COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

Salon has the goods.

From a doctor, captured on tape by a patient suffering from an anxiety disorder (PTSD or otherwise):

"OK," McNinch told Sgt. X. "I will tell you something confidentially that I would have to deny if it were ever public. Not only myself, but all the clinicians up here are being pressured to not diagnose PTSD and diagnose anxiety disorder NOS [instead]." McNinch told him that Army medical boards were "kick[ing] back" his diagnoses of PTSD, saying soldiers had not seen enough trauma to have "serious PTSD issues."

"Unfortunately," McNinch told Sgt. X, "yours has not been the only case ... I and other [doctors] are under a lot of pressure to not diagnose PTSD. It's not fair. I think it's a horrible way to treat soldiers, but unfortunately, you know, now the V.A. is jumping on board, saying, 'Well, these people don't have PTSD,' and stuff like that."

Contacted recently by Salon, McNinch seemed surprised that reporters had obtained the tape, but answered questions about the statements captured by the recording. McNinch told Salon that the pressure to misdiagnose came from the former head of Fort Carson's Department of Behavioral Health. That colonel, an Army psychiatrist, is now at Fort Lewis in Washington state. "This was pressure that the commander of my Department of Behavioral Health put on me at that time," he said. Since McNinch is a civilian employed by the Army, the colonel could not order him to give a specific, lesser diagnosis to soldiers. Instead, McNinch said, the colonel would "refuse to concur with me, or argue with me, or berate me" when McNinch diagnosed soldiers with PTSD. "It is just very difficult being a civilian in a military setting."

McNinch added that he also received pressure not to properly diagnose traumatic brain injury, Sgt. X's other medical problem. "When I got there I was told I was overdiagnosing brain injuries and now everybody is finding out that, yes, there are brain injuries," he recalled. McNinch said he argued, "'What are we going to do about treatment?' And they said, 'Oh, we are just counting people. We don't plan on treating them.'" McNinch replied, "'You are bringing a generation of brain-damaged individuals back here. You have got to get a game plan together for this public health crisis.'"

When McNinch learned he would be quoted in a Salon article, he cut off further questions. He also said he would deny the interview took place. Salon, however, had recorded the conversation.

Read the whole thing here.

Ugly.

Time to create a few more brain injuries. By cracking some heads together.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: Army, medicine, PTSD, soldiers' issues

The soldier in this famous photograph, Joseph Patrick Dwyer, is dead.



From the Army Times:

During the first week of the war in Iraq, a Military Times photographer captured the arresting image of Army Spc. Joseph Patrick Dwyer as he raced through a battle zone clutching a tiny Iraqi boy named Ali.

The photo was hailed as a portrait of the heart behind the U.S. military machine, and Doc Dwyer’s concerned face graced the pages of newspapers across the country.

But rather than going on to enjoy the public affection for his act of heroism, he was consumed by the demons of combat stress he could not exorcise. For the medic who cared for the wounds of his combat buddies as they pushed toward Baghdad, the battle for his own health proved too much to bear.

On June 28, Dwyer, 31, died of an accidental overdose in his home in Pinehurst, N.C., after years of struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. During that time, his marriage fell apart as he spiraled into substance abuse and depression. He found himself constantly struggling with the law, even as friends, Veterans Affairs personnel and the Army tried to help him.

Contrary to the opinion of blogs like Crooks and Liars, who have no compunctions about using a soldier's tragic death to score cheap political points against the VA and the Administration, evidence be damned, this isn't a case of a soldier not getting helped by the VA. He was hospitalized at least twice for psychological issues, at least once in a military facility, at government expense. He promised to go to counseling, and counseling was available for him.

If the hospital services are made available, and counseling is made available, a guy is going to huff anyway, you can't then blame "the system" for his death. Only a moron would blame VA cutbacks for his death.

He lived as a soldier and as a hero. And he died as a human, but he died under his own power. The Bush Administration had nothing to do with it.

Let us thank God that men such as him lived.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: Iraq, Psychology, PTSD, soldiers' issues

How do you get the New York Times to write a 930 word piece on you?

Get awarded the Medal of Honor. Posthumously.*

How do you get the Times to write a 5,700 word piece on you?

Kill someone.

*The Times may well get your branch of service wrong. Six years into a war, they still can't tell the difference between a soldier and a marine.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: PTSD, soldiers' issues, The media

When you're standing in ranks, look at the soldier or marine to you're right. Now look at the one to the left. Now look at the guy in front of you. If none of them are crazy, statistically, it means you're the nutcase. At least according to researchers in (ahem) San Francisco.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - High rates of mental health disorders are being diagnosed among US military personnel soon after being released from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to investigators in San Francisco.

They estimate that out of 103,788 returning veterans, 25 percent had a mental health diagnosis, and more than half of these patients had two or more distinct conditions.

Those most at risk were the youngest soldiers and those with the most combat exposure, Dr. Karen H. Seal at the Veterans Administration Medical Center and associates report in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Seal's group based their findings on records of US veterans deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan who were seen at VA health care facilities between September 2001 and September 2005.

Yes. Because those veterans who self-select to receive treatment for medical problems at VA health centers (including mental health treatment programs) are, like, an absolutely totally 100% representative sample.

Or something.

We're nuts. But not THAT nuts.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: medical, PTSD, veterans