SERVICE MEMBER SUICIDES KEEP RISING

“Pentagon officials downplayed the significance of the 6% rise in suicides from 2022 to 2023….calling the rise not statistically significant.” Military Times

The Military Times released a Report on 2023 suicide statistics released by the Pentagon. It states: “Military researchers recorded 523 suicides in 2023, the highest total since 2020. The number of active-duty troops was 363, up from 331 a year earlier. . . .The Marine Corps had the highest rate of suicide, with about 35 cases per 100,000 people in 2023. The Army was just under 33 cases per 100,000. . . . The Air Force (about 21 per 100,000) and Navy (about 19 per 100,000) saw lower rates. But all four services have seen a steady increase since 2011, when the Department began formally tracking the issue. “

According to Air & Space Forces Magazine, “the Active-duty component saw a 12 percent increase from 331 deaths by suicide in 2022 to 363 in 2023.”

The Grey Team draws a stark comparison: “As suicide rates among returning US military veterans continue to rise, the statistics now show that it is now six times more dangerous for an American soldier to return home from war than it is for him/her to actively be engaged in combat with the enemies of our country.”

This is not for lack of throwing money at the problem. After the VA was negligent in using allocated funds for Suicide Prevention some years ago, they’ve made up for it. VA’s Veteran suicide prevention initiatives include $52.5 million in grants, and a lovely “Don’t Wait, Reach Out” PSA campaign by Katherine Bigelow, an award-winning director. The Budget invests $139 million within VA research programs, together with $16.6 billion within the VA Medical Care program, to increase access to quality mental healthcare and lower the cost of mental health services for veterans.

SAMHSA recently awarded $232.2 million in grants for suicide prevention and behavioral health care for at-risk communities.

The Pentagon hopes an “unprecedented investment” of about $261 million in the 2025 budget will help boost suicide prevention efforts.

And yet: officials also could not point to evidence that past suicide prevention efforts have helped improve the situation. Part of the issue is that DoD does not always know which efforts are effective, said Dr. Timothy Hoyt, Deputy Director of the Office of Force Resiliency for the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. By their own admission, the government can account for spending and tracking deaths, but not for indicators that what they’re doing is having the desired result: ending suicides by ending suicidal ideation and giving service members their normal lives back.

Here’s a stark reality: look at any of the government-sponsored programs for Suicide Prevention and you will not find any discussion about treating and healing brain wounds. The talk is almost exclusivley about “mental health and psychiatric and psychological problems, not physiological damage to the brain that is not being treated. Nor in any of the DoD or VA facilities, protocols, programs, Directorates, or standards of care will you find a discussion about how alternative therapies like Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT). HBOT is scientifically proven safe and effective and used around the world to heal brain wounds, reduce/eliminate need for drugs that WARN OF SUCIDAL IDEATION, and radically diminish or eliminate PTSD-type symptoms.

One troubling sign from the data is how many suicide victims sought mental health help: 67 percent had a primary care encounter in the 90 days prior to their death, 34 percent had an outpatient mental health encounter, 8 percent were discharged from an inpatient mental health facility, and 18 percent were on psychotropic medication at the time of death.

Let’s put this a different way: more and more money for psychological and cognitive and behavioral mental health interventions, and the suicides keep going up. And yet, little recognition that the “mental health” issues and symptoms mask underlying brain wounds that cannot be healed without increasing the amount of oxygen available to an oxygen-starved brain suffering from inflammation, reduced blood flow, and slowed functional and mental capabilities.

In purely financial terms, if the government spent just half of Suicide Prevention funds on treating and healing brain wounds, they could use the other half to fully treat over 35,000 victims, actually end suicidal ideation and suicides, and give service members their lives back. The TreatNOW Report Brain Drain estimates there are 877,450 brain wounded/TBI/PTSD veterans since 9/11. The annual cost to the nation is $118.1 Billion. Continuing with the “standard of care” 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 Veterans.

DoD and the VA need to be held accountable at least for their testimonies to Congress that they are doing everything humanly possible to end suicides. The Israeli Defense Force began years ago using HBOT to treat their brain wounded forces, as well as their citizens. Two dozen clinical trials — including the governments own studies — are conclusive: HBOT is safe and effective.

As Congressman Greg Murphy, MD (R-NC) recently put it to CBS NEWS, ” I believe it is medical malpractice not to offer this to our Veterans.”

Heal Brains. Stop Suicides. Restore Lives. TreatNOW

******************************

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 BLAST injury, mild TBI Persistent Post Concussive Syndrome, and polytrauma from AHI and Burn Pits. Diabetic Foot Ulcers have become a major emphasis. www.treatnow.org

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.