National Health Crisis: US Inner-City Kids Suffer ‘War-Zone’-Like PTSD

National Health Crisis: US Inner-City Kids Suffer ‘War-Zone’-Like PTSD:

BBC’s ‘America First?’ series sent Aleem Maqbool, a North America correspondent, to the inner city of Atlanta, Georgia, where he uncovered a rather shocking statistic in which 46% of the inner city residents suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a rate that is much higher than U.S. soldiers (10-20%).

Maqbool describes Atlanta’s inner city environment as a “war zone”, where death and destruction are contributing to high levels of PTSD in adults and children. He further quoted researchers and said levels of PTSD in America’s inner cities are comparable to refugee populations around the world.

To make matters worse, the video makes the claim: gun murder rates (per 100,000) in the US are at astronomical levels when compared to other countries. A startling find, when considering the US, the richest country in the world, does not perform well in the international rankings.

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Healthy gut found to reduce effects of trauma: Study explains the link between the gut microbiome and PTSD

Healthy gut found to reduce effects of trauma: Study explains the link between the gut microbiome and PTSD:

A new study found that a healthy gut can lessen the effects of trauma, as reported by Science Daily. Researchers from Stellenbosch University analyzed the relationship of gut microbiome and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They compared the gut microbiomes of 18 individuals with PTSD to 12 people who also experienced trauma, but did not develop PSTD. They found a combination of three bacteria that were different in people who suffered from PTSD. These were Actinobacteria, Lentisphaerae, and Verrucomicrobia. (Related: Gut health linked to anxiety, depression and autism.)

Results showed that the participants with PTSD had smaller numbers of the three bacteria in contrast to the trauma-exposed participants. In addition, those who experienced trauma when they were a child had lesser levels of two out of the three bacteria, namely Actinobacteria and Verrucomicrobia. These bacteria are known to regulate the immune system.

“What makes this finding interesting, is that individuals who experience childhood trauma are at higher risk of developing PTSD later in life, and these changes in the gut microbiome possibly occurred early in life in response to childhood trauma,” said Stefanie Malan-Muller, lead author of the study.

Read moreHealthy gut found to reduce effects of trauma: Study explains the link between the gut microbiome and PTSD

AND NOW: Ecstasy labelled a ‘breakthrough therapy’ for patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by the FDA

Ecstasy labelled a ‘breakthrough therapy’ for patients with post-traumatic stress disorder by the FDA:

ILLICIT drug ecstasy is one step away from being licensed in the US for its effectiveness in treating post-traumatic stress disorder.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has determined that illicit drug ecstasy is a “breakthrough therapy” in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment.

Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), commonly referred to as ecstasy, could now have a faster pathway to pharmaceutical approval in the US, reports Science Alert .

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USMC Veteran Facing Life in Prison Over 1 Oz. of Cannabis to Treat His PTSD

USMC Veteran Facing Life in Prison Over 1 Oz. of Cannabis to Treat His PTSD:

Geronimo, OK — After serving three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Kristoffer Lewandowski was medically and honorably discharged from the Marine Corps. After fighting the State’s wars for them, however, the State has taken it upon themselves to wage a personal war against him — for naturally treating an illness — he acquired fighting for them.

Lewandowski is now a 100% disabled veteran because of the severity of his PTSD. Since he has gotten out, the VA had him taking up to 18 pills a day to treat his PTSD. This pharmaceutical treatment was literally killing him.

At 180 Percocet per month, for ten consecutive months, along with a prescription for OxyContin, Lewandowski’s liver was failing. Luckily, for this Marine veteran, he found cannabis — and it worked.

H/t reader squody:

“The purge continues…..”

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The Cost of War: Latest DoD Figures Show Suicide Kills Almost 5 Times as Many Troops as Combat

active-duty-suicide-rate

The Cost of War: Latest DoD Figures Show Suicide Kills Almost 5 Times as Many Troops as Combat:

As bureaucratic fatcats sit back from their lush taxpayer-funded offices in giant marble buildings debating on whether or not to send more troops to the Middle East, a crisis is being ignored.

Last week, the Department of Defense (DoD) released its 2014 calendar year Suicide Event Report (DoDSER), which details the number of suicide attempts and deaths for U.S. service members.

The numbers are startling.

Read moreThe Cost of War: Latest DoD Figures Show Suicide Kills Almost 5 Times as Many Troops as Combat

Kansas to Military Veteran: Stop Using Medical Marijuana or Give up Your Kids

marijuana-cannabis

Kansas to Military Veteran: Stop Using Medical Marijuana or Give up Your Kids:

Denver, CO A United States military veteran and father is fighting the state of Kansas for custody of his children. In April 2015, Raymond Schwab’s children were confiscated by Child Protective Services, and authorities in the state insist he must discontinue his use of marijuana — which he uses to treat his PTSD — if he and his wife, Amelia, want them back.

Schwab, an honorably discharged veteran of the Gulf War, discovered the benefits of using marijuana to treat PTSD years ago. He lived in Colorado when medical use was legalized, and he found it worked better than other options he had tried.

Veterans Affairs had prescribed Schwab a variety of pharmaceuticals to treat his PTSD, from painkillers and muscle relaxants to anti-anxiety drugs. However, Schwab says, “they were making me crazy, they made me worse.” Schwab says he even developed an addiction to heroin, but that using cannabis helped him overcome it.

Read moreKansas to Military Veteran: Stop Using Medical Marijuana or Give up Your Kids

Fort Hood Shooter Was Iraq Veteran Being Treated For Mental Health Issues

Related info:

Like Nearly All Other Mass Shooters, Ex-Navy Shooter Aaron Alexis Was Also Being Treated With Psychiatric Drugs

Every Mass Shooting Over Tast 20 Years Has One Thing In Common … And It’s Not Guns

SSRI Stories – Antidepressant Nightmares: School Shootings & Incidents

SSRI Stories – Antidepressant Nightmares – ‘We Speak For The Dead To Protect The Living’

Making A Killing: The Untold Story Of Psychotropic Drugging (Full Documentary)


Fort Hood shooter was Iraq vet being treated for mental health issues (CNN, April 3, 2014):

The man who opened fire at the Fort Hood military post in Texas was a veteran who served four months in Iraq and was undergoing treatment for mental health issues.

Spc. Ivan Lopez, married with children, moved to the post in Killeen in February from another military installation.

Authorities don’t know what prompted the shooting spree Wednesday, where Lopez, 34, killed three people, wounded 16 — before fatally shooting himself.

Read moreFort Hood Shooter Was Iraq Veteran Being Treated For Mental Health Issues

Feds Tell Veteran He Will Lose Second Amendment Rights Because of PTSD (Video)

When did serving your country become a crime?

kirby-then-now

Feds Drop Bombshell On Veterans! (Daily Mashup, Jan 16, 2014):

(by Tim King and Jerry Freeman Salem-news.com)

(MYRTLE CREEK, OR) – If Pat Kirby has his guns taken away by the federal government, then everyone else is probably going to eventually face the same thing. The clock is ticking. Pat Kirby is a decorated Oregon Vietnam Veteran with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). He never imagined he would receive a letter telling him he will have to turn over his guns, or face imprisonment.

Read moreFeds Tell Veteran He Will Lose Second Amendment Rights Because of PTSD (Video)

U.S. Soldiers Not Getting Paid, Left Broke

Special Report: How the Pentagon’s payroll quagmire traps America’s soldiers (Reuters, July 9, 2013):

As Christmas 2011 approached, U.S. Army medic Shawn Aiken was once again locked in desperate battle with a formidable foe. Not insurgents in Iraq, or Taliban fighters in Afghanistan – enemies he had already encountered with distinguished bravery.

This time, he was up against the U.S. Defense Department.

Aiken, then 30 years old, was in his second month of physical and psychological reconstruction at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, after two tours of combat duty had left him shattered. His war-related afflictions included traumatic brain injury, severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), abnormal eye movements due to nerve damage, chronic pain, and a hip injury.

But the problem that loomed largest that holiday season was different. Aiken had no money. The Defense Department was withholding big chunks of his pay. It had started that October, when he received $2,337.56, instead of his normal monthly take-home pay of about $3,300. He quickly raised the issue with staff. It only got worse. For all of December, his pay came to $117.99.

All Aiken knew was that the Defense Department was taking back money it claimed he owed. Beyond that, “they couldn’t even tell me what the debts were from,” he says.

At the time, Aiken was living off base with his fiancee, Monica, and her toddler daughter, while sharing custody of his two children with his ex-wife. As their money dwindled, the couple began hitting church-run food pantries. Aiken took out an Army Emergency Relief Loan to cover expenses of their December move into a new apartment. At Christmas, Operation Santa Claus provided the family with presents – one for each child, per the charity’s rules.

Eventually, they began pawning their possessions – jewelry, games, an iPhone, and even the medic bag Aiken used when saving lives in Afghanistan. The couple was desperate from “just not knowing where food’s going to come from,” he says. “They just hit one button and they take your whole paycheck away. And then you have to fight to get the money back.”

Read moreU.S. Soldiers Not Getting Paid, Left Broke

Former Navy Seal Sniper Chris Kyle Killed At Texas Gun Range

US military’s most prolific sniper wrote bestselling memoir on his four tours in Iraq and was known for helping veterans with PTSD


Chris Kyle and fellow war veteran Chad Littlefield were killed Saturday afternoon. Photograph: Paul Moseley/AP

Former Navy Seal sniper Chris Kyle shot dead at Texas gun range (Guardian, Feb 3, 2013):

A former Navy Seal who went on to write a bestselling book chronicling his life as the US’s most prolific marksman has been shot dead at a gun range in Texas.

Police said Sunday that the body of Chris Kyle was found by officers responding to an incident at the Rough Creek Lodge in Glen Rose the previous evening. Chad Littlefield, a 35-year-old friend of the war veteran and author, was also killed at the scene.

In a statement, Sergeant Lonny Haschel said Eddie Ray Routh, 25, of Lancaster, had been charged with two counts of murder in relation to the double shooting. The alleged gunman was found at his home just hours after the shooting, having earlier fled the gun range in a pick-up truck, it is claimed.

Read moreFormer Navy Seal Sniper Chris Kyle Killed At Texas Gun Range

‘Super Soldiers’: The Quest For The Ultimate Human Killing Machine

‘Super soldiers’: The quest for the ultimate human killing machine (Independent, Nov. 17, 2011):

Guilt, tiredness, stress, shock – can specialised drugs help to mute the qualities that make soldiers human, asks Michael Hanlon?

The ancient Spartans believed that battlefield training began at birth. Those who failed the first round of selection, which took place at the ripe old age of 48 hours, were left at the foot of a mountain to die. The survivors would, in years to come, often wonder if these rejects were the lucky ones. Because to harden them up, putative Spartan warriors were subjected to a vigorous regime involving unending physical violence, severe cold, a lack of sleep and constant sexual abuse.

As with the English public schools, which used similar tactics to produce the warriors who carved out the British Empire, the Spartan regime worked; the alumni were the most feared soldiers in the eastern Mediterranean. And ever since then, military chiefs have wondered whether it may be possible to short-cut the long and demanding Spartan regime to produce a soldier who kills without care or remorse, shows no fear, can fight battle after battle without fatigue and generally behave more like a machine than a man.

In the post-war era, the future of fighting was thought to be about tanks and missiles, large impersonal machines that would fight huge battles over the open terrain of Northern Europe. The soldiers would be pressing buttons in a command centre. But despite the advent of drone aircraft, much of 21st-century warfare is turning out to be a drawn-out, messy business, fought on a human scale in the mud and dust of Afghanistan. And fought against a mercurial army of irregulars who melt away into the fields and farms once the skirmish is over. Modern soldiers are not the cannon fodder of before. Highly trained and super fit, each one represents a huge investment by the nation that sends them into battle. A soldier who is too tired to fight effectively, who has gone mad or who is suffering from severe stress is like a broken-down tank, no use to anybody. What if soldiers could be made that did not break down?

Read more‘Super Soldiers’: The Quest For The Ultimate Human Killing Machine

Scientists work on drug to erase your memories

First fluoridate the drinking water like the Nazis and the Russians did in the concentration camps and gulags to make the prisoners docile and infertile and give the people antidepressants with fluoride as main ingredient like Prozac, then further chemically lobotomize them with even more drugs and vaccines and all is (Or)well in 1984.

More information on fluoride below the following article.


(NaturalNews) Drug researchers are working on a mind-altering chemical that could erase your memories. It’s all being pursued under the umbrella of “mental health” with claims that this could help victims of emotional trauma. The idea that you can “heal” a patient by chemically lobotomizing them is, of course, entirely consistent with the core mythology of modern medicine: If something’s wrong, you should poison it, burn it, irradiate it or cut it out… and then pronounce the patient “healed!”

In the case of memory-erasing drugs, scientists are reportedly working on a drug that would remove certain proteins from the brain’s “fear center.” This is based on the ludicrous idea, by the way, that memories are recorded solely by physical proteins in the brain — an idea that’s obviously based on an entirely outmoded mechanistic model of the human mind and brain.

Then again, modern medical science seems to be hopelessly stuck in the Dark Ages, believing that there must be a chemical cure for everything. Hence the ongoing waste of billions of dollars searching for a cancer cure as if it were some sort of acquired infection.

“Erasing a memory and then everything bad built on that is an amazing idea, and I can see all sorts of potential,” said Kate Farinholt, executive director of the mental health support and information group NAMI Maryland, in a Baltimore Sun story (http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/…). But even she can see this approach could be fraught with danger: “Completely deleting a memory, assuming it’s one memory, is a little scary. How do you remove a memory without removing a whole part of someone’s life, and is it best to do that, considering that people grow and learn from their experiences?”

Read moreScientists work on drug to erase your memories

US Veterans Get Ecstasy to Treat Their PTSD

Ecstasy destroys the liver and the brain!


vets-get-ecstasy-to-treat-their-ptsd

A pair of psychiatric experts think they’ve got the answer to the soaring number of troops coming back from war with PTSD: have them undergo intensive psychotherapy – while they’re rolling on ecstasy.

Dr. Michael Mithoefer and Anne Mithoefer, a psychiatric nurse, are the South Carolina pair who’ve been spearheading research into ecstasy, known clinically as MDMA, since 2000. After one successful study on 21 PTSD patients between 2004 and 2008, they’ve now received the final okay from FDA and DEA officials to start a study entirely devoted to former military service members.

“My sense is that, especially after we published the results of the first study, these institutions are more open to the idea,” Dr. Michael Mithoefer tells Danger Room. “Obviously, this is still new and experimental, and it can take time to get through to big institutions.”

With $500,000 in funding from MAPS (the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies), the two are recruiting 16 veterans – they’re hoping for a 50-50 split between men and women, and want most of the participants to have been diagnosed within the last 10 years.

“These will mostly be veterans from Iraq or Afghanistan, because longer duration of PTSD means more complicating factors,” Dr. Mithoefer says, adding that he does anticipate enrolling 4 vets from earlier wars and is still accepting applications.

Read moreUS Veterans Get Ecstasy to Treat Their PTSD

The Messy Future of Memory-Editing Drugs

What a wonderful world!


The development of a drug that controls a chemical used to form memories sparked heady scientific and philosophical speculation this week.

Granted, the drug has only been tested in rats, but other memory-blunting drugs are being tried in soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder. It might not be long before memories are pharmaceutically targeted, just as moods are now.

Some think this represents an opportunity to eliminate the crippling psychic effects of past trauma. Others see an ill-advised chemical intrusion into an essential human facility that threatens to replace our ability to understand and cope with life’s inevitabilities.

Oxford University neuroethicist Anders Sandberg spoke with Wired.com about the future of memory-editing drugs. In some ways, said Sandberg, our memories are already being altered. We just don’t realize it.

Read moreThe Messy Future of Memory-Editing Drugs

Veterans Hospital Told to Stop Diagnosing Iraq War Soldiers with PTSD

(NaturalNews) The post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) coordinator for a Texas veterans hospital sent an email to facility staff suggesting that they stop diagnosing returning Afghanistan and Iraq veterans with PTSD.

“Given that we are having more and more compensation-seeking veterans, I’d like to suggest that you refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out,” wrote psychologist Norma J. Perez in an email to the staff of the Olin E. Teague Veterans’ Center in Temple, Texas.

Saying that Veterans Affairs (VA) staffers “really don’t … have the time to do the extensive testing that should be done to determine PTSD,” Perez suggested that they should instead “consider a diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder.”

Veterans diagnosed with Adjustment Disorder receive significantly less in the way of disability and health care benefits than those diagnosed with PTSD. An estimated 300,000 Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans are currently suffering from either PTSD or severe depression, according to a recent report by the Rand Corp.

Read moreVeterans Hospital Told to Stop Diagnosing Iraq War Soldiers with PTSD

Suicide hot line got calls from 22,000 veterans

“…the VA estimates that 18 veterans a day — or 6,500 a year — take their own lives, but that number includes vets from all wars.” Source: Military suicide rate increased again

“Nearly 40% of Army suicide victims in 2006 and 2007 took psychotropic drugs — overwhelmingly, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac and Zoloft.”
Source: America’s Medicated Army


Pfc. Joseph Dwyer, 26, from Mt. Sinai, N.Y., carries a young Iraqi boy who was injured during a heavy battle between the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry Regiment and Iraqi forces in this March 25, 2003 file photo near Al Faysaliyah, Iraq. Dwyer died of an accidental overdose after struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder for almost five years.

WASHINGTON – More than 22,000 veterans have sought help from a special suicide hot line in its first year, and 1,221 suicides have been averted, the government says.

According to a recent RAND Corp. study, roughly one in five soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan displays symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, putting them at a higher risk for suicide. Researchers at Portland State University found that male veterans are twice as likely to commit suicide than men who are not veterans.

This month, a former Army medic, Joseph Dwyer, who was shown in a Military Times photograph running through a battle zone carrying an Iraqi boy, died of an accidental overdose after struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder for almost five years.

Read moreSuicide hot line got calls from 22,000 veterans

PTSD leaves physical footprints on the brain

At a recent conference for some of the area’s leading neurologists, San Francisco physicist Norbert Schuff captured his colleagues’ attention when he presented colorful brain images of U.S. soldiers who had returned from Iraq and Afghanistan and were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The yellow areas, Schuff explained during his presentation at the city’s Veterans Affairs Medical Center, showed where the hippocampus, which plays major roles in short-term memory and emotions, had atrophied. The red swatches marked hyperfusion – increased blood flow – in the prefrontal cortex, the region responsible for conflict resolution and decision-making. Compared with a soldier without the affliction, the PTSD brain had lost 5 to 10 percent of its gray matter volume, indicating yet more neuron damage.

Read morePTSD leaves physical footprints on the brain

A Message for Mr. Bush


Added: July 18, 2008

Source: YouTube

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IRAQ: ‘Special Weapons’ Have a Fallout on Babies
War-related birth defects in Fallujah
Cheney can only call Iraq a success if he has a mindset like Hitler
Wartime PTSD cases jumped roughly 50 pct. in 2007
Soldier suicides could trump war tolls: US health official

Welcome Home, Soldier: Now Shut Up


There are two kinds of courage in war – physical courage and moral courage. Physical courage is very common on the battlefield. Men and women on both sides risk their lives, place their own bodies in harm’s way. Moral courage, however, is quite rare.

According to Chris Hedges, the brilliant New York Times war correspondent who survived wars in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans, “I rarely saw moral courage. Moral courage is harder. It requires the bearer to walk away from the warm embrace of comradeship and denounce the myth of war as a fraud, to name it as an enterprise of death and immorality, to condemn himself, and those around him, as killers. It requires the bearer to become an outcast. There are times when taking a moral stance, perhaps the highest form of patriotism, means facing down the community, even the nation.”

More and more U.S. soldiers and Marines, at great cost to their own careers and reputations, are speaking publicly about U.S. atrocities in Iraq, even about the cowardice of their own commanders, who send youth into atrocity-producing situations only to hide from the consequences of their own orders.

In 2007, two brilliant war memoirs – ROAD FROM AR RAMADI by Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia, and THE SUTRAS OF ABU GHRAIB by Army Reservist Aidan Delgado – appeared in print. In March 2008, at the Winter Soldier investigation just outside Washington D.C., hard-core U.S. Iraqi veterans, some shaking at the podium, some in tears, unburdened their souls.

Jon Michael Turner described the horrific incident in which, on April 28, 2008, he shot an Iraqi boy in front of his father. His commanding officer congratulated him for “the kill.” To a stunned audience, Turner presented a photo of the boy’s skull, and said: “I am sorry for the hate and destruction I have inflicted on innocent people.”

The Winter Soldier investigation was followed by the publication of COLLATERAL DAMAGE: AMERICA’S WAR AGAINST IRAQI CIVILIANS, by Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian. Based on hundreds of hours of taped interviews with Iraqi combat veterans, this pioneering work on the catastrophe in Iraq includes the largest number of eyewitness accounts from U.S. military personnel on record.

The Courage to Resist

We cannot understand the psychological and moral significance of military resistance unless we recognize the social forces that stifle conscience and human individuality in military life. Gwen Dyer, historian of war, writes that ordinarily, “Men will kill under compulsion. Men will do almost anything if they know it is expected of them and they are under strong social pressure to comply.” “Only exceptional people resist atrocity,” writes psychiatrist Robert Lifton.

How much easier it is to surrender to the will of superiors, to merge into the anonymity of the group. It takes uncommon courage to resist military powers of intimidation, peer pressure, and the atmosphere of racism and hate that drives all imperial wars.

Silencing the Witnesses to War

Read moreWelcome Home, Soldier: Now Shut Up

The Weapon of Mass Destruction Is Cancer

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Over 70,000 deaths, and over 1 million disabilities among American soldiers attributed to Iraq Wars says U.S. government data

IRAQ: ‘Special Weapons’ Have a Fallout on Babies

War-related birth defects in Fallujah

Cheney can only call Iraq a success if he has a mindset like Hitler

Wartime PTSD cases jumped roughly 50 pct. in 2007

Soldier suicides could trump war tolls: US health official

In March, 2003 my sister, Army Captain Chaplain Fran E. Stuart was deployed to Iraq with the rest of her battalion, from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, the 101st Airborne. The uncharted desert would not only hold uncertainty for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, but if she survived during her one-year deployment, she would return to the U. S. forever changed.

Although the changes that would occur two years to the day from her return home were changes she never could have fathomed. Not only had the desert sand, gun blasts and heat penetrated the armor of her psyche, but a carcinogen did too. It made a home in her body, mixed between the Anthrax Vaccine, depleted uranium, crude oil smog, and contaminated water dished up with every meal. It would, in two years, become part of the wrapping around her inner organs like an Octopus, gathering its fuel from her central abdomen. The volleyball size tumor would become the pregnancy she never had — and the birth of cancer she’d never forget.

In March 2006, the 41-year-old captain was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive, stage IV Dysgerminoma cancer, the “germ cell” cancer usually only seen in pregnant women, or teenage girls. Captain Stuart was medevaced from her new tour in Germany to Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) in D.C. to undergo further testing and immediate surgery to remove the massive tumor, only to discover three more. It would take ten months of treatments to corral the cancer. After 35 rounds of chemotherapy and two more surgeries was she deemed in clinical remission.

While her family was supporting Captain Stuart at WRAMC, my exclusive access to WRAMC exposed cancer as a affliction suffered by many soldiers are returning from Iraq/Afghanistan, unknown to the public and unacknowledged by the military.

Although WRAMC Forrest Glen Fisher House provides housing exclusively for soldiers with cancer, undergoing surgeries, chemotherapy or radiation treatments at Walter Reed — the DoD hasn’t gone public with their findings. WRAMC has dedicated floors six and seven to the stricken soldiers arriving daily — their life may have been spared on the battlefield, but the savage beast within — cancer — had created its own war.

Soldiers face a more deadly and rapidly moving carcinogen that covertly infiltrates all ranks, ethnicities, gender and ages from 21-57. Developing different stages and forms of rare cancers within 4-24 months, a portion are medevaced to WRAMC from Iraq already ill. Others, like my sister, are diagnosed two years post-deployment. Since soldiers are uninformed about depleted uranium (DU), they are not wearing protective gear and are unknowingly inhaling and ingesting the toxic dust.

Read moreThe Weapon of Mass Destruction Is Cancer

VA testing drugs on war veterans

Experiments raise ethical questions

The government is testing drugs with severe side effects like psychosis and suicidal behavior on hundreds of military veterans, using small cash payments to attract patients into medical experiments that often target distressed soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, a Washington Times/ABC News investigation has found.

Related articles:
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Vaccines and Medical Experiments on Children, Minorities, Woman and Inmates (1845 – 2007)

In one such experiment involving the controversial anti-smoking drug Chantix, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) took three months to alert its patients about severe mental side effects. The warning did not arrive until after one of the veterans taking the drug had suffered a psychotic episode that ended in a near lethal confrontation with police.

James Elliott, a decorated Army sharpshooter who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after serving 15 months in Iraq, was confused and psychotic when he was Tasered by police in February as he reached for a concealed handgun when officers responded to a 911 call at his Maryland home.

For photos, video of James Elliott, official FDA documents and more, visit the interactive site for the Disposable Heroes report.

Mr. Elliott, a chain smoker, began taking Chantix last fall as part of a VA experiment that specifically targeted veterans with PTSD, opting to collect $30 a month for enrolling in the clinical trial because he needed cash as he returned to school. He soon began suffering hallucinations and suicidal thoughts, unaware that the new drug he was taking could have caused them.

Just two weeks after Mr. Elliott began taking Chantix in November, the VA learned from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that the drug was linked to a large number of hallucinations, suicide attempts and psychotic behavior. But the VA did not alert Mr. Elliott before his own episode in February.

In failing to do so, Mr. Elliott said, the VA treated him like a “disposable hero.”

“You’re a lab rat for $30 a month,” Mr. Elliott said.

Brightcove Video

Brightcove Video

One of the nation’s premier medical ethicists said the VA’s behavior in the anti-smoking study violated basic protections for humans in medical experiments.

“When you’re taking advantage of a very vulnerable population, people who have served the country, and the agency that’s responsible for their welfare isn’t putting their welfare first, that’s a pretty serious breach of ethics,” said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Read Full Article Here

Audrey Hudson
Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Source: The Washington Times

IRAQ: ‘Special Weapons’ Have a Fallout on Babies

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FALLUJAH, Jun 12 (IPS) – Babies born in Fallujah are showing illnesses and deformities on a scale never seen before, doctors and residents say.

The new cases, and the number of deaths among children, have risen after “special weaponry” was used in the two massive bombing campaigns in Fallujah in 2004.

After denying it at first, the Pentagon admitted in November 2005 that white phosphorous, a restricted incendiary weapon, was used a year earlier in Fallujah.

In addition, depleted uranium (DU) munitions, which contain low-level radioactive waste, were used heavily in Fallujah. The Pentagon admits to having used 1,200 tonnes of DU in Iraq thus far.

Many doctors believe DU to be the cause of a severe increase in the incidence of cancer in Iraq, as well as among U.S. veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War and through the current occupation.

“We saw all the colours of the rainbow coming out of the exploding American shells and missiles,” Ali Sarhan, a 50-year-old teacher who lived through the two U.S. sieges of 2004 told IPS. “I saw bodies that turned into bones and coal right after they were exposed to bombs that we learned later to be phosphorus.

“The most worrying is that many of our women have suffered loss of their babies, and some had babies born with deformations.”

“I had two children who had brain damage from birth,” 28-year-old Hayfa’ Shukur told IPS. “My husband has been detained by the Americans since November 2004 and so I had to take the children around by myself to hospitals and private clinics. They died. I spent all our savings and borrowed a considerable amount of money.”

Read moreIRAQ: ‘Special Weapons’ Have a Fallout on Babies

America’s Medicated Army

“Nearly 40% of Army suicide victims in 2006 and 2007 took psychotropic drugs — overwhelmingly, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac and Zoloft.”

Seven months after Sergeant Christopher LeJeune started scouting Baghdad’s dangerous roads – acting as bait to lure insurgents into the open so his Army unit could kill them – he found himself growing increasingly despondent. “We’d been doing some heavy missions, and things were starting to bother me,” LeJeune says. His unit had been protecting Iraqi police stations targeted by rocket-propelled grenades, hunting down mortars hidden in dark Baghdad basements and cleaning up its own messes. He recalls the order his unit got after a nighttime firefight to roll back out and collect the enemy dead. When LeJeune and his buddies arrived, they discovered that some of the bodies were still alive. “You don’t always know who the bad guys are,” he says. “When you search someone’s house, you have it built up in your mind that these guys are terrorists, but when you go in, there’s little bitty tiny shoes and toys on the floor – things like that started affecting me a lot more than I thought they would.”

So LeJeune visited a military doctor in Iraq, who, after a quick session, diagnosed depression. The doctor sent him back to war armed with the antidepressant Zoloft and the antianxiety drug clonazepam. “It’s not easy for soldiers to admit the problems that they’re having over there for a variety of reasons,” LeJeune says. “If they do admit it, then the only solution given is pills.”

Read moreAmerica’s Medicated Army