UCSF Teach-in Focuses on Health Effects of Iraq War

[struggle4progress]

Thursday, 17 May '07
By Lisa Cisneros

About 500 people experienced a sobering and uncensored assessment of the catastrophic health effects of the Iraq war on combatants and civilians at a symposium at UCSF on May 9. ~snip~

Among other highlights of the teach-in:

* • About 1,700 US soldiers have suffered severe traumatic brain injuries in combat so far, which is likely to cost the United States $20 billion over the next 20 years, according to William Schecter, MD, chief of surgery at San Francisco General Hospital.

* • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has lasting effects on soldiers and their spouses and children, transcending a generation and lasting 30 years or more, according to Charles Marmar, MD, chief of mental health services at San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC), who recounted lessons learned from Vietnam. Unlike in Vietnam, where women served as nurses rather than combatants, 13 percent of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are women, many in combat situations.

* • Of 103,788 US veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking treatment at VAMC clinics throughout the nation, 25 percent received one or more mental health diagnoses, with most involving complex, multiple diagnoses that require more time and treatment, according to Karen Seal, MD, MPH, a physician in general internal medicine at SFVAMC. Despite such diagnoses, veterans have a huge “no-show rate” for appointments, with stigma of mental health being the biggest barrier, she noted. SFVAMC is offering telephone and Internet-based intervention programs to bridge the gap.

http://pub.ucsf.edu/today/cache/news/200705161.html