Momentum Builds for Smarter Brain Wound Healing

Press Release:

Jefferson City, Missouri
Monday, 14 July 2025

Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe today signed House Bill 262, “Veterans Traumatic Brain Injury Treatment and Recovery Act.” With this signing, Missouri becomes the 13th state to pass legislation or resolutions calling for the use of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) to treat Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD [OK, TX, IN, KY, AZ, WY, FL, NC, MD, VA, ND, TN].

For over 20 years, scientific studies have been validating the safety and efficacy of the use of HBOT to treat and help heal brain wounds. Importantly, HBOT has been shown to reverse damage done by Blast, Concussion, assaults, accidents, training, and IEDs. Victims are able to get off almost all their drugs, especially opioids and those that warn of suicide ideation.

“The bottom line is, there are too many veterans that are taking their lives,” said state Rep. Chris Brown, a Republican from Kansas City sponsoring the legislation, during debate. “They don’t see a way out. They can’t deal with it. And I think the oxygen therapy certainly will help and maybe even is the answer.”

Since 9/11, over 151,000 Veterans have succumbed to suicide, despite escalating Suicide Prevention budgets. DoD Suicide Prevention budgets over the last decade are over $1.5 Billion. CDC: over $725 Million. HHS: $975 Million. NIH: $1.45 Billion. Together with the VA, the total exceeds $5.375 Billion.

Dale Lutzen, a retired senior master sergeant from the U.S. Air Force and a legislative advocate for the non-profit TreatNOW, told lawmakers in a committee hearing in January that Veterans with traumatic brain injuries or PTSD in the VA system are typically given prescription drugs that treat symptoms but don’t cure the brain injury. Over half of the 877,450 brain-wounded post-9/11 Veterans are not even in the system.

“As an alternative to drugs, hyperbaric oxygen therapy stimulates brain wound healing and it can reverse soft tissue and neurocognitive damage . . . . this treatment allows patients to experience recovery of cognitive and neurological functioning without surgery or drugs.”

Missouri legislators and thousands of other elected officials across the country are doing what the VA and DoD refuse to do: accept that proven alternative therapies like HBOT are a necessary adjunct to the current standard of care that fails in what the DoD and VA claim is their #1 clinicial priority: Suicide Prevention. HBOT is proven to virtually eliminate thoughts of suicide by brain wound healing that repairs damaged brains and restores function, hope, and quality of life.

Research shows that HBOT can reduce costs to society by billions of dollars. “Continuing with the failed pharmacology and talk therapy treatment protocols results in an estimated Veteran re-occurring annual lifetime economic impact of $4.7 Trillion. Over the 40-year lifetime of a TBI Veteran, treating versus not treating brain wounds is less than 0.42 percent of the total impact cost to not treat all TBI Veteran.”

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The signing in Missouri comes on the heels of delivery in Kentucky of HBOT4KYVETS Annual Report to KY Governor and Legislature. KY House Bill 64 calls for the use of HBOT for TBI. Further Appropriations led to state funding of HBOT treatments. The first Annual Report has been delivered and documents the success of the program in its first year.

Since 2020, HBOT4KYVETS, Inc. has been delivering Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) to Kentucky Veterans diagnosed with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), often accompanied by PTSD, depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. In 2024, Kentucky allocated $1.5 million over two years to support this lifesaving treatment program under HB 64/KRS 217.930-942. HBOT has yielded transformational results for Veterans previously underserved by traditional medical systems.

From July 1, 2024, to June 2025, 59 Veterans applied to the program, 16 were approved and began treatment, and 11 completed therapies since program inception in 2020. Currently ten remain in the treatment program. All treated Veterans reported significant improvement in cognitive symptoms. Evaluations included ANAM and Right Eye assessments, and 64% of treated Veterans since 2020 have returned to school or the workforce. The average cost per Veteran was $15,020. Marketing efforts to find, educate, and treat Kentucky’s over 300,000 Veterans — thousands of whom suffer from TBI — are being accelerated.

Results indicate HBOT significantly reduces symptoms of TBI, enhances cognitive performance, restores hope, and decreases or eliminates suicidal ideation. Similar data on treatments in the 13 states that have passed legislation show similar results nationwide.

Sadly, continuing a trend, the VA has issued its 2024 National Suicide Prevention Annual Report. Once again, the VA deflects attention from full and transparent root-cause analysis and treatments. They refuse to address their misbegotten approach to brain wounds as Mental Health issues. Without any recognition of the revolution in neurodegenerative disease diagnoses and treatments happening worldwide, the Report falls back on data, reporting, research, increased spending, and avoidance of healing modalities they refuse to recognize:

“This 2024 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report ….delves into the critical public health issue of Veteran suicide, providing information regarding Veteran suicide in relation to factors such as firearm involvement, military sexual trauma (MST), substance use disorders, transitions to civilian life, cancer, nicotine use, COVID-19, and homelessness, and across demographic and contextual factors, such as age, sex, gender identity, race, and ethnicity.”

The VA is acting like reporters who show up AFTER the carnage and report on the horror, not realizing that it is THEIR JOB to prevent the carnage in the first place!

Luckily, the states are accepting the challenge of preventing suicides. Perhaps the White House and Congress will use the power of Executive Actions and forcing legislation to demand that the VA and DoD treat and heal brain wounds using HBOT and alternative therapies proven to work, safely, effectively, and economically.

PERSPECTIVE

Annual Deaths by Cause in the U.S. (Approximate)

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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.