Ignorance and Politics Cloud PTSD Diagnosis and Treatment Issues
Treatment/Diagnosis/Compensation Worse Than The Disease
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER
With continual new methods of screening PTSD using semi-trained "non-vets" and even absurd blood tests, a disease the VA was in denial about for over 100 years, veterans are sure to continue being "short changed." Every method of diagnosis is more likely to justfiy denial of treatment and compensation than anything else. With every new effort made that "seems" like something is being done, the process becomes more subject to abuse, ignorance and chance.
"Big Medicine" and the VA have invented a non-existent version of PTSD. It is no longer a disease but an industry. "Zombie" drugs are handed out like candy. VA psych clinic waiting areas often look like neurology clinics with patients trembling and shuffling in the door from the effects of overmedication. The new game has been to find vets with PTSD psychologically "unfit" for service because of "prior conditions," rather than suffering from endless deployments to "murder zones" in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Even today, many years after the VA has gone thru another imaginary retrenching, retraining and refocusing, as is always the case after scandals, scandals that seem to come every time we have a war, the compensation process is even more Kafkaesque. Disability Compensation applications are mislaid, lost, destroyed or often "put on the bottom of the pile" making the process nearly endless. Even then, compensation hearings can be with qualified and understanding doctors or "two-bit hacks" with their own problems, often taken out on their powerless charges. There really is no veterans appeal process. Bush saw to that.
Veterans seeking treatment for PTSD or other illnesses at VA hospitals and clinics are often confronted by personnel who look on vets as "welfare bums." Vets are ignored, yelled at and most often, given just enough medical care to get them out the door, no matter how serious their problem. The VA has no money for dental care beyond the basics and seems to have no money to treat any but the most insistent patients. Polite and "understanding" patients or PTSD vets who fear confined spaces and crowds often receive little or no follow-up care for chronic conditions. Advanced treatment at the VA requires a PHD in "institutional politics."
PTSD itself is mischaracterized by a medical system built more as a "money machine" than something meant to improve the human condition. If it doesn’t fit into a mold made by a non-veteran academic, not only non-veteran but more approriately non-combat veteran and even more likely someone who has never had a family member in military service, it doesn’t exist.
Veterans commit suicide. Thousands have, it seems. To make the numbers seem less, we don’t keep statistics. When we do give statisitics, we give only recorded "active duty" suicides. We never ask questions when the answers are likely to point fingers of blame. Could it be that using Reserve and National Guard units on constant deployments has destroyed the ability of many to "reintegrate" into their civilian lives?
Wives (and husbands) of constantly deployed servicemen (and women) have "moved on" with their lives, seeking new partners. Jobs disappear, sometimes due to our current economic collapse, sometimes because employers know that laws protecting our troops have been gutted by "business friendly" politicians looking for a fast buck. The result is troops returning home to divorce, custody battles, child support, alimony payments, almost always with a poor paying job or no job at all. Those who aren’t homeless, if they are lucky, live with parents or friends or simply try to return to the military. This means, of course, more deployments, never seeing children, never establishing a civilian career, never getting that needed education, never building a life.
For returning vets or troops who stay on active duty, always a good idea when homelessness is the only alternative in "post Bush-apocalypse" America, the onset of PTSD symptoms will be delayed. For many Vietnam veterans, PTSD wasn’t diagnosed until 25 years after the war or more. Some suspect that this was a "plot" by the government to kill off veterans. Certainly, the fact that fewer than 10% of Vietnam veterans, though still too young to be dying in numbers from "natural" causes, can be found indicates a problem. We aren’t even keeping track of Desert Storm vets. We have no idea how many are sick or have died. The "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy seems to apply to health issues too.
Late onset of PTSD and steady increases in symptoms, with age, even for those getting treatment, is the norm, not the exception. Honest PTSD treatment professionals, especially the few that are vets, call PTSD, "the gift that keeps giving." Vets who show only minor symptoms in their 30s, busy raising children, trying to stay employed, working harder to maintain relationships (PTSD vets commonly have a history of multiple divorces…like cops…hmmm) are likely to show "full blown PTSD" symptoms in their 40s. Why this is, no study has shown. There are no studies. Frankly, nobody wants to know.
Our current "newly discovered" problem is "closed head injuries. We have chosen to "discover" closed head injuries only for current vets only. The VA so easily forgets that along with the tens of thousands of dead from combat in Vietnam and the endless thousands of Agent Orange dead, Vietnam produced many times the "closed head injury" sufferers the current war has. Many are still alive, undiagnosed, untreated and likely to stay that way because they fit outside the convenient demographic the VA has chosen to use. According to the VA, explosives were invented in 2002. Someone needed to tell the Chinese this 5000 years ago.
The mines, booby traps (IEDs), rockets and mortars of Vietnam that killed and wounded hundreds of thousands, yes, that many, are another "inconvenient truth." We forget the mistakes of the past even when the victims of those mistakes live on, require treatment and continue to suffer. Bureaucrats are taught to never ask questions when the answers lead down an unpleasant path.
Can we blame the doctors and nurses at the VA when the Bush Administration left them with little resources to treat the current flood of wounded and sick? With the surviving veterans of Vietnam, most uninsured and many with chronic health conditions such as diabetes, PTSD and the many Agent Orange syndromes (some the VA is still in denial about) needing the best care we can give, resources are focused elsewhere. The answer to years of neglect is more neglect. Neglect is an answer, to a bureaucrat, at least. If you send a patient away enough times, he will stop coming back. Perhaps he will die.
This is and has been the bureaucratic solution. When patients show up for treatment, send them away as quickly as possible and in such a way as to keep them from coming back. When they apply for compensation, lose their paperwork, deny them benefits and hope they go away. Most will. Management is an American science, invented in American business schools. Medicine is a business. Medical management has never been so effective as it has been in the military and veterans care venue. It has managed thousands to death. 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gordon Duff is a Senior Staff Writer for VeteransToday.com. He is a U.S. Marine Vietnam Combat Veteran and regular contributor on social and political issues. He holds a United Nations diplomatic post.
Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.
Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.
Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.
ATTENTION READERS
We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully InformedIn fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion.
About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy
