Iraq War: Doctors Pressured By Commanders Not To Identify Mental Conditions

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Sat, 25 Mar 2006 05:47:08 -0800

 

 

 

" Doctors Pressured By Commanders Not To Identify Mental Conditions

That Would Prevent Personnel From Being Deployed "

 

 

 

March 19, 2006 By Rick Rogers, STAFF WRITER, Union-Tribune Publishing Co

 

Besides bringing antibiotics and painkillers, military personnel

nationwide are heading back to Iraq with a cache of antidepressant and

anti-anxiety medications.

 

The psychotropic drugs are a bow to a little-discussed truth fraught

with implications: Mentally ill service members are being returned to

combat.

 

Officials from the Defense Department and Camp Pendleton, where some

units have been to Iraq three times, said they don't track personnel

deployed while taking mental-health medication or the number diagnosed

with mental illness.

 

But medical officers for the Army and Marine Corps acknowledge that

medicated service members – and those suffering combat-induced

psychological problems – are returning to war. And anecdotal evidence,

bolstered by the government's own studies, suggest that the number

could be significant.

 

Buttressing the idea that large numbers of service members are

medicated, more than 200,000 prescriptions for the most common types

of antidepressants were written in the past 14 months for service

members and their families, said Sydney Hickey, a spokeswoman for the

National Military Family Association.

 

In addition, the Defense Department has not provided prescription

totals for such antidepressants from before and after the United

States invaded Iraq in 2003.

 

Mental-health care for service members and the Defense Department's

efforts to keep the mentally ill in uniform are becoming national

issues, said Steve Robinson, director of the National Gulf War

Resource Center in Silver Spring, Md.

 

Robinson said three Army doctors have told him about being pressured

by their commanders not to identify mental conditions that would

prevent personnel from being deployed.

 

" They are being told to diagnose combat-stress reaction instead of

PTSD, " he said. " That does two things: It keeps the troops deployable

and it makes it hard for them to collect disability claims once they

get out of the military. "

 

Robinson contends that the Pentagon is trying to control its spending

on mental-health disabilities.

 

Overall, service members' mental health is a hot-button subject

because it goes to the cost of the war in dollars and lives, said Joy

Ilem, an assistant national legislative director for the organization

Disabled American Veterans.

 

" The (Department of Veterans Affairs) is very worried about the

political implications of PTSD and other mental issues arising from

the war, " Ilem said.

 

" They are talking about early outreach and treatment, but they are

really trying to tamp down the discussion. "

 

Cmdr. Paul S. Hammer deals with such issues daily.

 

Hammer, a psychiatrist, is responsible for the Marine Corps'

mental-health programs during this deployment rotation. He confirmed

that Marines with post-traumatic stress disorder and combat stress are

returning to Iraq, though he would not say how many.

 

Hammer said deciding who is deployed is often anguishing.

 

Sometimes he has to tell Marine commanders that personnel they had

counted on will not be deploying. In other instances, he said, " We'll

hold some guy's feet to the fire and say, 'This is what you signed up

for, and you have to go.' "

 

It's the tough calls that worry Adrian Atizado, a legislative director

for Disabled American Veterans.

 

" Currently, the services will deploy a service member if the person is

medically stable and it is determined that the deployment won't

aggravate (his) condition, " Atizado said. " How does one gauge that?

 

" This a gray area; this is asking a medical provider to make a

decision based on the future. The medical providers are human beings.

I have no doubt that they are looking out for the best interest of the

service members, but they are under pressure to check off on their

deployment. "