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  The Nation's #1 Independent Veterans Web Site Click here to make VA Watchdog dot Org your homepage VA NEWS FLASH from Larry Scott at VA Watchdog dot Org -- 06-14-2008 |
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The Nation's #1 Independent Veterans Web Site Click here to make VA Watchdog dot Org your homepage VA NEWS FLASH from Larry Scott at VA Watchdog dot Org -- 06-14-2008 |
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PTSD CASUALTIES -- House Vets' Chair: "That shows why you don't do anything, because you think there's only a few."
This is Filner at his best. When the answers don't make sense, Filner comes unglued...and he doesn't care who knows he's angry Complete information on the hearing mentioned in
this article, including a full video, is here... Story here...
http://www.coalingarecord.com/articles/ Story below:
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Military Update: Mental
wounds said to raise war casualties tenfold
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Lisa H. Jaycox, a senior behavioral scientist and
clinical psychologist who co-directed the RAND study, embraced Filner's
argument.
"Well, they are (suffering) an injury condition resulting from combat
deployment, and so it's a different kind of casualty," Jaycox said. "But,
yes, they are very important numbers."
At the same hearing, Michael L. Dominguez, principal deputy under
secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said RAND had gathered
solid data from its survey but then drew the wrong conclusions. The study,
Dominguez said, "did not, and cannot, definitively say that there are
300,000 cases of clinically diagnosed cases" of post-traumatic stress
disorder or depression among veterans who served in the two theaters of
war.
Filner angrily interrupted him, telling Dominguez that RAND didn't claim
to show 300,000 clinically diagnosed cases of PTSD or depression. "It was
an extrapolation to the possibility" of 300,000 cases, Filner said.
With over 1.6 million U.S. service members having served in Iraq or
Afghanistan, Dominguez said, a finding that 300,000 veterans "have
experienced some kind of mental health stress is very consistent with our
data. And those people do need to be discovered (and) to get help."
But, he continued, "many of them will, with very little counseling or
assistance, resolve those combat stress issues themselves. A few --
a
few -- will in fact manifest a clinical diagnosis of PTSD and they'll need
much more sustained intervention by medical health care professionals."
"How many is a few?" Filner snapped.
The results so far, Dominguez said, show "less than one percent will
actually have clinical PTSD that will need treatment over..."
"You believe that?" said Filner, cutting him off with sarcasm. "You
believe that there are less than one percent of these deployed soldiers
will have PTSD as a clinical diagnosis?"
Dominguez was stunned into silence momentarily but finally managed, "So
far this is the number that we are seeing."
"That shows why you don't do anything," Filner said, "because you think
there's only a few."
Another purpose of the three-hour hearing, which included testimony from
retired Navy Rear Adm. Patrick W. Dunne, assistant secretary for policy
and planning for the Veterans Benefits Administration, was to assess
progress by DoD and VA in implementing Wounded Warrior legislation passed
in January in response to the Walter Reed scandal last year.
Dominguez and Dunne conceded that some congressional deadlines haven't
been met, including a late April target for establishing a Wounded Warrior
Resource Center to give recovering service members, their families and
primary caregivers a single point of contact for assistance.
But Dr. Terri L. Tanielian, co-director of the RAND study, acknowledged to
Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) that the Wounded Warrior initiatives have set
the Departments of Defense and VA "on the right track" for addressing most
war-related mental health challenges.
The big hurdle now to proper care for many mentally wounded veterans is
clinical capacity nationwide, Tanielian said. The pipeline for training
mental healthcare providers in the most effective therapies for PTSD used
by VA needs widening, she said, and that requires "transformation and
system-level changes across the entire U.S. health care system."
Filner, meanwhile, wants every service member and veteran who has served
in Iraq or Afghanistan to receive a mandatory examination, which should
include at least an hour with a clinician trained to detect the symptoms
of PTSD, depression and even mild cases of traumatic brain injury.
In his tirade at Dominguez and Dunne, Filner said that, between the two of
them, "I think there's been a contest to see who can suck the humanity out
of this issue better... I mean, we're talking about our children!
"We're talking about life and death! We're talking about suicides...
homelessness... a lifetime of dealing with brain injuries! And you guys
sit there without anything to say. This is absolutely unacceptable."
He asked Dominguez if he also disagreed with RAND that 320,000 veterans of
Iraq and Afghanistan have a probable traumatic brain injury.
"Again," said Dominguez, "you don't have 320,000 brain injuries. You have
320,000 people who have been in or around a concussive event.
"Again, it's a spectrum of experience (versus) a spectrum of need that
manifests itself. So, no, there is not 320,000 people out there with brain
injuries."
That attitude, Filner charged, encourages clinicians to misdiagnose
conditions so veterans are denied the care they need and the compensation
they deserve. Dominguez took strong exception to those remarks.
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posted by Larry
Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
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