Veterans’ Suicide Epidemic Lucrative for Therapists

Marine Corps veterans have formed their own suicide-prevention network for reasons laid out in a very powerful article by Dave Philipps in the New York Times Sept. 20. The men Philipps writes about served in the Second Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment (the 2/7), in Afghanistan. Many had been deployed in Iraq, too.

“No one knows whether the battalion’s suicide rate is abnormally high or a common trait of fighting units hit hard by combat, because no one monitors troops over time. In an era of Big Data, when algorithms can predict human patterns in startling detail, suicide data for veterans is incomplete and years old by the time it is available. The most recent data is from 2011.

“The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Pentagon say they have introduced a new system, called the Suicide Data Repository, that is faster and more complete.

But Dr. Harold Kudler, chief mental health consultant to the department, said the military and V.A. did not share information that could allow the monitoring of combat units over time.

“ ‘Might that be a good idea? It might be a good idea,’ he said. ‘But it’s not in our ability to achieve. It’s not our mission’.”

Philipps notes the extent to which psychotherapists have profited from the suicide epidemic among veterans.

“Beginning in 2005, suicide rates among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans started to climb sharply, and the military and Veterans Affairs created a number of programs to fight the problem. Despite spending hundreds of millions on research, the department and the military still know little about how combat experience affects suicide risk, according to suicide researchers focused on the military…”

So hundreds of millions have gone to the "suicide researchers" conducting useless studies, while the vets struggle to find employment! [The link is to a 189-page study by seven RAND Corporation experts entitled, “Developing a Research Strategy for Suicide Prevention in the Department of Defense.”  What’s the difference between a Strategy, and a Research Strategy. Maybe they intend to research how to study the subject. Anyone who reads it, please advise.]

It turns out that for all the studying done by their experts, and for all their computer programs and apps, the Department of Veterans Affairs does not correlate suicide with the unit in which personnel served. In fact, the VA doesn't even distinguish between vets who saw combat and those who did not!  The VA has a category for vets who were deployed to war zones, but they don't track the subset that saw actual combat.  This gives the honchos cover when they say they have no proof linking combat to suicide.

The situation is perfectly analogous to the medical establishment saying we don't really know that marijuana has anti-seizure effects. More research is needed. What the vets themselves say about the mindblowing impact of combat is discounted as mere anecdotal evidence. The sociologists and psychologists need more funding to assess, by truly scientific methods, whether killing people and seeing your friends killed and maimed contributes to suicidal despair.

“Many recent studies have focused on whether deployment was a risk factor for suicide, and found that it was not.

“The results appeared to show something paradoxical: Those deployed to war were actually less likely to commit suicide. But critics of the studies say most people deployed in war zones do not face enemy fire. The risk for true combat veterans is hidden in the larger results, and has never been properly examined, they assert.

“ ‘They may have 10 times the risk, they may have 100 times, and we don’t know, because no one has looked,’ said Michael Schoenbaum, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…”

One psychologist quoted by Philipps holds the VA blameless in the suicide epidemic. He blames the vets themselves for rejecting the VA's help (mainly antidepressant pills), and has taken on the "challenge" of luring them back to the regimen:

“Craig J. Bryan, a psychologist and an Iraq war veteran, said that ‘the V.A. has done more to try to prevent suicide than anyone has done in the history of the human race.’ Mr. Bryan, who runs the National Center for Veterans Studies at the University of Utah, added: ‘But most veterans who kill themselves do not go to treatment or give up. They are not interested. That is the challenge’.”

For most of the deservedly long article, Phillips presents the vets' anecdotal evidence —and you know it's all true.

“The men of the 2/7 overwhelmingly see a tie between combat and their suicide problem. Not only were all of the men who committed suicide young infantrymen who struggled with experiences of killing and loss, they say, but it is possible to trace one traumatic moment forward and see how those involved are now struggling.”

I could quote on and on, but this article is well worth your time and attention. Cannabis is not mentioned but the vets express utter contempt for the pills pushed by the VA… Combat is not the only factor in suicidal despair, and the poverty, aimlessness, and social breakdown to which many vets return (having once fled) take their toll... Philipps doesn't raise the question of whether the men felt duped by claims of what the mission was about politically —freedom for Afghanistan, or whatever.  Hard to imagine it wasn't a factor for some who took their lives.  Being told that the foreigners wanted you in their country and then realizing they did not, and that your own government had misled you into this nightmare for reasons they weren't letting on. That could mess with your mind.

The Truth About Paxil (better late than never)

An unbiased team led by Dr. David Healy has repeated the study that Glaxo-SmithKline submitted to get FDA approval for Paxil use by adolescents back in 2001. The original study was conducted by a team led by Dr. Martin Keller of Brown University. Healy et al found that Keller et al had, among other deceitful maneuvers, concealed episodes of suicidal ideation and actual suicide attempts under the heading “emotional lability.”

The Times assigned Benedict Carey, a longtime shill for Big Pharma, to report on Healy’s revelations. Carey’s story is very sympathetic to Keller and Glaxo. The company isn’t even mentioned by name till 8 paragraphs in, then it is twice praised for making the original patient-level data available for the new analysis. Keller is given ample space to defend his original findings.

Carey can’t help but acknowledge, “Over the years, thousands of people taking or withdrawing from Paxil or other psychiatric drugs have committed violent acts, including suicide, experts said, though no firm statistics are available,” he hastens to add. “Because many factors could have contributed to that behavior, it is still far from clear who is at risk — and for whom the drugs are protective.”

Earlier this year the Times noted the accelerated pace at which articles in prestigious journals are being retracted.

Need we add that proponents of Cannabis-based Medicine are constantly told that publication in a peer-reviewed journal is the only criterion for establishing what is true in this world. Or as Groucho Marx put it,  “Who are you going to believe —me or your own lying eyes?”