Posted on 04/22/2008 8:17:17 AM PDT by Signalman
(04-21) 17:30 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- More than 120 veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq commit suicide every week while the government stalls in granting returning troops the mental health treatment and benefits to which they are entitled, veterans advocates told a federal judge Monday in San Francisco.
The rights of hundreds of thousands of veterans are being violated by the Department of Veterans Affairs, "an agency that is in denial," and by a government health care system and appeals process for patients that is "broken down," Gordon Erspamer, lawyer for two advocacy groups, said in an opening statement at the trial of a nationwide lawsuit.
He said veterans are committing suicide at the rate of 18 a day - a number acknowledged by a VA official in a Dec. 15 e-mail - and the agency's backlog of disability claims now exceeds 650,000, an increase of 200,000 since the Iraq war started in 2003.
Justice Department lawyer Richard Lepley countered that the VA runs a "world-class health care system." He said the changes the plaintiffs seek in their lawsuit - better and faster mental health care, and more rights for veterans appealing denials of benefits - are beyond the judge's authority.
"Of course we're obliged to provide health care," Lepley said, but "the court does not have standards to determine the speed or the scope or the level of that care."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Agreed.
According to:
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2007/11/13/cbs-early-show-veteran-suicide-rates-shockingly-high
“In reality, according to an October 31 Associated Press article, “A total of 147 troops have killed themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan since the wars began...Add the number of returning veterans and the finding is that at least 430 of the 1.5 million troops who have fought in the two wars have killed themselves over the past six years.”
18 a day, 120 a week?.........Hyperbole to the extreme?..........maybe not:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/13/earlyshow/main3494261.shtml
“...veterans are committing suicide at the rate of 18 a day - a number acknowledged by a VA official...”
Who is lying? The reporter or the VA official?
The VA’s number of 18/day = 6,570. The reporter’s is 6240
It’s a class action lawsuit by a tort lawyer on behalf of two “advocacy groups,” later named in the article as “Veterans for Common Sense in Washington, D.C., which claims 11,500 members, and Veterans United for Truth, a Santa Barbara group with 500 members.”
I don’t know anything about these groups other than what I read on their websites. It seems interesting that the first listed member of the board of Veterans United for Truth is Mike Dukakis.
Yeah: This smells real bad. No way it’s even close to this, or the national MSM would have been over this day after day after day. . .
The numbers are too high. From the VA:
http://www.va.gov/oig/54/reports/VAOIG-06-03706-126.pdf
“There are approximately 25 million veterans in the United States and 5 million veterans who receive care within VHA. Based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data indicating suicide rates in men between the ages of 20 and 65 approximating 20 per 100,000 persons per year, VHA mental health officials estimate 1,000 suicides per year among veterans receiving care within VHA and as many as 5,000 per year among all living veterans.”
5,000 ex-servicemen and women
That does not mean only those who served in Iraq and Afgahni theatres. This is all ex service men and women no matter how long ago. Selective use of numbers.
Here’s a more recent bunch of gobldegook from CBS explaining how they got their numbers (read SWAG):
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/13/cbsnews_investigates/main3498625.shtml
Thanks for the info. The article is bogus. The VA estimates that there are 25 million living veterans. That includes veterans of WWII, Korea, Peace-time, Vietnam and Iraq I and Iraq II. Out of that 25 million, the VA estimates about 5000 suicides per year.
That’s a suicide rate of .02 percent per year.
The article says that 6240 IRAQ/AFGHANISTAN vets (not total vets in US) are committing suicide each year. It’s hogwash.
A VA official?
Unnamed VA office and location?
Piss poor journalism, or propoganda from the left? You decide.
---------------------- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/13/cbsnews_investigates/main3496471.shtml
In 2005, for example, in just those 45 states, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That’s 120 each and every week, in just one year.
Dr. Steve Rathbun is the acting head of the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department at the University of Georgia. CBS News asked him to run a detailed analysis of the raw numbers that we obtained from state authorities for 2004 and 2005. It found that veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 than non-vets. (Veterans committed suicide at the rate of between 18.7 to 20.8 per 100,000, compared to other Americans, who did so at the rate of 8.9 per 100,000.) One age group stood out.
Veterans aged 20 through 24, those who have served during the war on terror. They had the highest suicide rate among all veterans, estimated between two and four times higher than civilians the same age. (The suicide rate for non-veterans is 8.3 per 100,000, while the rate for veterans was found to be between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000.)
-----------
http://jech.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/61/7/619
Cox proportional hazards analysis showed that veterans who were white, those with 12 years of education and those with activity limitations (after adjusting for medical and psychiatric morbidity) were at a greater risk for completing suicide. Veterans were twice as likely (adjusted hazard ratio 2.04, 95% CI 1.10 to 3.80) to die of suicide compared with non-veterans in the general population.
The risk of death from "natural" causes (diseases) and the risk of death from "external" causes did not differ between the veterans and the non-veterans.
Interestingly, male veterans who were overweight had a significantly lower risk of completing suicide than those who were of normal weight.
Conclusions: Veterans in the general US population, whether or not they are affiliated with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), are at an increased risk of suicide. With a projected rise in the incidence of functional impairment and psychiatric morbidity among veterans of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, clinical and community interventions that are directed towards patients in both VA and non-VA healthcare facilities are needed.
--------
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/9202
From Oregon:
Here are the rates of suicide per 100,000 males (statistically adjusted for age) from the report: 2000-2005 Oregon Male Rates of Suicide Veterans = 46.05 per 100,000 Non-Veterans = 22.09 per 100,000
Millet says when Oregon state researchers broken down the veteran suicide data (from the years 2000 to 2005) by age, three groups had “significantly” higher rates. She provided CBS News those rates: (Note: Millet says the following rates of suicide are statistically adjusted for age and by year to weed out any random factors so the comparison between veterans and non-veterans is an “oranges to oranges” match.)
Oregon Males Ages: 18-24
Veterans = 134 per 100,000
Non-Veterans = 27 per 100,000
Oregon Males Ages:
35-44 Veterans = 47 per 100,000
Non-Veterans = 26 per 100,000
Oregon Males Ages: 45-54
Veterans = 48 per 100,000
Non-Veterans = 28 per 100,000
The VA sucks and always has - that much is not news. But the figures of the suicide rate are pure BS.
So given that information, what is the statistical average of people in the general population who kill themselves per 100,000 nationally / year?
And the difference is?.....
The quote was to demonstrate how badly the “veterans advocates” misrepresented the numbers to the judge.
Their numbers might represent all veterans of all wars.
I would think the numbers would be easy enough to refute that the judge could find the advocates in contempt of court or some such charge.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.