Tag Archives: medical

Suicides among U.S. soldiers surpass civilians, study reveals


By SB Anderson

(Bloomberg) “U.S. Army suicides rose 80 percent during the five years after major troop deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, surpassing the rate for similar civilians, according to a study.

“About 40 percent of the suicides in 2008 may be associated with deployments to those countries, according to the report published today in the journal Injury Prevention. The U.S. began committing troops in 2003. In 2008, the estimate of the rate for active soldiers was higher than the rate for civilians of similar age and sex.

“The increase is “unprecedented in over 30 years of U.S. Army records,” according to a statement by the U.S. Army Public Health Command, which focuses on promoting the health of soldiers, military retirees and their families. The Army Medical organization conducted the research.”

Full research report on Injury Prevention site.

Link

DoD could open huge military tissue archive (headline not from The Onion)

For the “Things I Had No Idea The Government Had a Hoarder Strategy For” folder…. Military Times reports on an enormous archive of 32 million tissues used by service members since 1917, and moves to open it up to researchers. 

“The paraffin-encased samples include bits and bobs from service members who breathed mustard gas in World War I, contracted the Spanish Flu in 1918, were exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam and encountered depleted uranium in the sands of Iraq.

There are samples from troops who contracted extremely rare diseases as well as thousands of common diseases — specimens Baker feels should be made available to researchers of other federal agencies if not academia.”

(HT to Austin Wright at Politico).

Link

Medical schools to increase focus on PTSD, TBI

(Stars and Stripes) Medical schools will soon include more course work on post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and other common military ailments as part of a White House-led effort to prepare future physicians for the next generation of veteran patients.

The effort includes more shared research and clinical trials among 130 medical and osteopathic schools around the country, including Ivy League and other major collegiate research institutions.

Link

Tricare soon may cover substance treatments

(Navy Times) “DoD’s proposed change comes after a decade of war in which painkillers have been prescribed to service members at record levels.

“The change would allow Tricare to support medical treatment that combines prescribing therapeutic but known addictive substances for a known addictive drug with counseling.”

Link

Wounded Warriors

From a new Pew survey of U.S. veterans. (Download PDF).

One out of every ten veterans alive today was seriously injured at some point while serving in the military, and three-quarters of those injuries occurred in combat. For many of these 2.2 million wounded warriors, the physical and emotional consequences of their wounds have endured long after they left the military, according to a Pew Research Center survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,853 veterans conducted from July 18 to Sept. 4, 2011.

Veterans who suffered major service-related injuries are more than twice as likely as their more fortunate comrades to say they had difficulties readjusting to civilian life. They are almost three times as likely as other veterans to report they have suffered from post-traumatic stress (PTS). And they are less likely in later life to be in overall good health or to hold full-time jobs.

Report on effects on troops of open burn pits and air pollution in war zones


By SB Anderson

News stories all over today about this report, but here are a few links if you want the actual report itself (it’s pretty dense) or a quick deck with the major briefing points from the Institute of Medicine, which concluded no apparent links between health problems and pollution in war zones, particuularly the pits.

Download briefing slides (PDF)

Download the full report