NYT: Friendly Fire Leads to Brain wounding

As we have reported for years, BLAST injury does not respect your nationality, gender, origin of the weapon, or your intention. As Dave Philipps of the New York Times reports, U.S. Troops are still training on weapons with known risks of delivering brain wounds.

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USJAG: Special Update

Nearly half a million Americans serve in the National Guard, with more than 40,000 engaged in missions around the world. But CBS News has uncovered cases where service members say they were injured in the line of duty face an uphill battle to get health benefits and pay.

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New York Times: USMC Blast Injury Update

Dave Philipps, Pulitzer prize-winning and NYT reporter, has filed another report on continuing investigations into BLAST injury. He does it through a look at the US strategy of using firepower to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria. “A Secret War, Strange New Wounds, and Silence From the Pentagon” tells a sad tale but neglects a open secret: blast injury has been known for decades to cause brain wounds. “Strange New Wounds” have been known for fifteen years as “THE INVISIBLE WOUNDS OF WAR.”

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Lest We Forget 2023

Pentagon Reports Marines see Highest Suicide Rate since 2011, Navy since 2019. Over 15,000 Americans are estimated to have died in wars since 9/11, with hundreds of thousands wounded in visible and invisible ways: 877,450 brain wounded veterans either misdiagnosed or undiagnosed, all untreated by the VA/DoD for their brain wounds.

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BRAIN WOUND UPDATE #17: Military Suicides: Rates gradually increased from 2011 to 2022

Nothing the DOD Mental Health System of VA does for brain injuries is approved for Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI). And TBI has been shown to be a direct contributor to suicidal ideation, amenable to healing with HBOT. A more thorough Suicide Prevention Strategy should report on efforts to properly diagnose and heal brain wounds, across the board.

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BRAIN WOUND UPDATE #16: More Evidence: Untreated TBI ties to Cardiovascular, Endocrine, Neurological, and Psychiatric Disorders

At some point, DoD, the VA, and medicine in general will hear the drumbeat of data in peer-reviewed science attesting to the damage done by untreated brain wounds. Fortunately for those lucky few, the role of Hyperbaric Oxygenation to help treat and heal their brain wounds has given them new lives.

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BRAIN WOUND UPDATE #15: Suicide hotline botched veteran’s cry for help. An investigation found critical breakdowns

Workers at the national Veterans Crisis Line mismanaged communication with a veteran who died by suicide within an hour of texting the hotline and failed for 10 years to establish protocols to save veterans’ text messages for future follow-up, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General.  

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BRAIN WOUND UPDATE #14: Research Reveals Potential Links from Brain Wounds to Parkinson’s and CTE

In a study of nearly 360,000 military veteran records released earlier this year in the Movement Disorders journal, researchers provide evidence that traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), both trauma-related disorders, are risk factors for Parkinson’s disease (PD).

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BRAIN WOUND UPDATE #13: Holistic Total Force Fitness to Maximize Performance

A senior retired US Navy SEAL officer has weighed in with a six part justification for ACTION to fight suicide. His remarks relate to short- and long-term needs for dealing with force readiness amidst known challenges in the SpecOps community. His remarks are in concert with the Interview with the Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (SEAC), Ramón Colón-López that follows his remarks.

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Neuropathologic and Clinical Findings in Young Contact Sport Athletes Exposed to Repetitive Head Impacts

Young contact sport athletes may be at risk for long-term neuropathologic disorders, including chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Across the world, millions of people are exposed to repetitive head impacts (RHIs) through participation in contact and collision sports, military service, physical violence, and many other activities.1-6 Repetitive head impacts can result in symptomatic concussions and the much more frequent, nonconcussive injuries that are asymptomatic. Read more