SUPPORT THE TROOPS!

By misdiagnosing them to save money! Only the best for US soldiers! Randi Rhodes mentioned this on her new NovaM show on Friday. It's really grim. Send them on the longest tours of duty with poor equipment and training and then poo-poo their psychological ailments when they return home as suicidal zombies.



FROM WASHINGTON POST BY CHRISTOPHER LEE:

"A psychologist who helps lead the post-traumatic stress disorder program at a medical facility for veterans in Texas told staff members to refrain from diagnosing PTSD because so many veterans were seeking government disability payments for the condition.

"Given that we are having more and more compensation seeking veterans, I'd like to suggest that you refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out," Norma Perez wrote in a March 20 e-mail to mental-health specialists and social workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs' Olin E. Teague Veterans' Center in Temple, Tex. Instead, she recommended that they "consider a diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder."

ANOTHER EXCERPT:

"A Rand Corp. report released in April found that repeated exposure to combat stress in Iraq and Afghanistan is causing a disproportionately high psychological toll compared with physical injuries. About 300,000 U.S. military personnel who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan are suffering from PTSD or major depression, the study found. The economic cost to the United States -- including medical care, forgone productivity and lost lives through suicide -- is expected to reach $4 billion to $6 billion over two years."

WHOLE ARTICLE: WASHPO