. We made at least three call attempts to contact each of the five remaining veterans. One did not return our calls, and the other four declined to participate.

And:

We contacted [an unidentified VA] medical center twice on behalf of a veteran after he told us during the in-person visit that he had made multiple requests about his prosthetic clothing allowance from previous years but had not received a response. On December 14, 2011, the Office of the Inspector General again contacted the Director’s office but did not get a response. The day after we briefed [VA health officials], the medical center contacted the veteran about his request. Some things in some parts of the VA, most vets will volunteer, never seem to change.

Read more: http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2012/03/12/wars-amputees-4-of-5-say-life-is-full/#ixzz1ovelYgD3

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Wars’ Amputees: 4 of 5 Say “Life Is Full”

Army Suicide Rates Soar Since Start Of Afghanistan And Iraq Wars

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Team VCS

March 8, 2012 (Business and Health) – The Army suicide rate has soared since the beginning of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, according to a new study. The number of army suicides increased by 80 percent between 2004 and 2008, according to the study conducted by the U.S. Army Public Health Command.

From 1977 to 2003 the Army suicide rate was similar to the suicide rate in civilians, if not slightly lower. The army rate began to climb in 2004 and was higher than the civilian rate by 2008.

Researchers found that found that 255 soldiers killed themselves between 2007 and 2008. Of those who committed suicide, 69 percent had seen active duty and nearly 50 percent were between the ages of 18 and 24.

“The recent increase in suicide rates may be viewed as the tip of the ‘mental health iceberg,’ signaling more prevalent underlying mental health problems,” the authors wrote.

Soldiers diagnosed with depression were 11 times more likely to commit suicide and those diagnosed with anxiety were 10 times more likely.

More than 25 percent of soldiers who killed themselves were diagnosed with adjustment disorder, a blanket term used to describe the problems that result from being in a stressful or traumatic environment, such as combat.

“By establishing that soldiers who are diagnosed with a mental health disorder are at greater risk of suicide, we then have a place to target prevention strategies,” Dr. Michelle Chervak, study author and epidemiologist at the U.S. Army Public Health Command, told ABC News.

The authors wrote that the increase is “unprecedented in the 30 years of army records,” and “suggests that 30 percent of suicides that occurred in 2008 may be associated with post-2003 events following the major commitment of troops to Iraq, in addition to the ongoing operations in Afghanistan.”

Chervak said that while the study does not show that the cause of the suicides was the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, “this study does suggest that an Army engaged in prolonged combat operations is a population under stress, and that mental health conditions and suicide can be expected to increase under these circumstances.”

The Army has tried to prevent suicides through training, a suicide prevention task force and a day off from official duties to focus on suicide prevention, according to Bloomberg News. The Army also has a website dedicated to preventing suicide.

“While suicide remains a relatively rare event, the results of this study suggest it is increasing at an unprecedented rate and, unlike any other time in history, U.S. military suicide rates now appear to have surpassed those among comparable civilian populations,” Simon Rego, supervising psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center, told HealthDay. “It is therefore critical that we address this emerging public-health problem by focusing our efforts on studies like this one, which allow us to identify any and all risk factors for suicide, in order to improve our prevention efforts.”

The

More than 25 percent of soldiers who killed themselves were diagnosed with adjustment disorder, a blanket term used to describe the problems that result from being in a stressful or traumatic environment, such as combat.

“By establishing that soldiers who are diagnosed with a mental health disorder are at greater risk of suicide, we then have a place to target prevention strategies,” Dr. Michelle Chervak, study author and epidemiologist at the U.S. Army Public Health Command, told ABC News.

The authors wrote that the increase is “unprecedented in the 30 years of army records,” and “suggests that 30 percent of suicides that occurred in 2008 may be associated with post-2003 events following the major commitment of troops to Iraq, in addition to the ongoing operations in Afghanistan.”

Chervak said that while the study does not show that the cause of the suicides was the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, “this study does suggest that an Army engaged in prolonged combat operations is a population under stress, and that mental health conditions and suicide can be expected to increase under these circumstances.”

The Army has tried to prevent suicides through training, a suicide prevention task force and a day off from official duties to focus on suicide prevention, according to Bloomberg News. The Army also has a website dedicated to preventing suicide.

“While suicide remains a relatively rare event, the results of this study suggest it is increasing at an unprecedented rate and, unlike any other time in history, U.S. military suicide rates now appear to have surpassed those among comparable civilian populations,” Simon Rego, supervising psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center, told HealthDay. “It is therefore critical that we address this emerging public-health problem by focusing our efforts on studies like this one, which allow us to identify any and all risk factors for suicide, in order to improve our prevention efforts.”

The

More than 25 percent of soldiers who killed themselves were diagnosed with adjustment disorder, a blanket term used to describe the problems that result from being in a stressful or traumatic environment, such as combat.

“By establishing that soldiers who are diagnosed with a mental health disorder are at greater risk of suicide, we then have a place to target prevention strategies,” Dr. Michelle Chervak, study author and epidemiologist at the U.S. Army Public Health Command, told ABC News.

The authors wrote that the increase is “unprecedented in the 30 years of army records,” and “suggests that 30 percent of suicides that occurred in 2008 may be associated with post-2003 events following the major commitment of troops to Iraq, in addition to the ongoing operations in Afghanistan.”

Chervak said that while the study does not show that the cause of the suicides was the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, “this study does suggest that an Army engaged in prolonged combat operations is a population under stress, and that mental health conditions and suicide can be expected to increase under these circumstances.”

The Army has tried to prevent suicides through training, a suicide prevention task force and a day off from official duties to focus on suicide prevention, according to Bloomberg News. The Army also has a website dedicated to preventing suicide.

“While suicide remains a relatively rare event, the results of this study suggest it is increasing at an unprecedented rate and, unlike any other time in history, U.S. military suicide rates now appear to have surpassed those among comparable civilian populations,” Simon Rego, supervising psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center, told HealthDay. “It is therefore critical that we address this emerging public-health problem by focusing our efforts on studies like this one, which allow us to identify any and all risk factors for suicide, in order to improve our prevention efforts.”

The

More than 25 percent of soldiers who killed themselves were diagnosed with adjustment disorder, a blanket term used to describe the problems that result from being in a stressful or traumatic environment, such as combat.

“By establishing that soldiers who are diagnosed with a mental health disorder are at greater risk of suicide, we then have a place to target prevention strategies,” Dr. Michelle Chervak, study author and epidemiologist at the U.S. Army Public Health Command, told ABC News.

The authors wrote that the increase is “unprecedented in the 30 years of army records,” and “suggests that 30 percent of suicides that occurred in 2008 may be associated with post-2003 events following the major commitment of troops to Iraq, in addition to the ongoing operations in Afghanistan.”

Chervak said that while the study does not show that the cause of the suicides was the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, “this study does suggest that an Army engaged in prolonged combat operations is a population under stress, and that mental health conditions and suicide can be expected to increase under these circumstances.”

The Army has tried to prevent suicides through training, a suicide prevention task force and a day off from official duties to focus on suicide prevention, according to Bloomberg News. The Army also has a website dedicated to preventing suicide.

“While suicide remains a relatively rare event, the results of this study suggest it is increasing at an unprecedented rate and, unlike any other time in history, U.S. military suicide rates now appear to have surpassed those among comparable civilian populations,” Simon Rego, supervising psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center, told HealthDay. “It is therefore critical that we address this emerging public-health problem by focusing our efforts on studies like this one, which allow us to identify any and all risk factors for suicide, in order to improve our prevention efforts.”

The journal Injury Prevention published the study on Wednesday.

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Army Suicide Rates Soar Since Start Of Afghanistan And Iraq Wars

Sick soldiers: Symptoms exist but the diagnosis unclear

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Team VCS

by Kelly Gustafsonand Kristen KellarMarch 08, 2012

 

Benjamin Kesling/MEDILL

Burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan burn 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Dust storms may also be to blame for health ailments.

Courtesy of Octal/Flickr

Produced by Kristen Kellar and Kelly Gustafson

Data from the New England Journal of Medicine

Doctors who examined troops from Fort Campbell, KY found that they were exposed to a number of potential hazards.

Produced by Kristen Kellar and Kelly Gustafson

Data from the U.S. Army Public Health Command, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Returning from Iraq, Leroy Torres thought he had left the battle overseas. But he would soon become one of hundreds of troops fighting two more battles on our soil: a battle for recognition of a mysterious ailment and a bureaucratic one. “When he first got back, he immediately had several ER visits for respiratory issues. We’re all scrambling. We’re all broke. We’re trying to make something happen, trying to prevent another Agent Orange,” said his wife, Rosie.

Torres was deployed to Iraq in 2007 and again in 2008, but since his return to Texas in 2008, he’s been in and out, in and out, in and out of hospitals.

Torres is not alone.

For veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan this is increasingly common. Many veterans are blaming the dust storms and burn pits — giant pits where trash in burned – for their respiratory and other symptoms.

So for these vets, what might have started as shortness of breath, or a headache, or a cough has spiraled into myriad illnesses, from lung diseases to digestive problems to brain tumors.

Mystery Symptoms

“The common thread to all of the stories is that ‘I got back from service and I can’t climb up a flight of stairs or complete my two-mile run,’” said Dr. Robert Miller, a pulmonologist at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Miller has examined troops from Fort Campbell, KY for respiratory symptoms. In a study published last year. He and his fellow researchers concluded that 38 of the 80 troops they saw had constrictive bronchiolitis, a rare condition in a healthy population.

Constrictive bronchiolitis in an inflammation of the small airways of the lung where scar tissues and fibrosis could block the airways. After doing surgical biopsies, Miller noticed small black dots in the airway. He doesn’t know what causes them. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this in a civilian population.”

Even when troops see a doctor for their symptoms, it’s difficult to get an exact diagnosis. Doctors may not know what to look for or have the right equipment, said Dr. Anthony Szema, assistant professor of medicine and surgery at Stony Brook University Hospital.

“Your lungs are delicate little air sacks. Even if you have a normal breathing test, you may have an abnormal biopsy. But, they may not know how to see it,” he said, he said.

Another problem is that in order to diagnose conditions such as constrictive bronchiolitis, a surgical biopsy is required, resulting in as long as six weeks to recuperate. Szema said, “You can’t pick this up on a X-ray and you can’t take everyone to the operating room.”

Ben Krause, founder of DisabledVeterans.org, said that many veterans are coming forward with breathing problems, constrictive bronchiolitis and otherwise. Another disease that worries troops is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a lung disease that worsens with time.

“I don’t think there’s enough awareness. Now we have this COPD and breathing issue and people don’t know what’s causing it,” Krause said.

Because doctors have been unable to determine the cause, there are no treatments. “Sometimes we give them inhalers because it makes them feel better, not because it helps,” Miller said.

He added that most of the patients he’s seen haven’t progressed past their initial diagnosis. So, he said it probably doesn’t make a difference if doctors see troops right away or not.

Inside the Pits

The Army hired an outside contractor, an American engineering and construction company called KBR, to take care of waste disposal overseas. Rick Lamberth, a former KBR employee testified to a Senate Democratic Policy Committee in 2009 about his stints in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I witnessed KBR employees dump nuclear, biological, chemical decontamination materials and bio-medical waste, plastics, oil and tires into burn pits in direct violation of military regulations,” Lamberth said.

Army regulations say that waste management outside the U.S. must comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and allows for the use of burn pits “only in emergency situations until approved incinerators can be obtained.”

When he tried to report violations, he was told by his superiors to “shut up” and keep it to himself.

The pits burned 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “You could see mile-high clouds of smoke coming from the pits,” Lamberth said. “The ash that came from the pits looked like burned notebook paper and fell like a black, sooty snowfall.”

But some, like Krause, think the burn pits aren’t the only reason people are having health problems. He served in U. S. Air Force from 1996 to 2001 and wasn’t exposed to burn pits, but has developed breathing problems as well.

“It probably has something to do with the dust particles combined with the burning pits,” Krause said.

Dust and sand in northern Iraq, where many troops are stationed, is hollow and tends to be coarser, said Szema. “You can stick anything in that nanosphere and it’s small enough to inhale. If something is burning and a sandstorm comes by, then it could get in.”

Legal Battle for Recognition

When Torres lost both of his jobs – he was a captain in the Army Reserve and a Texas state trooper – because of his ailments, his wife made the march to Washington. There, she fought to create a national registry that could link long-term health problems with burn pits in the future.

“We need to make every legislator aware of our cause. These soldiers are from every state,” Torres said. “I think what people fail to realize is invisible wounds aren’t just PTSD, it’s toxic exposure, too.”

Torres rallied congressional support from Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) and Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.). While the bill sits in front of the Committee of Veterans Affairs, Torres has started an online registry that is tracking more than 500 soldiers.

“We’re not ever going to get any help if we don’t get any numbers,” Torres said. Krause said that in the past receiving benefits from the VA wasn’t too difficult, but receiving benefits in a timely manner is a challenge veterans are now facing. When he left the Air Force, it was easier to claim VA benefits. Now, he said, there’s a lot of red tape.

“In a lot of instances they consider it a pre-existing condition. So you’ll have a hard time getting healthcare. Veterans are having to wait for a year or more to get coverage,” Krause said.

DisabledVeterans.org recently launched a survey to document service by the VA. “Majority of the veterans were unhappy about the way they were treated by the VA Around 70 percent was unsatisfied,” Krause said.

Last year, Veterans for Common Sense filed a lawsuit against the VA to get better treatment for mental health issues and faster claim processing. The case is currently at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

What Comes Next?

Some are now calling the health fallbacks the next Agent Orange. Hopefully, said Krause, it doesn’t take 30 or 40 years for people to realize what’s going on. He is currently pursuing his law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School. “I’m currently going to go after and protect veterans benefits and make sure that politicians are aware that it is a nonpartisan effort,” Krause said.

Derek Giffin, a 31-year-old Army veteran who is a service officer at the VA, said most of his job entails helping veterans affected by Agent Orange.

“It is my concern that burn pits can be the Agent Orange of my generation,” Giffin said. “The effects of the exposure will probably be latent.” He said he “obviously has concerns” about his own health after serving in Iraq in 2004, but doesn’t know what the later effects will be.

On the other hand, Miller doesn’t think there is a relation to Agent Orange. He said that over the years, the VA had linked Agent Orange to many things, but in the case of bronchiolitis, “we’ve clearly seen something under the microscope. We’re not sure what it is, but there’s something there.”

Miller does want people to be aware and that’s one reason why he and others have pushed for biopsies. By performing them, the soldiers coming in with breathing problems have more credibility.

“As of right now, it’s hard to file a claim (a VA claim) because you need to have a doctor say there’s a causal link between exposure and illness. That’s tough to do because a doctor won’t know what’s in a burn pit in Iraq,” Giffin said.

A report released in October by the Institute of Medicine said there was not enough evidence to draw a firm conclusion linking burn pits to long- term health effects. The report recommended a tiered approach to gathering data about returning troops, which is similar to the registry currently awaiting approval.

Giffin said: “We’re at the mercy of these investigations by the NIH.”

Posted in VCS In The News, Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged , | Comments Off on Sick soldiers: Symptoms exist but the diagnosis unclear

Vets’ jobless rate takes big drop in February

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Team VCS

 

By Rick Maze – Staff writer-Army Times Posted : Friday Mar 9, 2012 9:30:24 ESt

Programs aimed at helping Iraq and Afghanistan veterans find jobs may be paying off, as the federal government reported a dramatic drop in the February unemployment rate for people who separated from the service since 2001.

While the nation’s overall unemployment rate remained static at 8.3 percent, the jobless rate for Iraq- and Afghanistan-era veterans fell in February to 7.6 percent, down from 9.1 percent in January and 12.5 percent in February 2011.

The drop is so fast and so dramatic that it could be a statistical anomaly because veterans make up such a small part of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly employment survey.

One reason to suspect a statistical blip is that the unemployment rate for female veterans separated from the service since 2011 has been in the double digits for several months, more than twice the jobless rate for men of the same generation. In the February report, the jobless rate for recent female veterans fell from 17.3 percent in January to 7.4 percent in February, putting the women’s rate slightly below the rate for men.

For veterans of all generations, the February unemployment rate was 7 percent, down from 7.5 percent in January.

Federal, state and local governments, and private industry have undertaken broad efforts to help separating service members find jobs, and more ideas appear every day.

On Thursday, Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., an Air Force veteran who served during the 1991 Gulf War, introduced a bill aimed at using federal authority over licensing to help more veterans get jobs. His Veterans Skills to Jobs Act, HR 4155, would require federal agencies to treat relevant military training as the equivalent of federal licensing and certification requirement, which he believes would put more veterans to work faster.

Denham’s bill would help in fields that require federally issued occupational licenses, including aerospace, communications and maritime jobs.

In a statement, Denham said the federal government “should be an example to the states that are looking for ways to improve veteran transitions.”

“America is blessed with the strongest, most capable and professional military in the world,” he said. “Unfortunately, even though many of our veterans have the training to perform a wide variety of occupations, the private sector and even other departments of the federal government do not recognize this training.”

Posted in Gulf War Updates, Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Vets’ jobless rate takes big drop in February

Wal-Mart Therapy Tried as Pentagon Copes With Traumatized Troops

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Team VCS

 

By Gopal Ratnam and Michelle Fay Cortez – Mar 7, 2012 11:00 PM C

No one knows better than Connie Chapman that almost 150 years since troops came home with “soldier’s heart” after the Civil War, the U.S. military is still struggling to identify and treat what’s now called PTSD.

When the now-retired Army captain and her Washington state National Guard unit returned from Iraq in 2005, she said they mustered on a racquetball court at Fort Lewis where mental- health screeners shouted at them, “Are you suicidal? Do you have flashbacks?”

 

When Chapman’s National Guard unit returned from duty in Iraq in 2005, the soldiers were gathered on a racquetball court in Fort Lewis, Washington, where mental-health screeners shouted out, “Are you suicidal?”

PTSD Sufferers Face `Stigma Issue,’ Hammer Says

March 8 (Bloomberg) — Navy Captain Paul Hammer, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, talks about U.S. efforts to help service members and veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

It was difficult for anyone to acknowledge suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder in so public a setting, said Chapman, 45, who later underwent four years of therapy for symptoms such as flashbacks from the incessant mortar and rocket attacks on the logistics base in Balad where she served.

The Pentagon still has “no consistent diagnosis, no consistent tools and different levels of professionals” working on solutions, Senator Patty Murray, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said in an interview.

In an effort to change that, the military says it’s trying to find cases sooner by embedding therapists in combat units and spending $40 million to study 20 treatments, some of which may work within weeks. Among them is a therapy that sends some troops on a 45-minute trip through a Wal-Mart store.

About 20 percent of the 2.4 million U.S. troops who served in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001 may meet criteria for PTSD from the chaos of wars marked by intense combat with no clear enemy lines, according to congressional researchers and the Rand Corp.

Wal-Mart, Theaters

 

Big-box retailers, movie theaters and restaurants are “often busy and noisy, and some people may be hidden behind things — and all those are perceived as dangerous” by warriors who dodged roadside bombs and watched buddies die in Iraq or Afghanistan, Alan Peterson, director of a Pentagon-funded project at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, said in an interview.

Doctors in the program sometimes recommend that soldiers confront their fears by visiting a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) location and staying until anxieties “fade away on their own,” Peterson said in an interview.

The South Texas Research Organizational Network Guiding Studies on Trauma and Resilience, or Strong Star, headed by Peterson, is conducting the 20 studies on potential treatments. The program, begun in 2008, is aimed primarily at active-duty military personnel.

‘Signature Wound’

 

While the military brass realize that PTSD is “the signature wound” of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, “there’s a cultural issue within the Defense Department that makes it extremely difficult” to diagnose and treat troops, Senator Murray said. “There’s a culture of ‘man up’ that continues to send signals to soldiers that a mental-health diagnosis is not something they should own up to,” said Murray, a Democrat from Washington state.

“Frankly, we have not learned how to effectively deal with that, and we have to,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said at a Feb. 28 hearing of Murray’s committee.

The Army suspended the head of the Madigan Army Medical Center at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state last month in a dispute over whether PTSD diagnoses were being withheld.

‘Rubber-Stamping’ PTSD

 

A psychiatrist at the center had cautioned against “rubber-stamping” cases as PTSD, saying that a soldier diagnosed with the condition may receive as much as $1.5 million during his or her lifetime and the costs could bankrupt the Army and Veterans Affairs Department, according to a memo from an Army ombudsman provided by Murray’s office.

Treating a veteran for PTSD and related conditions costs an average of $8,300 in the first year and $4,200 in the second, according to a February report by the Congressional Budget Office.

The U.S. military has 88,817 cases of PTSD among active- duty personnel after more than a decade of wars, according to Peter Graves, a spokesman for the Defense Department’s office of health affairs. An additional 223,609 veterans have been seen for the condition, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

About 21 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who sought medical treatment from 2004 to 2009 were diagnosed with PTSD, the Congressional Budget Office said in a February report. The Rand Corp. estimated in 2008 that 20 percent of those who served in the wars met the criteria for PTSD.

Suicides Increase

Army suicides rose 80 percent from 2004 to 2008 after the deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report published yesterday in the journal Injury Prevention on a study by the U.S. Army Public Health Command.

A soldier with an amputated limb is seen as a hero, “but you see someone diagnosed with PTSD and say, ‘What’s wrong with them?’” said Chapman, the former Washington National Guard soldier, who went on to be trained as a therapist and is now a Seattle-based senior manager for a combat-stress recovery program with the Wounded Warrior Project, a Jacksonville, Florida-based advocacy group.

Some in the military have questioned whether the PTSD name, designated by the American Psychiatric Association in 1980, carries its own stigma that discourages service members from seeking help and brands them as unstable.

Changing the Name

General Pete Chiarelli, who retired at the end of January as the Army’s vice chief of staff, said the designation should be changed to “post-traumatic stress injury.”

For some people, “if you label them as having a disorder, somehow it makes it sound like it’s a pre-existing condition or that they’re a weaker person,” Chiarelli said in an interview before leaving office.

As an alternative to changing the name, the psychiatric association is considering creating a separate category for PTSD that results from combat stress, said John Oldham, the group’s president and chief of staff at the Menninger Clinic in Houston.

The new combat category may be included next year in the fifth edition of the association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Oldham said in an interview. The guide is used to determine how patients are diagnosed and treated and what insurers will cover.

In addition to being used for those suffering the mental wounds of war, PTSD is a diagnosis for victims of rape or witnesses to murder. The condition follows events that cause intense fear and helplessness, and it can develop shortly after the event or take several years, according to the psychiatric association’s website.

Nightmares, Flashbacks

The symptoms may include re-experiencing the traumatic event through nightmares, obsessive thoughts and flashbacks that may lead people to avoid situations or objects reminding them of the original events, according to the association. About 7.7 million Americans are affected by PTSD in a given year, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Not everyone is convinced that changing the name or reclassifying the illness for soldiers is even the first step toward dealing with inadequate treatment.

Labeling a mental illness a disorder sometimes is helpful, said Lisa Jaycox, a researcher at the Rand Corp. in Arlington, Virginia. In the case of depression, calling it a disorder has helped patients get treatment, because the designation changed the illness from “something that’s wrong with you to a medical problem that is treatable,” she said in an interview.

Exposure Therapy

Visiting Wal-Mart or another crowded spot is part of a treatment for PTSD called prolonged exposure therapy that encourages a patient to recount traumatic events that cause flashbacks, Peterson of the Strong Star group said.

The benefits of 10 such therapeutic sessions within either two or eight weeks are being studied, and the early results suggest the treatments are so effective that some active-duty military personnel have been able to return to war zones, Peterson said. About 360 military personnel are getting the exposure therapy, he said.

Greg Rossiter, a spokesman for Wal-Mart of Bentonville, Arkansas, the world’s largest retailer, had no comment on the store visits as a treatment.

A second treatment called cognitive processing therapy is being tested with an additional 400 warriors. In this approach, a therapist helps patients see how traumatic events have affected their lives, such as constant self-blame for not having done more to save a fellow warrior on the battlefield. In later sessions, the therapist helps warriors understand such unhelpful thinking patterns and ways to challenge such self-doubt.

‘Real Warriors’

If larger studies validate the results of the therapies, which may take two more years, the military may be able to treat troops suffering from battlefield trauma within weeks after it manifests itself, Peterson said.

While treatments are improving, the “biggest issue is that a majority of service members and veterans don’t come to see us, and those who do come don’t complete care or drop out,” said Charles Hoge, a former psychiatrist at the Army’s Walter Reed Medical Center and author of the book, “Once a Warrior –Always a Warrior.”

The military is trying to attach mental-health personnel to deployed units in an effort “to lower the bar to seek help,” according to Navy Captain Paul Hammer.

“When you look at PTSD, what 10 years of war has taught people is you don’t go to war and come back unchanged,” Hammer, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, said in an interview. “If you did, you would be a sociopath. In some cases, people are affected deeply.”

The Pentagon is also running a “Real Warriors” campaign of television and Web ads featuring military personnel who have sought treatment for PTSD without damage to their military or post-retirement civilian careers.

The goal of the campaign is to show that “it takes courage to buck the trend and say, ‘Yes, I had a problem, and I sought treatment,’” Hammer said.

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Wal-Mart Therapy Tried as Pentagon Copes With Traumatized Troops

Madigan team reversed 285 PTSD diagnoses, Sen. Murray says

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Team VCS

The Army has identified 285 Madigan Army Medical Center patients whose PTSD diagnoses were reversed by a forensic psychiatric screening team whose actions are now under investigation.

By Hal Bernton

Seattle Times staff reporter

The Army Medical Command has identified some 285 Madigan Army Medical Center patients whose diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder were reversed as they went through a screening process for possible medical retirements, according to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray.

Last month, Madigan’s screeners for PTSD were removed from that duty while the Army Medical Command investigates why diagnoses were changed.

Soldiers diagnosed with PTSD as they prepare to leave the military can qualify for a medical retirement that offers a pension and other benefits.

The soldiers were screened by Madigan’s forensic psychiatry team over a five-year period dating back to 2007, and will be invited to undergo new reviews at Madigan or other military facilities, according to a release Wednesday by the Western Regional Medical Command, which has oversight over Madigan.

Soldiers eligible for review were identified from a review of 1,500 soldiers screened by the forensic team for all types of mental-health conditions, the command said.

The Army did not provide the total number of PTSD evaluations done by the team during that period. Release of that information would be “premature” while those records are under review by investigators, the Western Regional Command said in a statement released to The Seattle Times.

PTSD is a condition that results from experiencing a traumatic event, such as a battlefield casualty. Symptoms can include recurrent nightmares, flashbacks, irritability and feeling distant from other people.

Some people recover from PTSD. For others, it may be a lifelong struggle.

The investigation at Madigan was triggered, in part, by complaints from soldiers who had previously been diagnosed with PTSD but were later accused by the screening team of exaggerating symptoms and sometimes malingering.

Earlier this year, 14 soldiers underwent new mental-health reviews at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Six had their PTSD diagnoses reinstated.

The investigation also was spurred by concerns that Madigan doctors involved in the screening were unduly influenced by worries about the escalating costs of paying benefits to those who qualify for medical retirements.

Murray said, “The only fair thing to do is to go back and find those service members who’ve also had their PTSD reversed by this unit in order to give them clear and unbiased re-evaluations. Our service members and their families deserve nothing less.”

Murray was briefed this week on that effort by Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho, the Army Surgeon General.

Madigan staff involved in the screening deny there was command pressure to limit disability awards.

The Madigan investigation has attracted national attention, triggering a broader Pentagon review of how the military medical staff diagnoses PTSD.

At the Western Washington medical center, some staff are embittered by the February decision to remove Col. Dallas Homas, Madigan’s commander, during the investigation.

“We really believe that he has been scapegoated,” said one senior Madigan employee who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Many of these diagnoses were made long before Col. Homas came on board.”

Homas, who became commander less than a year ago, earned a reputation among some for trying to improve patient care.

“He said we need to treat patients like they are family members,” said a Madigan staffer. “Like they are your son, your father, your mother.”

The Army has been waging a campaign to help reduce the stigma that some soldiers feel if they seek mental-health treatment.

But some medical professionals have alleged that PTSD is being over-diagnosed. Patient medical records reviewed by The Seattle Times indicate considerable disputes both within the Army, and between the Army and the Department of Veterans Affairs, over how to diagnose PTSD.

As soldiers fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, there was considerable concern that the condition was being underrated as soldiers went through the medical retirement system.

Within the military, the financial stakes of PTSD screening dramatically increased after a 2008 congressional overhaul of the disability system resulted in a 50 percent disability rating for anyone leaving military service with that diagnosis. That rating is well above the threshold required for an Army medical retirement.

After the law changed, several soldiers attempted to make false or exaggerated claims of PTSD for personal financial gain, according to a Feb. 16 memorandum by Dr. Paul Whittaker, a Madigan physician who serves on the medical board that examines soldiers under consideration for medical retirement.

Whittaker wrote Madigan psychiatrists used objective testing to determine which soldiers had “significant mental illness that was compensable. … ”

If other Army medical facilities used this process, it is likely that the diagnosis rate would decrease below the rate of those based solely on the personal history provided by the soldier, Whittaker wrote.

The forensic program was in place when Horoho, the surgeon general, previously served as Madigan’s commander.

As first reported by The Tacoma News-Tribune, a written copy of a March 2009 briefing she presented to senior Army leaders called the forensic program “an innovative solution to meet increased demands.”

Horoho is now presiding over the investigation of the team.

Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Madigan team reversed 285 PTSD diagnoses, Sen. Murray says

For Veterans With Post-Traumatic Stress, Pain Killers Carry Risks

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Team VCS

From the NYTIMES.com ATWAR blog

By JAMES DAO

Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder are more likely to be prescribed opioid pain killers than other veterans with pain problems and more likely to use the opioids in risky ways, according to a study published Wednesday by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, also found that veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who were prescribed opioids for pain – and particularly those with post-traumatic stress disorder — had a higher prevalence of “adverse clinical outcomes,” like overdoses, self-inflicted injuries and injuries caused by accidents or fighting.

The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense have for years been trying to reduce the use of opioid pain therapy among active duty troops and veterans amid reports of overmedication, addiction, rampant drug abuse and accidental deaths caused by overdoses or toxic mixing of medications.

Fоr thоѕе оf уоu whо аrе 65 уеаrѕ оf аgе оr оldеr, уоu рrоbаblу already knоw that Mеdісаrе раrtѕ A&B аrе available to уоu tо tаkе саrе оf medical соѕtѕ. However, еvеn though іt соvеrѕ muсh оf thе еxреnѕеѕ іnсurrеd bу hоѕріtаl visits, or doctor vіѕіtѕ, or рrеѕсrірtіоn drug сhаrgеѕ, іt does nоt соvеr еvеrуthіng. Thіѕ is whеrе Mеdісаrе Suррlеmеnt Plans соmе in. They fіll thе dеduсtіblе, соіnѕurаnсе, со pay, аnd еxсеѕѕ сhаrgеѕ gарѕ thаt аrе nоt соvеrеd by Medicare. Even after ѕееіng thіѕ, mаnу people ѕtіll don’t rеаlіzе thе need tо pursue a Medicare Suррlеmеnt, in оrdеr tо рrоtесt themselves frоm unnесеѕѕаrу еxреnѕеѕ. Tо bеttеr hеlр уоu understand, here аrе ѕоmе hеlрful роіntеrѕ:

– Medicare Supplement Plаnѕ pick up еxреnѕеѕ where Medicare lеаvеѕ оff. There аrе 12 dіffеrеnt tуреѕ of plans, аnd each оnе offers a dіffеrеnt type оf coverage with dіffеrеnt bеnеfіtѕ tо ѕuіt уоur nееdѕ. Fоr those whо аrе nееdіng medical саrе, аnd lіvе оn a fіxеd monthly іnсоmе, thеn a Mеdісаrе Supplement Plan іѕ in уоur bеѕt іntеrеѕt. Click here to check Medicare supplement plans comparison 2021.

– Mеdісаrе Supplement Insurance іѕ vеrу аffоrdаblе, аnd еасh рlаn hаѕ dіffеrеnt соvеrаgе tо сhооѕе from if уоu are nоt in a good fіnаnсіаl ѕіtuаtіоn. Sіnсе аll plans are gоvеrnmеnt rеgulаtеd, it dоеѕ nоt whаt соmраnу you decide tо go with, thе оnlу dіffеrеnсе will be thе рrісе уоu pay fоr thаt plan (assuming you’re соmраrіng thе ѕаmе рlаn lеttеr from еасh company). No mаttеr whаt your budgеt mіght bе, there іѕ a рlаn оut thеrе tо ѕuіt уоur needs with thе right bеnеfіtѕ. Plus, getting a ԛuоtе іѕ frее, ѕо might аѕ wеll take аdvаntаgе оf іt!

– A Medicare Suррlеmеnt tаkеѕ аll thе guеѕѕwоrk оut of gеttіng hеаlth care coverage. Inѕtеаd of having to сhооѕе frоm countless numbеrѕ оf options and coverage, all уоu nееd to focus on is уоur budget, уоur hеаlth, аnd then сhооѕе whісh рlаn out оf thе 12 wоrk thе bеѕt fоr уоur ѕіtuаtіоn. If later on down thе rоаd thіngѕ сhаngе, thеn уоu саn apply tо ѕwіtсh рlаnѕ, and a gооd аgеnсу ѕhоuld mаkе that tаѕk vеrу easy fоr you bу contacting уоu every year tо mаkе ѕurе уоu are gеttіng thе bеѕt rаtе аvаіlаblе tо you.

It rеаllу isn’t hаrd tо аррlу fоr a Mеdісаrе Suррlеmеnt. Aftеr tаkіng a look аt ѕоmе of thеѕе kеу fасtоrѕ оf why you nееd оnе оf these рlаnѕ, уоu wіll ѕооn rеаlіzе that уоu nееd іt more thаn уоu thоught. Some plans may оffеr еxtrа benefits lіkе рrеvеntаtіvе саrе аnd foreign travel emergency соvеrаgе, whісh is very essential tо thоѕе whо would lіkе tо lіvе a full аnd hарру life but dоn’t want tо deal wіth thе tурісаl hеаlth іnѕurаnсе hаѕѕlеѕ.

If you аrе оn Mеdісаrе, are 65 уеаrѕ оf age оr older, аnd аrе оn a fіxеd іnсоmе, then a Medicare Suррlеmеnt Plаn is definitely ѕоmеthіng you ѕhоuld соnѕіdеr looking іntо. Thеѕе additional bеnеfіtѕ hаvе рrоvеn to be еxtrеmеlу bеnеfісіаl tіmе аnd tіmе аgаіn, ѕо whу nоt tаkе advantage оf thе оffеr? Work wіth a Medicare ѕuррlеmеnt brоkеrаgе tо help еvаluаtе and, if it makes ѕеnѕе, аррlу for a nеw Mеdісаrе Suррlеmеnt Plan tоdау tо get the сhеареѕt most affordable rаtе wіth the best rаtеd соmраnу available to уоu bаѕеd оn your hеаth.

But the study raises new concerns that primary care doctors — the main prescribers of opioids to veterans — are not always following government guidelines intended to restrict opioid pain therapy for veterans with PTSD and other mental health diagnoses. Instances of anorexia and bulimia-in both men and women- are increasing as well. These straight starvation or binge and purge plans can lead to life-long health problems or to death in those that practice them. Anorexia is seen as a psychological problem dealing with issues of self-esteem and control. Eventually, My Body Life refuses food and unless drastic measures are taken, the anorexic or bulimic can suffer from permanent loss of skeletal bone mass, muscle mass, fertility, and brain function. They are at extremely high risk for dying from heart-related complications that can strike years later, even if they get the problem under control, due to permanent damage to the heart muscle. Fast forward to today-fast food 먹튀 dominate both the lunch and dinner markets in America, being more the rule than the exception. McDonald’s is the largest buyer of Idaho potatoes in the world and their specifications for size, taste and starch content has become the industry standard for most of the potatoes grown today. With the rise of giant agribusiness, most of the small farmers have had to either adapt to their standards or close. Sadly, many have had to close. This has cost everyone in that the diversity of our food has gradually diminished-many types of corn, apples, potatoes, and other foodstuffs are now considered ‘vintage’ or ‘antique’ varieties that are grown more for amusement than for their actual nutritional value, if they still exist at all. An additional problem today is the fact that many of the foodstuffs grown worldwide are GMO foods. These are seeds that have been genetically modified to increase yield, and minimize susceptibility to insects, vermin and drought. The verdict is still out on how these foods interact with the human body as no independent long-term studies have been conducted; in fact the GMO seeds themselves have not been around long enough for long-term study in a human population.

The new study is considered particularly significant because of the sheer size of its sample: more than 141,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who received pain therapy for problems other than cancer from 2005 to 2010. Dr. Seal said the study was spurred in part by an article in The New York Times about troops and veterans who had died apparently from the toxic mixing of prescription medicines. Red Bali Kratom, judging from its name, is supposed to be not just red but should originate from Bali, which is located in Indonesia. The kratom plant is a native of this tropical South East Asia, where it has been grown for centuries by the locals. It has been valued for its range of benefits such as an energizer, aphrodisiac, learn the facts here now. When it comes to supplements, Laxogenin is derived from diosgenin, a more common plant steroid. You’ll be interested to know that diosgenin is usually a primary raw material for more than half of the synthetic steroids, including cortisone, testosterone, and progesterone. If you are speaking of the health supplement then you must try Laxogenin. White Vein Kratom is one of the three different strains of Kratom that people use. The other two strains are red and green veins. Of the three strains, white vein kratom provides the human body with the most energy.

“There is often a big gulf between policies and practice,” said Dr. Karen Seal, the director of an integrated care clinic at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center who was the lead investigator on the study. “That is where the work needs to be done, in implementing policies and guidelines that are already there.”

Dr. Robert D. Kerns, the national program director for pain management at the Department of Veterans Affairs, said in an interview that the department would draw attention to the new findings to push doctors to consider alternatives to opioid therapy, particularly with PTSD patients.

“This reinforces what’s on the books and draws attention to an important challenge,” Dr. Kerns said. “And it encourages us to continue to look for other innovations that can build on our existing initiatives.”

Dr. Kerns said the veterans affairs medical system, as well as the Pentagon’s health system, have been expanding alternative pain treatment programs to reduce the use of opioids, including acupuncture, chiropractic medicine, physical therapy, exercise therapy and relaxation techniques.

The veterans department is also looking to expand the use of psychological therapies already used for PTSD, mainly cognitive behavioral therapy, for treating chronic pain as well, said Dr. Kerns, who is himself leading research into that area. You can also prefer to appoint specialist from msinsight.dk who can treat and heal your pain quickly.

Understanding the potential links between post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain is important because both are common among service members. By some estimates, one in five combat veterans report symptoms of PTSD, which can include nightmares, flashbacks, irritability and sleeplessness.

Chronic pain is also prevalent among troops and veterans, even those who have not experienced major battlefield injuries, like the loss of a limb. Lower back, knee, shoulder and other joint pains are common because of the routine physical stresses of the work, including wearing heavy body armor and packs.

Previous studies have shown that patients with post-traumatic stress disorder use opioid pain killers at higher rates than other patients. Dr. Seal said that one theory for the connection is that patients with anxiety disorders like PTSD may be more sensitive to pain.

“It’s a vicious cycle,” she said. “When you have an anxiety disorder, when you feel pain, you become anxious about it are more aware of it, and tend to complain about it.”

She said most younger veterans tend to receive health care from primary care doctors who are not typically expert in handling post-traumatic stress disorder. But those doctors are trained to treat chronic pain, and many turn to opioids first because they want to relieve their patients’ suffering quickly. The result, the study concluded, may be inappropriate prescriptions.

“Patient distress can drive potentially inappropriate opioid therapy, perhaps because physicians do not know how else to handle these challenging patients,” the study said.

Dr. Seal said there were also studies suggesting that post-traumatic stress disorder disrupts the body’s natural opiate system, which releases endorphins that reduce pain. The result is that people with PTSD may perceive pain at a lower threshold, she said.

The researchers, most of them affiliated with the Department of Veterans Affairs, found that patients who had received mental health diagnoses were significantly more likely to receive opioid medication for pain than those without mental health problems. And veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder or a drug use disorder were the most likely to receive the prescriptions.

The researchers also looked at what they considered high-risk use of opioids, including high doses; using multiple types of opioids at one time; getting prescriptions for sedative hypnotics as well as opioids; and refilling opioid prescriptions early. Those actions could be indicators of drug abuse and addiction, as well as potential precursors for overdoses or toxic mixing of medications.

The study found that patients who had received mental health diagnoses showed patterns of higher-risk opioid use, and that the patterns were strongest among PTSD patients.

The researchers also found that veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder were more likely to receive opioid therapy even if they had known substance-use disorders, despite clear warnings that such prescriptions could be dangerous.

Dr. Seal said the researchers also found that more than four in 10 veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder were receiving opiates at the same time as benzodiazepines – a family of medications, including Xanax, that is prescribed for anxiety disorders like PTSD. Dr. Seal said the finding was “unsettling” because the mixing of opioids, benzodiazepines and alcohol could lead to respiratory depression and death.

But Dr. Seal, who treats many veterans with chronic pain problems in her clinic, said she was finding that more of her patients were willing to try alternative pain therapies.

“They know people who have had problems,” she said. “They don’t want to get hooked on narcotics. So there is great openness to treating pain with therapies other than opiates.”

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged , , | Comments Off on For Veterans With Post-Traumatic Stress, Pain Killers Carry Risks

Women Veterans Deserve Recognition, Services

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Team VCS

March 4, 2012 (The Baltimore Sun) – March is designated as Women’s History Month, an opportunity to remember the role women have played in U.S. history since our nation’s inception.

To serve in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, Deborah Sampson, a school teacher, disguised herself as a man to become one of only a handful of women with documented military combat service from that era. She was wounded in battle in 1782 just outside Tarrytown, N.Y., where she was struck by two musket balls in the leg. Fearful she’d be discovered, she removed one of the bullets herself using a pen knife and allowed the other to heal over. A year later, she developed a fever and the treating physician kept her secret, enabling her to serve until the Treaty of Paris. She received an honorable discharge and a small sum of money to cover her travel expenses home after her service.

Ms. Sampson, who went on to lecture about her Army experience, later battled Congress for a military pension which was officially granted in 1816 after numerous attempts — including a letter written by her friend Paul Revere.

Former slave Cathay Williams followed a similar path, hiding her gender and enlisting in the Army for a three-year term inSt. Louis, Mo., shortly after the Civil War. She served two years before a surgeon discovered her gender. Considered the first documented African-American woman to successfully enlist in the Army, Williams also battled Congress for a military pension. Without famous friends fighting on her behalf, her pension was never granted.

——————————————————————————– Follow @BaltSunLetters for the latest reader letters to The Sun. ——————————————————————————–

 

These two women embodied a spirit that overcame gender barriers and proved that women can serve equally alongside men. Throughout our history, countless strong women broke the norm to follow their hearts, making a difference in the lives of and inspiring those around them. Today, women comprise the fastest growing segment of the veteran population. Comprehensive care for women veterans is now the standard, rather than the exception at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs facilities throughout the country. Still, too many women veterans don’t know they’re eligible for comprehensive medical services from the VA, including disease prevention, primary care, gender-specific health care, substance abuse treatment, mental health care and long term care, among other services. Many don’t know that programs offering specialized care for trauma in residential or inpatient settings are available to women veterans needing more intense treatment and support, and some programs serve women only or have women-only treatment cohorts.

At the VA Maryland Health Care System, we are committed and ready to serve the increasing number of women returning home from military duty as combat veterans who are now stepping back into their roles as wives and mothers. All they have to do is enroll to access their health care benefits. Enrolling for VA health care is free and easy and can be accomplished by clicking on the “Become A Patient” button on our web page: http://www.maryland.va.gov. Women veterans may also drop by their local VA medical center or outpatient clinic or call the VA Maryland Health Care System’s Community Outreach office at 1-800-949-1000, ex. 6071 to enroll for VA health benefits.

Remind the women veterans you know and love that caring for themselves may be the best way to care for their families.

Dennis H. Smith, Baltimore

The writer is director of the VA Maryland Health Care System.

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged , | Comments Off on Women Veterans Deserve Recognition, Services