At last the incurably traumatized may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And controversially, ecstasy may be key to taming their demons.  
By Amy Turner, The Times of London UK.

At last the incurably traumatized may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And controversially, the key to taming their demons is the 'killer' drug Ecstasy

An Ecstasy tablet. That's what it took to make Donna Kilgore feel alive again that and the doctor who prescribed it. As the pill began to take effect, she giggled for the first time in ages. She felt warm and fuzzy, as if she was floating. The anxiety melted away. Gradually, it all became clear: the guilt, the anger, the shame.

Before, she'd been frozen, unable to feel anything but fear for 10 years. Touching her own arms was, she says, "like touching a corpse." She was terrified, unable to respond to her loving husband or rock her baby to sleep. She couldn't drive over bridges for fear of dying, was by turns uncontrollably angry and paralyzed with numbness. When she spoke, she heard her voice as if it were miles away; her head felt detached from her body. "It was like living in a movie but watching myself through the camera lens,"she says. "I wasn't real."  (continued...)

Low approval rate for vets' chemical tests claims
By ERICA WERNER – 5 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Veterans Affairs Department has granted only 6 percent of health claims filed by veterans of secret Cold War chemical and germ warfare tests conducted by the Pentagon, according to figures obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

Veterans advocates called the number appallingly low.

By comparison, about 88 percent of processed claims from Gulf War vets were granted as of last year, according to VA documents. More than 90 percent of processed claims from Iraq and Afghanistan vets were granted as of earlier this year.

In a statement the VA said it was "incorrect" to make such comparisons because of the unique circumstances of different groups of veterans.

The VA noted that most of the veterans of the chemical and germ tests ended their service more than three decades ago and a study by the advisory Institute of Medicine — dismissed by veterans as shoddily done — found no clear connection between the tests and the cancer, respiratory illnesses and other problems the veterans are now having...

GOUT:  WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

BY CAROL DUFF RN

Gout is a painful and common type of arthritis. One out of 100 will develop gout at some point. Gout is the most common cause of inflammatory arthritis in men over 40.This malady has been around for centuries and is one of the earliest described conditions which still plague humanity. 

There is an increasing prevalence of gout in the past decades which reflects an increasing health burden. The more developed countries have more incidences of gout due to a richer diet.  As an area improves in ability to attain foods that would contain purines there will be more gout diagnoses.   

Typically gout is associated with abnormally high amount of uric acid in the blood (hyperuricemia). With early intervention, careful monitoring, and patient education gout can be managed effectively...

Antidepressants used by troops signal heavy mental and psychological toll in Iraq and Afghanistan
by Mark Thompson 

Seven months after Sergeant Christopher LeJeune started scouting Baghdad's dangerous roads — acting as bait to lure insurgents into the open so his Army unit could kill them — he found himself growing increasingly despondent. "We'd been doing some heavy missions, and things were starting to bother me," LeJeune says. His unit had been protecting Iraqi police stations targeted by rocket-propelled grenades, hunting down mortars hidden in dark Baghdad basements and cleaning up its own messes. He recalls the order his unit got after a nighttime firefight to roll back out and collect the enemy dead. When LeJeune and his buddies arrived, they discovered that some of the bodies were still alive. "You don't always know who the bad guys are," he says. "When you search someone's house, you have it built up in your mind that these guys are terrorists, but when you go in, there's little bitty tiny shoes and toys on the floor — things like that started affecting me a lot more than I thought they would."  

So LeJeune visited a military doctor in Iraq, who, after a quick session, diagnosed depression. The doctor sent him back to war armed with the antidepressant Zoloft and the antianxiety drug clonazepam. "It's not easy for soldiers to admit the problems that they're having over there for a variety of reasons," LeJeune says. "If they do admit it, then the only solution given is pills."

An Investigation Reveals Veterans Are Being Recruited for Government Tests on Drugs with Violent Side Effects
By BRIAN ROSS and VIC WALTER, ABC News and Washington Times

Mentally distressed veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are being recruited for government tests on pharmaceutical drugs linked to suicide and other violent side effects, an investigation by ABC News and The Washington Times has found.

The report will air on Good Morning America and will also appear in The Washington Times on Tuesday.

In one of the human experiments, involving the anti-smoking drug Chantix, Veterans Administration doctors waited more than three months before warning veterans about the possible serious side effects, including suicide and neuropsychiatric behavior.

"Lab rat, guinea pig, disposable hero," said former US Army sniper James Elliott in describing how he felt he was betrayed by the Veterans Administration...

APSS: Associated Professional Sleep Societies Meeting Concludes war veterans prone to severe sleep disorders
By Michael Smith, North American Correspondent, MedPage Today

BALTIMORE, June 10 -- Veterans returning from the Iraq war can suffer sleep disturbances as severe as those among chronic insomniacs, researchers said here.

Combat vets reporting adjustment difficulties after they come home simply "do not sleep like good sleepers," said Anne Germain, Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh.

Both subjective reports of sleep disturbances and objective measurements in a sleep lab show a pattern that more closely resembles people with chronic insomnia, Dr. Germain and a colleague reported in two presentations at the Associated Professional Sleep Societies meeting. 

Their findings arise from preliminary data from a study of combat vets that will eventually include 90 patients whose war experience comes mainly from the recent Middle East conflicts, Dr. Germain said...

ALS linked to the first Persian Gulf War is a declining risk
by Katie Pence, University of Cincinnati

A new study, led by researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC), says that cases of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) among soldiers who served in the first Persian Gulf War were caused by certain events during their deployment to the war zone, meaning the exposure and illness is not as widespread as previously thought.

The study is being published in the July issue of Neuroepidemiology.

Ronnie Horner, PhD, lead author of the study, along with colleagues at Duke University Medical Center found that among the 124 cases of ALS studied, 48 occurred within those soldiers deployed to the Persian Gulf region.

Horner says most of the deployed soldiers who developed ALS had disease onset in 1996 or earlier.

"The outbreak was time-limited," he continues. "We actually saw a declining risk after 1996; therefore, the risk is not continual. The pattern of disease onset suggests that whatever exposure occurred among these soldiers most likely happened sometime between August 1990 and July 1991, the period of the first Gulf War."  (continued...)

Wartime PTSD cases jumped roughly 50% in 2007
By David Morgan, Reuters 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newly diagnosed cases of post-traumatic stress disorder among U.S. troops sent to Iraq and Afghanistan surged 46.4 percent in 2007, bringing the five-year total to nearly 40,000, according to U.S. military data released on Tuesday.

The statistics, released by the Army, showed the number of new PTSD cases formally diagnosed at U.S. military facilities climbed to 13,981 last year from 9,549 in 2006.

The numbers rose as President George W. Bush poured extra forces into Iraq to try to quell sectarian violence and extended Army tours from 12 to 15 months. The United States has also sent more forces to Afghanistan.

The figures, encompassing all four branches of the U.S. armed services, showed that the Army alone had 10,049 new PTSD cases last year.

This brings to 39,366 the number of PTSD cases diagnosed at military facilities between January 1, 2003, and December 31, 2007, among troops deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan...

Hurricane man's death the 4th in West Virginia 
by Julie Robinson, The WV Gazette

A Putnam County veteran who was taking medication prescribed for post-traumatic stress disorder died in his sleep earlier this month, in circumstances similar to the deaths of three other area veterans earlier this year.

Derek Johnson, 22, of Hurricane, served in the infantry in the Middle East in 2005, where he was wounded in combat and diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder while hospitalized.

Military doctors prescribed Paxil, Klonopin and Seroquel for Johnson, the same combination taken by veterans Andrew White, 23, of Cross Lanes; Eric Layne, 29, of Kanawha City; and Nicholas Endicott of Logan County. All were in apparently good physical health when they died in their sleep.

Johnson was taking Klonopin and Seroquel, as prescribed, at the time of his death, said his grandmother, Georgeann Underwood of Hurricane. Both drugs are frequently used in combination to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Klonopin causes excessive drowsiness in some patients.

He also was taking a painkiller for a back injury he sustained in a car accident about a week before his death, but was no longer taking Paxil...

Afflicted with Lou Gehrig's disease, they fight for military benefits as science hunts the cause 
by Josh Mitchell, The Baltimore Sun

Left: "The mind stays strong, but the body..." says Anthony Averella, 53, who served in the Army and National Guard and suffers from deadly Lou Gehrig's disease. He has lost more than 50 pounds in the past year. (Sun photo by Chiaki Kawajiri / May 16, 2008)

The first time he fell, Army Sgt. 1st Class Anthony Averella was strolling on a military base in Afghanistan. He got up, collected himself and brushed aside the concerns of fellow soldiers. Within months, Averella was stumbling regularly, and his hands began inexplicably clenching into fists.

At first, tests revealed nothing. Three years ago, the Maryland soldier found out what was afflicting him: Lou Gehrig's disease.

Once an intense weightlifter, Averella is now bedridden at his Glen Burnie apartment, every part of him dying but his mind. He can barely move on his own and communicates by typing with one hand on a laptop computer.

"Terrible disease," he whispered recently from a hospital bed...