Press Release

Arlington, VA
30 September 2026

The TreatNOW Coalition today released a paper by Dr. Ken Stoller, HYPERBARIC OXYGEN THERAPY for BRAIN REPAIR. The essence of Dr. Stoller’s arguments is that hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) heals “invisible” brain wounds the same way it heals visible wounds. The FDA already approves HBOT for use in healing five “wounds”: carbon monoxide poisoning, decompression sickness (“the bends”), arterial gas embolism, thermal burns, and diabetic foot ulcers. Effort must now be placed on gaining recognition of the science behind the evidence of safety and efficacy of brain wound healing in the thirty clinical trials already published.

Dr. Stoller is a Team member of the TreatNOW Coalition, a group of Veterans and researchers and scientists and citizens dedicated to stopping the suicide epidemic afflicting Veterans. He was the principal investigator of the TreatNOW-sponsored observational study, NBIRR: The National Brain Injured Rescue and Rehabilitation study published in 2019. 32 Veterans treated with HBOT in five separate HBOT clinics across the US showed improvements in multiple indicators. Importantly, suicidal ideations was reduced or eliminated. Those results have been born out in three Evidence Briefs, eleven Randomized Controlled Trials, twelve cohort studies and four other studies.

We recently learned that at least eighteen service members have been killed since February 28, 2026 (Operations Roaring Lion and Epic Fury). Over 861 sailors, soldiers, airmen, and Marines have been wounded. Without knowing the actual cause of those injuries, the odds are very high that a significant number are due to Blast injury. And you could win money betting that none of them received HBOT treatment.

Iran conducted a ballistic missile attack on Al Asad Air Base in Iraq in 2020. No U.S. casualties were initially reported, but continued screening eventually identified 110 service members with traumatic brain injuries. Given the direction the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine are taking, more, not fewer, brain injuries can be expected.

“In Central Command, we’re seeing disproportionately high traumatic brain injury rates in air defense,” Col. Jessica Peck, the command surgeon for the 10th AAMDC, said in a release. “These jobs demand extremely high cognitive performance. Even a mild traumatic brain injury can significantly degrade effectiveness, impacting coordination, emotional regulation, spatial awareness, and decision-making.”

Yet funding for Pentagon-funded programs to research, detect, and treat TBIs and to understand psychological health issues has dropped by more than three-quarters in the last three fiscal years. Funding has dropped from $175 million in fiscal 2024 to $40.5 million in fiscal 2026. 2027 is as austere. What research is being funded is the never-ending search for a drug to confront the epidemic.

As Dr. Stoller’s Report makes clear, we have known for decades how modern wound healing can be accelerated. HBOT is known to speed healing by 30-40%. Less well understood is how the medical community, particularly so-called experts in Traumatic Brain Injury, can claim that they are “doing everything humanly possible” when they deny patients information about HBOT as an alternative to a failed standard of care. And how they can be demanding more funding for research into how TBI and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are caused and how to discover how to treat and heal those injuries. At least they are not being disingenuous when they claim in their clinical practice guidelines that they don’t know of any treatment for TBI/PTSD and that their best is to control and palliate symptoms, and hope that those symptoms subside.

The term “brain wound” is unconventional. It is nonetheless accurate. A large portion of the worldwide medical community using alternate therapies is well aware that brain wounds can be healed and victims of TBI/PTSD can be restored to a Quality of Life denied them using current DoD/VA/medical community practices.

Imagine if FDR during WWII had waited to dispense penicillin to the European theater until a randomized controlled trial had been conducted [hard, since the first modern, published Randomized Controlled Trial in medicine appeared in 1948].  Countless lives were saved. It is estimated that penicillin reduced the mortality rate from bacterial infections among wounded soldiers by 15%. This life-saving drug also prevented amputations and sped up recovery times, allowing soldiers to return to duty more quickly. Overall, penicillin likely has saved over 500 million lives.

Evidence-based medicine. The proof in the curing, so to speak. Demonstrated results over time, following all the rules of science. While HBOT might not save as many lives as penicillin, it is having a profound effect on lives of tens of thousands of people today. Research on proper dosing and protocols can continue while actual healing occurs.

Daily healing. 33,000 successes. Over 12,500 Veterans already treated. A world doing what US-funded researchers continue to deny while they shunt funding into better pictures of damage, and the relentless hunt for a drug, a pill, to “cure” what they continue to call a mental health problem.

Given what is sure to be reduced funding across the entire government, shouldn’t the services devote more funding for actually treating and healing those brain wounds that we already identified? Over 500,000 by the VA’s count; 877,450 by our investigation.

Study the use of HBOT for TBI/PTSD and report on results that will confirm what Dr Stoller documents in his Report, facts which are validated in the last decade of research and in wound care clinics worldwide. [There are over 2,200 specialty wound care facilities in the US alone.]

HBOT is safe, effective, inexpensive, and proven to save lives by reducing suicide ideation and restoring lives to an old normal, not the “new normal” of drugs and talk therapy. Brain-wounded Veterans shouldn’t have a Cross to Bear. They should hear: “Get up. Take your cot and go home.” On the way, start HBOT treatment.

[Reality check: Twelve years ago, several researchers into HBOT were puzzled by conflicting claims about HBOT for TBI/PTSD. They couldn’t square the positive results found in the data in USG studies, but conclusions that HBOT didn’t work. The researchers suggested a study into “the ritual of HBOT,” a concoction that the placebo effects were so strong as to cause all patients to get better. It was suggested to them and the prestigious Foundation receiving funds to conduct the study that they first go to St Peter’s Cathedral in the Vatican during midnight Christmas mass to get a thorough lesson in “ritual”: Gregorian chant, incense, vestments, centuries-old prayers in Latin, and the overwhelming power of the Grand Organ of Notre Dame de Paris. But if they wanted to see healing in their brain-wounded patients, they should take an HBOT chamber along. They were not amused. Their specious results were published and quickly forgotten.

One finding is particularly pertinent to the present: “the improvements in outcomes shown within groups for both HBO2 and sham treatment cannot be ignored.. . . HBO2 may be of value and could benefit these patients as a relatively safe adjunctive therapy if feasible and acceptable to the individual and family.”

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 Operator Syndrome, AHI, and Burn Pits. No Veteran or civilian has ever been killed or hurt while undergoing HBOT treatment for TBI/PTSD.

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.