Showing posts with label Disabled Veterans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Disabled Veterans. Show all posts

Friday, November 16, 2007

I Can See It Coming

If things are still going well in Iraq by the beginning of next summer or a little earlier, expect all those Congress Critters who didn't support the war to come out for more dollars for Veterans hospitals, college benefits, pay, and what not to cover for being on the wrong side. Victory will not be an orphan.

When some one brings up the war they can start talking Veterans.

They are going to paper their tracks with our money. In this case it is probably a good thing.

Inspired by this post.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Friday, November 09, 2007

We Support The Troops - Democrat Congress Style

Let me start with the good news Congress can pass pork laden water bills over the President's veto.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 — The Senate dealt President Bush the first veto override of his presidency on Thursday, with a resounding bipartisan vote to adopt a $23.2 billion water resources bill that authorizes popular projects across the country.
Let us take a look at some of the most popular projects.
Supporters said the projects authorized under the Water Resources Development Act are necessary to rebuild the Gulf Coast after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, restore the Everglades and Great Lakes fisheries and build flood-control projects nationwide.
However, they seem unable to get a Veterans Affairs bill passed by Veteran's Day.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) issued the following statement today after Democrats once again turned aside a Republican effort to complete work on a veterans' housing, health care and benefits bill before Veterans Day. The vote represented the
10th time Democrats have rejected such a proposal:

"When the House first took up and overwhelmingly passed the veterans' appropriations bill 146 days ago, none of us could've anticipated we'd be standing here today - the last legislative day before Veterans Day - without a final bill. But maybe we should have. After all, Democrats have used seemingly every measure concerning our Armed Forces as an opportunity to induce surrender in Iraq and pass billions of dollars in unrelated pork-barrel spending. This is just the latest example of it.

"But even with all that, many of us thought they'd treat the veterans' funding bill differently. This is, after all, a piece of legislation that honors and serves the men and women who have done so much to protect the country in which we have the privilege to live today. These are the men and women we will honor on Monday - Veterans Day - with parades and accolades. But thanks to Democrats in Congress, we won't be honoring them with the spending bill they deserve.
You have to wonder about their priorities. Theft seems to be #1. Probably it would seem unseemly stealing from veterans so they will steal from New Orleans instead. After all. Who will notice?

Thank the Maker we have the most ethical Congress ever. I'd hate to see the other kind.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Father of PTSD diagnosis dies

PTSD Combat has an article about the inventor of the PTSD diagnosis.

The man whom I would call the 'Father of Modern Combat PTSD Diagnosis' is dead at the age of 80. Dr. Leonard Neff was a WWII veteran and psychiatrist who'd begun working with Vietnam veterans in the early 1970's. He rose to prominence in dramatic fashion when, in 1974, he persuaded a returning veteran who'd taken hostages to release them following 3 hours of negotiations. The event raised public awareness of the plight of many soldiers returning from Vietnam; it also led Neff to push to include a definition of what today is known as posttraumatic stress disorder to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Go and read it all with links to more. As you know combat PTSD has been one of my interests. I have written a few piecies about it:

Aftermath

The Soldiers Disease

Cannabis is the Best Medicine

PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System


, , , , , , , ,

Is Hilton Burning Yet?

Wait. Wrong title. Should be Paris not Hilton. Well, enough of the jokes.

There is news today that a restruant that serves disabled veterans free meals on Fridays is not getting their lease extended by the Hilton Hotels.

You can learn more at Castle Argghhh!. Contact details are also given for those of you who want to contact Paris Hilton. I mean the Hilton Hotel chain. Here is just a bit of the story:

Many people associated with the military, especially those who work with the wounded, are aware of what the restaurant Fran O'Brien's has been doing every Friday night since 2003 for the patients at Walter Reed and Bethesda. But their great work is in danger of ending in just two weeks.
via Instapundit.

, , ,

Thursday, April 14, 2005

A test for PTSD

Researchers at the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School appear to have discovered a test that can predict who will have long term problems with PTSD.

The results of the first-ever findings, published in the prestigious journal Molecular Psychiatry, describe how the researchers looked for and discovered a physiological signature in peripheral blood cells of activities that mainly take place in the brain. Their research methodology was innovative in itself. They examined thousands of possible markers at once, using the best available technology at the time.

The researchers believe that after some improvement in the testing process, it will be possible to predict the PTSD symptoms. Hadasit, the Hadassah subsidiary in charge of promoting and commercializing intellectual properties generated at Hadassah, has already patented the findings of the research and is in advanced stages of developing a commercial diagnostic kit for PTSD.

“Now that we have found the signals, we are going to concentrate on detecting the genes, to shed more light on the biological processes in our bodies that cause mental diseases, and from this – to develop ways to prevent such diseases,” said Prof. Arie Shalev, head of Hadassah's Department of Psychiatry, who led the research with Dr. Ronen Segman of the Psychiatric Laboratory at Hadassah University Hospital-Mt. Scopus. Lab work was done by Dr. Segman and Tanya Goltzer-Dubner. Prof. Nir Friedman and Noa Shefi from the Hebrew University’s Department of Computer Science did the computerized digitations of the data, and Prof. Naftali Kaminski from Sheba Hospital helped in the laboratory part of the research
This is truly amazing. As some of you may know I have done a lot of work as an amateur on PTSD and its relationship to the use of unapproved drugs (you know, pot, heroin etc.) This work essentially confirms my finding that PTSD (of the long term variety) is a two factor problem. The two factors are genetics and trauma. The trauma can include combat, child abuse, living in a war zone and any other situation that is dangerous or life threatening (like living in a drug war zone) where the individual involved feels powerless to control the situation. For instance sky diving is life threatening but is not a situation where those involved have no control.

Globes online did an interview with Prof. Arie Shalev who lead the research team.
"The problem in diagnosing PTSD is that the brain is an inaccessible organ to research," explains Shalev. "Differences can be seen between the brain of a person about to develop PTSD and the brain of a person about to recover, but the differences are small and indistinct. Nor is it possible to conduct MRI tests for everyone who comes into an emergency room. Our breakthrough would say, 'If this process affects the brain, we can certainly see evidence of it in the blood, which is much more accessible'."

Shalev and his colleague, Ronen Segman of the Psychiatric Laboratory at Hadassah University Hospital-Mt. Scopus, turned to a fairly new technology, microRA, which can simultaneously examine tens of thousands of molecules in the blood. "This system can diagnose the presence of messenger RNA (mRNA) in the blood. These are proteins that genes manufacture to signal the body to do something. We can check and see what the bodies of different types of patient are about to do," says Shalev.
Professor Shalev goes on to say that the research he has done will provide a tool for further study of the mechanisms involved in PTSD.
"Our study examined 24 people who suffered trauma and were diagnosed with shock upon arrival at hospital," says Shalev. "We found difference between their blood profile. Some patients had elevated levels of stress hormones - proteins that that block changes in the nervous system, and proteins that frequently found in the hippocampus, the area where we saw difference in MRI scans between patients who developed PTSD and those who recovered from shock.

"We hypothesized that the patients showing this blood profile were much more likely to develop PTSD. The test was able to correctly predict in ten out of eleven shock patients arriving at the emergency room whether they would show signs of PTSD four months later."

"Globes": What causes the difference between those who recover from shock and those who have trouble recovering?

Shalev: "A lot of factors cause the difference, none of which on its own can predict who will develop PTSD and who will not. Proximity to the traumatic event, prior events, psychological abandonment in childhood, a recovery environment from trauma, and biogenetic awareness are all factors investigated for which evidence has been found that they influence candidacy for PTSD. If we were to go gene by gene, we might find small differences in some genes between the group that are candidates for PTSD and the group that are not candidates. But you can get clear results with real predictive ability if you examine many molecules in the blood simultaneously."

How exactly do these hormones affect the brain to cause PTSD?

"The truth is that we don’t really know. We've hypothesized a mechanism, and I believe that by understanding the profile of proteins in the blood at the time of trauma, we can better understand the mechanisms. There are currently many theories that we might be able to support or disprove. I'm waiting for surprises."
There is more of the interview at Globes. Read the whole thing.

Canada Israel Comittee has also reported on Professor Shalev's work.
Emergency rooms are built specifically to take care of a patient's physical injuries. But what about emotional fallout due to the traumatic event that just took place - especially the delayed reaction of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?

Israeli researchers at the Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem have determined that a simple blood test might enable psychiatrists to predict if a person will develop PTSD. The test can be conducted while they're still in the emergency room, only hours after the traumatic event occurred.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a severe mental condition that can be severe, persistent and disabling, and occurs in a significant minority of trauma survivors beginning at the moment of the traumatic event, according to Prof. Arie Shalev, head of Hadassah's Department of Psychiatry.
Professor Shalev goes on to discuss how this breakthrough came about.
"The project was born from conversations between Dr. Segman and myself, following our previous work on the genetics of PTSD," said Shalev.

"We wondered how to improve the prediction and the understanding of this disorder from biological findings. We realized that current biological hypotheses did not yield much, and may take very long time to yield good-enough markers of PTSD - indeed of any other mental disorder. This is because any given contributing factor may only predict part of the total variance in the causation of a given disorder. Additionally, by going for one factor at a time, we might, in fact, miss the 'right' hypothesis altogether."

Using an innovative methodology, they simultaneously examined thousands of possible biomarkers using microarrays (gene chips). Microarrays, which have been used to measure the activity of thousands of genes at one time in cancer or immune cells, have given scientists "snapshots" of gene activity that lead to a better understanding of the cells and genetic machinery.

"Ronen suggested the use of micro arrays - where the team could test simultaneously thousands of hypothetical candidates - and look at gene expression in blood cells - as reflecting the central nervous system activity, at a timing that coincides with triggering and onset of the disorder," said Shalev.

"We further thought that since stress involves both the central nervous system and peripheral activation (such as higher blood pressure, higher levels of circulating hormones and change in immune factors) - the occurrence of post-traumatic stress disorder might indeed be biologically expressed in blood cells."
Professor Shalev talks about his breakthrough and what it means.
"Now that we have found the signals, we are going to concentrate on detecting the genes, to shed more light on the biological processes in our bodies that cause mental diseases, and from this - to develop ways to prevent such diseases," said Shalev.

He hopes the discovery will induce other researchers to investigate the connection between peripheral expression and central nervous system expression of a disease that affects the brain.

According to Shalev, the study has broken two boundaries.

"First, the idea that one must necessarily study the biology of the brain (which is impossible in humans). We suggest, instead, that one can productively study a 'signature' of central nervous system phenomena in the easily accessible peripheral blood cells," said Shalev.

"Second, we challenge the reluctance to conduct a study with generic - rather than specific hypotheses (generic = there will be a signature; specific = this gene should be expressed). In other words, we suggest, in this work that it is productive to start by throwing a wide net (the micro array - in which thousands of expressions are seen at the same time) - and than eventually go back to testing specific hypothesis on the basis of micro array findings."
Again there is more at the site. Read it.

Another site reporting on the research is The World Jewish Congress. The American magazine Psychology Today also has a report.

Deployment Link which deals with American military health issues is looking for veterans of either Operations Desert Shield or Desert Storm or Vietnam War to participate in a study of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. If you fit into one of those catagories contact them. The work is being done by Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the Bronx Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New York.

Here is an article by Prof. Shalev dealing with the genetics of PTSD. It was published in 2003.

The blog Crystal Clear which is written by a psychotherapist dealing with child psychology and family issues has also discussed the research.

And finally let me point you to some of my articles on the subject of PTSD and drug use.

Addiction or Self Medication?
Heroin
Genetic Discrimination
Cannabinoids - the Key to many Pains?
Big Mac - heroin attack
Capitalism, Pain and the War on Drugs
PTSD Pot Alcohol & Substance Abuse
The Problem with Drug Addicts
Fear of Marijuana

BTW thanks to the commenter SAO at Winds of Change and Joe Katzman also of Winds who brought this to my attention.