Instead of providing proper counseling and care for Iraq war veterans suffering from physical and psychological pain, too often the U.S. military is trying to medicate the problem away, according to drug counselors and therapists.
Andrew Pogany, who works with service members nationwide as an investigator with the veterans advocacy group Veterans for America, said overmedicating veterans is a common problem.
"Pretty much every person in my caseload is medicated, heavily medicated," said Pogany. "There's potential for them to become addicted."
According to Pogany, a reliance on prescription drugs often leads veterans to reach for other coping mechanisms -- illegal drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and crystal meth.
Road to Addiction Can Start in Iraq
Army Spc. Adam Reuter joined the military in October 2001, shortly after 9/11. After Reuter was injured in a Humvee accident in Iraq, he said an Army doctor literally gave him a grab bag of painkillers and muscle relaxers.
"They gave them to me in a Ziploc bag with no instructions," said Reuter. Reuter said he became addicted to the medication and was able to quit his habit simply because of lack of access now that he's out of the Army.
Gamal Awad, a former major in the Marine Corps, says Marine doctors in Iraq gave him an array of antidepressants and sleep medication so he could continue to function in the field.
Awad was diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after his heroic response efforts at the Pentagon on 9/11. Despite his diagnosis, he was deployed to Iraq where he said he was haunted by depression, nightmares and thoughts of suicide.
"I would go out on convoys with the purpose to die," said Awad. "I just wanted to be hit by an IED or get shot. When we'd get hit with mortar rounds or rockets, I wouldn't take cover."
Awad said he was given more than a dozen prescription drugs, including Xanax, Ambien, Prasozin, Zoloft and Paxil to treat his PTSD. Awad complained that for him these drugs are highly addictive, and he is frustrated by his reliance.
Yucca Mountain Remains Nuclear Waste Dump Choice
by Ralph Vartabedian
LONE PINE, Calif. - Henry Williams, a Paiute Indian from Bishop, drove an hour south to a meeting hall to deliver his tribe’s verdict on the contested federal plan to bury nuclear waste inside Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, about 16 miles from the California border.
“I am here to speak for my Paiute family,” he told a public hearing last week held by federal government. “We have been here for thousands of years. Our spirits in this area are totally against this.”
The federal plan to bury nuclear waste at a dump in Yucca Mountain has encountered one setback after another in the courts. It is hated in much of the West. It looks like it is in deep political trouble in Congress. And a number of presidential candidates have attacked the dump.
But the wheels of the US Energy Department bureaucracy are still going through the exacting legal steps to get a license for Yucca Mountain, where it wants to bury 70 metric tons of spent commercial fuel and nuclear weapons waste.
In the last week, the department has held a series of public hearings on two environmental impact statements, a process required under federal law.
At the hearing in Hawthorne, Nev., only four local people showed up, greeted by 30 or so federal employees and contractors bused in from Las Vegas. About 55 people showed up for a meeting in Reno. A bigger turnout is expected in Las Vegas today and in Washington on Wednesday.
The only hearing in California was held Thursday in Lone Pine, part of Inyo County whose eastern border can be seen from the crest of Yucca Mountain. A few dozen area residents showed up, including a local book publisher, several American Indians, some retirees, a few antinuclear activists, and a lot of people in cowboy boots and worn blue jeans.
“We are putting a burden on future generations to watch and care for this waste longer than man has been on this earth,” said Roger Rasche, a retired proofreader from Lone Pine. “I hope future generations will be forgiving.”
Asked about public opposition to the dump, Ward Sproat, the Energy Department’s director of civilian radioactive waste management, said in an interview, “I wouldn’t expect anything less. This program has been around a long time and it has a lot of history.”
Government scientists insist that there is no chance any radioactivity could leak for 10,000 years and that the dump will be safe for hundreds of thousands of years after that.
The hearing also focused on another aspect of the plan: getting the waste to the dump.
The plan calls for 13,600 truck and rail shipments of waste, about 12 percent of which probably would move through California.
Monday, December 3, 2007; 7:46 PM
Feds Probe Sept. 11 Insurance Fund
By DEVLIN BARRETT
The Associated PressMonday, December 3, 2007; 7:46 PM
WASHINGTON -- Federal officials said Monday they will investigate why a $1 billion Sept. 11 insurance fund created by Congress to cover claims of sick ground zero workers is fighting the cases in court rather than distributing money.
The World Trade Center Captive Insurance Company has come under increasing scrutiny from Congress and the federal government, as roughly 8,000 individual claims await judgment in the federal court system.
The inspector general for the Homeland Security Department indicated he intends to examine the issue, telling Congress in a report that his inquiry will determine why the insurance company "has chosen to litigate all claims instead of settling whenever possible."
According to documents sent to Congress and due to be released later this week, the inspector general's review will also determine "what procedures have been established to receive, review and pay medical, hospital, surgical and disability benefits to injured persons," as well as benefits to the relatives of those killed.
The $1 billion insurance company has also been challenged by Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the chairman and ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Such questions have put lawyers for New York City on the defensive, since the city and some construction contractors are protected by the program.
The top lawyer for the city, Michael Cardozo, has defended the company as "an insurance company, not a compensation fund" and argued that as such, it is obliged to defend legal claims. A spokeswoman for the city's law department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday evening about the inspector general's inquiry.
The company issued a statement saying it was cooperating with the inquiry and welcomes the
review.
review.
In July, attorneys for the thousands of workers who say they were sickened after working to clean up the site went to court to demand the insurance company spend the money on their health care.
The insurance company, once an afterthought of the $20 billion post-Sept. 11 aid package for New York, has taken on increasing importance amid mounting complaints that those who worked on the toxic debris pile need long-term health care. Many of the health complaints center around lung problems attributed to the dust, fumes and debris at the site.
Some advocates for those workers, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., have estimated it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year to provide medical care for those workers.
The city's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has urged Congress to redirect the captive insurance company money to create a new compensation fund for sick workers, and give the city and the contractors immunity from such lawsuits.
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