Helping the VA do the Right Things, Starting with Suicide Prevention

“These warnings are protective only if doctors and nurse practitioners prescribing these drugs take the warnings seriously, and have robust conversations with their patients not only about their possible benefits, but also their risks and possible side effects.”

^{Derek Blumke, Afghan War Veteran and GruntStyle Advocate}

“EARTH to the VA!! Come In, C-Suite”

An expanded “Informed Consent” Bill has been introduced by US Representatives Gus Bilirakis, Jack Bergman and Keith Self entitled HR 4837, the “Written Informed Consent Act.” The Bill would require doctors, for the first time, to get written informed consent from Veterans before prescribing: antipsychotics, antidepressants, anxiolytics, stimulants, and narcotics.

Where the Bill falls short is that doctors are not also told to inform Veterans about alternatives to pharmaceuticals; alternative, non-invasive, proven therapies like Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) that actually heal brain wounds instead of the “mental health” approach: masking and palliating symptoms forever. . . . or until the Veteran disappears or succumbs to suicide.

The VA is putting a full-court press on Suicide Prevention. Their mantra seems to be “SUICIDE PREVENTION IS OUR #1 PRIORITY.” SEC VA Collins says “we need to ask better questions.” Well, Yes. More importantly, we need to know about and use proven treatments. That would lead to the real/better Question: “Since HBOT works, why aren’t we using it?” And that means assessing where $$$$$$$$ are spent inside the VA and out, and how effective those dollars are relative to success. Over $570 Million dollars in 2025 alone for Suicide Prevention and the suicide rate continues to increase.

We can’t show this chart often enough. We have written about Suicide and necessary changes to US and VA Policy for over ten years. [See here and here and over 30 BLOGs here.] Still, the GAO keeps the VA on its HIGH RISK LIST claiming that “VA has among the highest contract obligations in the federal government and has increasingly relied on contractors to perform some key tasks……..over the past 10 years [the] VA’s total contract obligations increased substantially, rising over 150 percent.”

And now they’re pumping tens of millions of more dollars into more and more organizations and community partners with little to no experience with actually treating and healing physical wounds to the brain. More call centers; more collaboration among mental health providers; and more unproven interventions that everyone hopes will affect the suicide trend line. And year after year the trend is more suicides among Veterans.

Now the push is on for “alternatives” that have little to no science behind them for healing physical wounds. The VA offers a range of complementary and integrative health (CIH) therapies for mental health conditions through its Whole Health program. Mindfulness and meditation; Acupuncture; Yoga; Tai Chi and Qigong; Clinical hypnosis; Massage therapy; Equine therapy; Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS); and Creative arts therapies (music, dance, art).

Don’t get us wrong. No one is arguing against any intervention that alleviates pain and suffering and helps a Veteran get through the night. But the VA has to get more serious about root cause analysis and proven science that gets at real, physical healing. Too many symptoms of PTSD and TBI are caused by physical wounds. “Mental health problems” in combat veterans in too many cases involve physical wounding of the brain that goes undetected, unreported, and untreated in the vast majority of cases: over 877,450 in our estimation.

True, research is underway to proof the acceptability of plant-based and other chemical interventions. Psilocybin and MDMA (ecstasy, or molly) are top candidates. Research is imperative, as the known risks are fatal in some cases.

There are hundreds of anecdotal cases of fantastic results using some drugs to alleviate emotional, physical, psychological, behavioral, and spiritual/moral pain. To our knowledge, none exist that point to actual physical brain-wound healing. A Stanford study on ibogaine shows promise, as do other preliminary findings using psilocybin. We applaud and encourage the push for science and clinical proof that actual healing is occurring. [NOTE: The review notes: “Assisted psilocybin use may have benefits in TBI by reducing inflammation, promoting neuroplasticity and neuroregeneration, and alleviating associated mood disorders. Positive findings in related fields, like treatment for depression and addiction, highlight the necessity for more extensive clinical trials on psilocybin’s role in TBI recovery.” Thus psilocybin appears to be where HBOT was 20 years ago, needing scientific validation. The difficulty in reading about the growing funding being put into this modality — which is already being produced synthetically, opening the door for gargantuan profits — is that HBOT is proven safe, effective, cost effective, and is used worldwide, using Oxygen, a drug that can’t be patented. Yet the VA denies both its mention and availability to Veterans with brain wounds.

Without ignoring risks, Veterans need immediate help. Promising results of on-going science using psychedelics and hallucinogens might prove helpful over the long term, as well as the weeks and months after initial treatment. But Veterans on the verge need us to have their back, with immediate attention paid to treating and healing brain wounds.

Congress needs to keep these numbers in mind as they decide how to fund “suicide prevention” going forward:

• VA’s budget has surged to $369.3 billion, a 125% increase over the past decade.
• ~157,000 Veterans have committed suicide since 9/11 — more than 22 times the number of combat deaths in the War on Terror, and over half the number of US service members killed in WWII.
• Male Veteran suicides are 60% higher than that of non-veteran males
• Female Veteran suicide rate is 92% higher than for non-veteran females.
• HBOT has contributed to the healing of TBI/PTSD/Concussion in over 31,000 civilians in the US over the last 15 years, among them over 12,500 Veterans. Only 865,000 TBI/PTSD casualties to go.

Heal Brains. Stop Suicides. Restore Lives. TreatNOW.

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The TreatNOW Mission is ending service member suicides. Along the way, we have learned that we can end suicidal ideation, help end symptoms of PTSD, get patients off most of their drugs, and heal brain wounds to end the effects of Concussion, BLAST injury, mild TBI, Persistent Post Concussive Syndrome, and polytrauma from AHI, Burn Pits, and COVID. No Veteran or civilian has ever been killed while undergoing HBOT treatment for TBI/PTSD. For a video Summary, see: https://www.youtube.com/@treatnowdotorg/videos  

Information provided by TreatNOW.org does not constitute a medical recommendation. It is intended for informational purposes only, and no claims, either real or implied, are being made.