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Evening Open Thread: Suicide is Not So Painless |
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Truly sad news from yesterday's Bloomberg report:
The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government's top psychiatric researcher said.
Community mental health centers, hobbled by financial limits, haven't provided enough scientifically sound care, especially in rural areas, said Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He briefed reporters today at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in Washington.
Insel echoed a Rand Corporation study published last month that found about 20 percent of returning U.S. soldiers have post- traumatic stress disorder or depression, and only half of them receive treatment. About 1.6 million U.S. troops have fought in the two wars since October 2001, the report said. About 4,560 soldiers had died in the conflicts as of today, the Defense Department reported on its Web site.
Based on those figures and established suicide rates for similar patients who commonly develop substance abuse and other complications of post-traumatic stress disorder, "it's quite possible that the suicides and psychiatric mortality of this war could trump the combat deaths," Insel said.
CBS has been doing a good job covering the issue of suicides among veterans. From November:
And again, from last week:
I'm going to do something horrible and politicize this issue. John McCain claims that he is veterans' best friend. His website states (amid a long list of ways he says he supports veterans):
John McCain has voted consistently to increase funding for veterans' benefits, recognizing that the people who serve our country should get priority over the disgraceful amounts of spending on corporate subsidies and wasteful pork barrel spending.
But this is a straight up lie. John McCain has hardly done everything he can to help soldiers after they've completed their service, least of all at the expense of corporate subsidies. As Think Progress, among many others, have noted:
Not only has he refused to support the 21st Century GI Bill, which the Veterans of Foreign Wars endorsed last June, he has consistently voted against increasing funding for the Veterans’ Administration, which oversees all medical care for veterans:
– Voted AGAINST an amendment providing $20 billion to the VA’s medical facilities. [5/4/06]
– Voted AGAINST providing $430 million to the VA for outpatient care “and treatment for veterans,” one of only 13 senators to do so. [4/26/06]
– Voted AGAINST increasing VA funding by $1.5 billion by closing corporate loopholes. [3/14/06]
– Voted AGAINST increasing VA funding by $1.8 billion by ending “abusive tax loopholes.” [3/10/04]
– Voted AGAINST a $650 million increase in veterans’ medical care funding. [8/1/01]
Seminal readers, I did some searching and came up empty-handed. Can you find a single veteran's group that has endorsed John McCain?
Thank you for writing about this. The cost to our country from this war is so heartbreaking in so many ways. The callous and careless attitudes of our Republican president and presidential wannabe are infuriating.