The US Army is very worried about suicide and injuries in returning veterans. Stress in soldiers, and in returning veterans, is nothing new:
During World War II, PTSD was an even more serious problem. In the European Theater, 25 percent of all casualties were serious PTSD cases, compared to about 20 percent today. In the Pacific Theater, the rate varied widely, depending on the campaign. In some of the most intense fighting, like Okinawa in 1945, PTSD accounted for over a third of all wounded. In Iraq, less than ten percent of the wounded are PTSD, but the more troops serve in a combat zone, in combat jobs, the more likely they are to develop PTSD. This has been known for over a century.
One of the results of this is, alas, suicide.
The annual suicide statistics of the military/VA have been released.
The good news? The suicide rate remains low.
The bad news? The press is spinning the numbers to fit into the “Evil Iraq war is killing soldiers” and “the Military doesn’t care about the soldiers” meme (to fit the ultimate meme: Evil Bush’s war and evil Republicans don’t care).
Well, never mind the politics. I’m a doctor. Suicide is a major public health problem in the US (and in many countries). But there are a lot of myths out there.
So let’s look at myth number one:
CNN article: Headline: Army Suicide rates could top nation’s this year.
The story is not half bad, but you have to dig into the actual statistics to find the details.
As of August, 62 Army soldiers have committed suicide, and 31 cases of possible suicide remain under investigation, according to Army statistics. Last year, the Army recorded 115 suicides among its ranks, which was also higher than the previous year.
Well, one would expect a higher rate of returning veterans, who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress syndrome.
Problem: By not placing it into the context of total number of those who served in the Army, we cannot do a comparison.
But the third paragraph is the real problem:
Army officials said that if the trend continues this year, it will pass the nation’s suicide rate of 19.5 people per 100,000, a 2005 figure considered the most recent by the government.
That, my friends, is spin.
You see, suicide rates vary by age and by sex.
Although women have a higher rate of attempted suicide, men die of suicide at a much higher rate than the general population.
The rate of suicide of the general population is 19.5
The rate of suicide in men from the ages of 20 to 35 in 1980 was 24.
The rate of suicide in women from the ages of 20 to 35 was 5.
By comparing a population that is 90 percent men to the general population, you are comparing apples and oranges.
Certain groups: older men, alcoholics, minorities, and those with mental health problems, have a higher rate also.
So CNN assures us:
According to the VA, about 46 of 100,000 males between the ages of 18 and 29 utilizing VA services committed suicide in 2006, compared with about 27 the year before.
A very high rate. Except this is not the general population: this is the rate of those using the VA services, including those with mental health problems. By eliminating the healthy from the statistics, it makes the rate look higher than if the numbers included the entire population of military personnel.
The rest of the article goes on to say the VA is going to improve care for those with PTSS and depression.
So it’s not like nothing is being done: they are just trying to improve the care of the veterans.
For example, unmentioned in the article is that a pre 2001 program in the AirForce was credited with lowering it’s suicide rate from 16.4 yo 9.4 per 100 000 in two years.
Ironically, the article citing the Air Force is not about military suicides, but about suicides in physicians.
Eva Schernhammer and Graham Colditz examined the results of 25 studies of physician suicides and concluded that male doctors killed themselves at a rate 41 percent higher than that of other men and women. The more startling finding was that female doctors take their lives at a rate more than twice (2.27 times) that of the general public.
So how does one screen for and prevent suicide?
That part comes in part two.
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Nancy Reyes is a retired physician living in the rural Philippines. Her blog is Finest Kind Clinic and Fishmarket, and she writes about medical problems at Hey Doc Xanga Blog.
10 users commented in " The Military and Suicides, Part One: Spinning statistics "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThis isn’t about statistics, this is about human beings, human lives. This is about trying to intervene, if possible, to prevent someone who survived a war (that this country sent him or her to fight) from becoming a casualty of that war AFTER he/she made it home.
Minimizing the tragedy in THAT with allegations of “political spin” against those who are trying to raise awareness so that CONGRESS can better fund post-deployment mental health care IS political spin–except it is your own as opposed to someone else’s.
If 1 soldier commits suicide, thats 1 too many. I hope you understand that. Screw the statistics. Let me ask you “Doctor”…Did you serve? Did your husband serve? Have you had anyone in YOUR family commit suicide? Have you spoken to these families? I’m just curious. I honestly dont care if you are a doctor. That doesnt bring credibility to you for me. It just means that you went through a lot of classes that cost a lot of money. It doesnt mean that you are a ptsd expert either. You might look at how many soldiers served in those other wars, compared to the ones in these wars, and figure in our technology and practices are far more advanced than they were in WWII. We also have Combat Stress Units on the battlefield to help with these problems. I personally have PTSD and its no joke or something that can be ignored with my generation. Its something that we have to live with everyday and it directly affects my life in serious ways. Until you have experienced it yourself, you’ll never know this end of it. What we need is someone to embrace this illness and be willing to help us through it. Why would you try to down play this? You should be ashamed! Do you work for the govt? Are you pro soldier? If not, GTFO! BTW, this has a lot to do with Bush’s war. If we weren’t fighting in Iraq, we wouldn’t have soldiers facing unneccessary illnesses. Believe what you want. We could argue these points all day. All I’m saying and my point to my response is that please do not downplay this illness. There needs to me a spotlight put on this so that our soldiers can get the help that they so despirately need.
Landsale 01:
I “served” as a civilian doctor during an African civil war. Quite a few of my friends were killed by “insurgents” who were cheered on by the left as “freedom fighters”.
My husband is a World War II veteran.
My son in law has been to Iraq.
Spinning PTSS to bash Bush is politicizing medicine, and ignoring the reality of a war on terror that is world wide in scope, where the successes are rarely publicized.
Mrs. Reyes-
The replies that Mrs. Picard and Lansdale01 have provided should already be enough to make you feel ashamed to have posted this blog. Nevertheless, I think I should probe you a bit more. What is your problem with helping our soldiers? What possible good can you derive from minimizing the psychological impact that war has on those fighting it? Even if you were in favor of the war in Iraq or the ridiculous notion of a “War on Terror”, what do you gain by turning your back on the problems faced by returning veterans?
“One of the results of this is, alas, suicide.”
Go ahead: write it off. Downplay suicide, and the road of horrors that leads to it. Use flippant, dismissive, language to make it seem that suicide is just the unfortunate consequence of some poor, unbalanced fool’s isolated experience in a personal war. Because you’ve never survived anything close to this, you are of the opinion that you can judge those who have.
Servicemen with PTSD have, throughout American history, received sub-par treatment. But of course, based on your in-depth analysis of military history, you should already know this. Have you ever even spoken to someone who has been blown out of a tank and captured by the Nazis during WWII, or had to crawl through Viet-Cong tunnels with only a flashlight and a .45? If you are so lucky, ask these men and women what kind of dreams they had after they returned to their families. Maybe they’ll talk about why they slept with fighting knives and ate out of their steel helmets even after getting home. Ask them how much that Army-appointed psychologist really helped them. And today, war still leaves the same mental trauma in its wake; little has changed. You can write of the many wonderful programs in place to help our soldiers, but just once you should try to sit down with a veteran and see what he or she has to say. Listen to opinions other than your own elitist, self-righteous delusions. You should try putting statistics and politics aside, and looking at the human aspect of it.
“Doctor”, if your husband is a combat veteran of WWII and your son-in-law has seen fighting in Iraq (Persian Gulf or current), maybe you should start with them. You should have more respect for their service. Something tells me, that if they gazed upon the tempestuous maw of battle, they wouldn’t appreciate your denial of support to their fellow comrades in arms.
Lansdale01’s statement that “If 1 soldier commits suicide, that’s 1 too many.” couldn’t sum up my argument more. For someone who has supposedly devoted their life to service, you have a remarkable disdain for human feeling and experience. For a doctor, you possess an astonishing knack for trivializing the loss of human life. Before you post another politically-charged blog, gather your facts about war from those who lived it. Until you do this, every word you type merely exposes more of your ignorance.
Interesting blog…
I am not quite sure why you belittle suicides among soldiers. Just because it is “nothing new” doesn’t make it any less of an issue. In your attempt to provide history on stress and suicide with a quote from the article provided, you left out the part that said, “The stress of combat, and how to deal with it, has been a hot research topic since World War II. But the war on terror is unique because it is sending more troops into combat, for longer periods, than ever before. As expected, from past experience, the more time troops spend in combat, the more likely they are to suffer from stress.”
More troops, longer time, and more stress mean a higher probability for increased suicide among the soldier population (men and women included). This is not a spin on statistics, this is logical deductive reasoning.
I find it interesting that you did not provide any statistics or independent references from the VA or military for readers to see. You only say that “rates remain low”. What is this compared to? How did you arrive at this conclusion? Without a source, this is only an opinion.
You also claim that “The press is spinning the numbers to fit into the “Evil Iraq war is killing soldiers” and “the Military doesn’t care about the soldiers” meme (to fit the ultimate meme: Evil Bush’s war and evil Republicans don’t care).” After reading the articles provided, I did not see any language to the effect of “Evil Iraq War”, “Bush’s war” or “evil Republicans don’t care”. It seems like these are delusions coming from the depths of your imagination. This is not about evil republicans not caring; this is about the grave issue of suicide rates increasing among the military population.
You say “it’s not like nothing is being done…” If there is an increase in suicide rates then obviously more needs to be done. The last article you provided from the Harvard Gazette is discussing female physician suicide rates. I am not quite sure how this relates to your conclusion. I also noticed that you cite a program in 2001 that reduced suicide rates. In case you haven’t noticed we are quickly approaching the end of 2008. What programs and resources are in place now to reduce suicides? Much has changed since 2001.
I look forward to part two of your suicide rate blog; perhaps there, you will provide us with logical conclusions.
Try reading the article. I am not belittling soldiers, I am belittling those of you who use the tragedy of Post Traumatic stress to justify their hate bush all the time agendas.
And as I noted in my article, this is part one of a series on post traumatic stress. If you bother to read the series, you’ll find the problem could be a lot worse.
I did not say that you belittled soldiers, I said that you are belittling the suicide rates.
Why are you assuming that everyone hates Bush? Please stop generalizing. I do not hate Bush, he is a human being just like you and I. Being president of the U.S. is a difficult task, and any individual in that position cannot make everyone happy all the time. Besides this is not about Bush this is about advocating for our soldiers who sacrifice their lives and serve out country.
Those blogging about PSTD are using personal experiences and statistics to justify a call to action and not a feeling of hatred for our president.
I understand that service is being provided to some soldiers; however too many are falling through the cracks. It is time to provide better service to those who have so greatly served us.
As I stated above I look forward to the next part of your series. I do agree that the problem could be much worse; however my point is that rates are rising and that’s bad by itself, so why let it get worse? It’s time to be proactive not reactive.
Thank you for this article. Obviously, the facts you presented touched a nerve among your angrier readers. Keep it up.
dang how some people scream purple murder when confronted with the truth. Good work debunking these spun suicide stats.
The Military Suicide Report estimates, based on VA and CDC data, that since Sept. 11, 2001, more than 100,000 U.S. military veterans have died from suicide.
When considering suicide numbers among active military personnel; this is futile in all regards.
The military has tightly closed its door to public information.
They do not want the citizenry to know what is happening to their sons and daughters.
It is a matter of national security, therefore they must keep true suicide data from public examination. So what you get is either nothing (refuse to report data) or you get less-than-true data from DoD/VA.
This is reality of trading human life for corporate profit, religious aims and other sick interests.
Furthermore, when anyone breaths a word about comparing military suicide rates to civilians, the HUGE lie comes from this …
How many civilian suicides completed would not be qualified for military service in the first place?
Once you purge the civilian completed suicides of non-military qualifiers, then you can get a bit closer to a realistic comparison.
But this is so often overlooked by so-called “experts.”
What a shame; and people believe it.
Bottom line goes back to the 100,000 dead veterans and military members from suicide since Sept. 11, 2013.
Are American citizens informed by the “free press” of this fact?
I would suggest they are not … and this is intentionally so.
… for what it’s worth.
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