Army denies requests to reveal results of PTSD study

I put this into the Medical Conspiracy forums because I firmly believe that soldiers returning from war are being deliberately mistreated by the government.

Raw Story

Multiple public information requests for the results of an extensive inquiry into the treatment of soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have been denied according to NBC News, but the Army says the results will be made public sooner or later.

The probe centers on Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington, where some soldiers claim their PTSD diagnoses have been wrongly changed to save the government money. The review was launched after an Army psychiatrist at Madigan gave a lecture citing a memo that claims veterans suffering from PTSD could get up to $1.5 million in health benefits over their lifetimes.

This shows me that the Gov is more interested in either saving money, or cleaning up it's report so that it reflects results it prefers we see, as opposed to the reality.

Roughly one soldier committed suicide every 25 hours in 2012, the Army said, for a combined total death toll of 349: an all-time high that outpaced even combat deaths.

Explain to me how that can be anything, but the top priority for the military at this time.

~Tenth

As someone who suffers form PTSD, I can tell you its not pretty. I dont care who you are, how tough you are, how big you are, it will bring you to your knees. I have feared this for a while now, all these soldiers coming home and the mental health crisis it will become. S&F

reply to post by thesmokingman


Yeah I'm really not looking forward to the next 20 years of having to figure out how to support these people who are coming back.

There has to be a better way to do it than we do now. Effectively they aren't really doing anything it seems.

~Tenth

reply to post by tothetenthpower

Yeah I'm really not looking forward to the next 20 years of having to figure out how to support these people who are coming back.

The same way the Viet Nam vets were supported?
The same way the Korean war vets were supported?

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

Yeah I'm really not looking forward to the next 20 years of having to figure out how to support these people who are coming back.

The same way the Viet Nam vets were supported?
The same way the Korean war vets were supported?

That's my point. There's been hardly any, for ANY conflict post WWII.

There's no reason that veterans should end up homeless or in jail for having served their country, whether I agree with them having done so or not.

~Tenth

I'll try to drudge it up in a minute. But PBS aired a documentary about a year ago, I believe called "The Lost Platoon"... or maybe it was "squad"... Either way it addressed this issue head on. The basics of the story were that a highly loved company or squad leader died and those who served under him all ended up stateside, lost, and seriously mentally ill. \

As a person with PTSD - it always angers me when games are played around the diagnosis itself. Imagine going to a doctor, in this day and age, and hearing him or her say "No such thing as PTSD. It's all in your head. Psychiatry is a joke."

And if you deign to accept this and ask for help with the symptoms - you get branded a "drug seeker" in a hot second.

I feel for anyone who suffers... especially those who are suffering because they chose to give of themselves to a society too greedy to reciprocate the gesture of kindness and honor.

~Heff

I think one of the solutions should focus on peer counseling. Not everyone comes back with this level of damage. I am not judging those that do, I am just working with numbers here. What if instead of leaving the military with their time served, they go to work for the government as support staff for the therapists? Would you not listen to a fellow soldier who experienced the same thing. With a psychiatrist supervising, this could provide a support system as well as jobs for those getting out of the military. Use the military funding to hire these people, and use a group system therapy. Just a thought.

reply to post by Hefficide


All of the maladies in the DSM are pure fictions that psychiatrists use to bill insurance companies and peddle their toxic pills.

The DSM, published by the American Psychiatric Association, lists and defines every officially-certified mental disorder. It is used by psychiatrists to bill insurance companies.

But after a few conversations with psychiatric sources, I saw I had been underestimating the extent of the fraud.

In fact, all 297 mental disorders are arrangements and clusters of behaviors. The DSM committees hold meetings and argue and hash out the composition of the clusters and the accompanying mental-disorder labels.

“Diagnosis [as spelled out in the DSM-IV] is part of the magic…you know those medieval maps? In the places where they didn’t know what was going on, they wrote ‘Dragons live here’…we have a dragon’s world here [with the DSM]. But you wouldn’t want to be without the map.”

Frances was basically admitting that the nice neat definitions of mental disorders were a delusion. But to justify it, he called the whole enterprise an exercise in partial map-making.

A disorder doesn’t have to have a blood test to be valid. If that were the case, all mental disorders would be invalid…There is no lab test for any mental disorder right now in our science.

The secret at the bottom of psychiatry’s rabbit hole

The nebulous nature of psychiatric diagnosis is a double edged sword; they can use it to make big bucks and to prescribe lots of toxic drugs or they can deny any condition exists at all whenever it suits their purposes.

In this case, they chose denial to help keep the gubment's expenses down.

Troops are treated horribly. Not only by the government, but by a chunk of society as well. I used to be one of them. I still refuse to cheer our troops on, but would never mistreat one for simply doing what they felt was best at the time.

Kissinger made it clear that he thought of military men as stupid pawns meant to be used for political gains. It seems since he made that statement, we've done nothing but see the troops as troglodytes.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


One my main thoughts concerning the VA is that they like to drag their heels concerning anything that has such massive numbers such as PTS or exposure to Agent Orange, the Nuclear tests, Desert Storm syndrome, etc. The costs of providing healthcare for those affected are quite tremendous.

If you look at it historically, they prefer to continue to let people die in large numbers before they announce, “Maybe there is something to this.” That way they look like they are doing something to the public eye.

Unfortunately, more will continue to die before this is addressed. To them, it's just fiscally sound thinking.

On the other side though, I know of many servicemembers who are just taking advantage of the PTS requirements to bring in extra money. They have admitted such. And that distracts from those who do need the counseling and psychiatric services.

When I alerted the VA of their actions, I was told that a shrink would have to re-evaluate them to prove such.

This issue just pisses me off to no end.

reply to post by TDawgRex


Funerals are cheaper than treatment.

An unfortunate reality and on going practice of our government towards pretty much anybody who has to sacrifice for it's on going success.

~Tenth

As far as I am concerned, the VA is "oh so broke." I'm not talking fiscally here either.

When I retired, I had a VA counsler (supposedly a former Marine) try to convince me that I had PTSD AND TBI. Maybe I do have TBI as I have banged my head numerous times in the military, but truthfully, I feel fine.

But I ended up telling the counsler in a loud voice, "I don't have PTSD, I give it!" That ended THAT conversation.

PTSD I know I do not have. I'll smell things that remind me of Iraq, Panama, etc, but those smells do not take me back except in memory. Just like when I pass a farm, it reminds me of my childhood. They do not cause anxiety or flashbacks.

My old 1st Sergeant used to say that he was going to suffer from PTSD after my last tour. "Putting up with TDawgs [Snip] Daily"

Yep, my sense of humor was that bad. But so was my temper when I saw something going on that shouldn't be.

Like I have said, I know both current and former service members who are scamming the system, but I have also seen those who do need help, and they just are not recieving it due to the system being swamped.

Some of those who do need help are still serving when, as far as I am concerned, they shouldn't be. They are a bomb just waiting to go off.