How many U.S. soldiers were wounded in Iraq? We have no idea

ASK THIS | December 30, 2011 
By Dan Froomkin

Reports about the end of the war in Iraq routinely describe the toll on the U.S. military the way the Pentagon does:

•   4,487 dead
• 32,226 wounded.

The death count is accurate. But the wounded figure wildly understates the number of American servicemembers who have come back from Iraq less than whole.

The true number of military personnel injured over the course of our nine-year-long fiasco in Iraq is in the hundreds of thousands -- maybe even more than half a million -- if you take into account all the men and women who returned from their deployments with traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress, depression, hearing loss, breathing disorders, diseases, and other long-term health problems.

We don't have anything close to an exact number, however, because nobody's been keeping track.

The much-cited Defense Department figure comes from its tally of "wounded in action" -- a narrowly-tailored category that only includes casualties during combat operations who have "incurred an injury due to an external agent or cause." That generally means they needed immediate medical treatment after having been shot or blown up. Explicitly excluded from that category are "injuries or death due to the elements, self-inflicted wounds, combat fatigue" -- along with cumulative psychological and physiological strain or many of the other wounds, maladies and losses that are most common among Iraq veterans.

The "wounded in action" category is relatively consistent, historically, so it's still useful as a point of comparison to previous wars. But there is no central repository of data regarding these other, sometimes grievous, harms. We just have a few data points here and there that indicate the magnitude.

Consider, for instance:

• The Pentagon's Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center reports having diagnosed 229,106 cases of mild to severe traumatic brain injury from 2000 to the third quarter of 2011, including both Iraq and Afghan vets.

• A 2008 study of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans by researchers at the RAND Corporation found that 14 percent screened positive for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and 14 percent for major depression, with 19 percent reporting a probable traumatic brain injury during deployment. (The researchers found that major depression is "highly associated with combat exposure and should be considered as being along the spectrum of post-deployment mental health consequences.") Applying those proportions to the 1.5 million veterans of Iraq, an estimated 200,000 of them would be expected to suffer from PTSD or major depression, with 285,000 of them having experienced a probable traumatic brain injury.

• A 2008 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that 15 percent of soldiers reported an injury during deployment that involved loss of consciousness or altered mental status, and 17 percent of soldiers reported other injuries. (Using that ratio would suggest that 480,000 Iraq vets were injured one way or the other.) More than 40 percent of soldiers who lost of consciousness met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder.

• Altogether, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America group estimates that nearly 1 in 3 people deployed in those wars suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, or traumatic brain injury. That would mean 500,000 of the 1.5 million deployed to Iraq.

• The single most common service-connected disability is actually hearing loss. A 2005 Department of Veterans Affairs research paper found that one third of soldiers who had recently returned from deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq were referred to audiologists for hearing evaluations due to exposure to acute acoustic blasts, and 72 percent of them were identified as having hearing loss. Richard Salvi, head of the University of Buffalo's Center for Hearing and Deafness announced recently that "as many as 50 percent of combat soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who come back have tinnitus" because of the intense noise soldiers must withstand.

• The Department of Veterans Affairs' list of potential deployment health conditions includes chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, fibromyalgia, hearing difficulties, hepatitis A, B and C, leishmaniasis (also known as the "Baghdad boil"), malaria, memory loss, migraines, sleep disorders and tuberculosis.

• The VA's web page on hazardous exposures warns that "combat Veterans may have been exposed to a wide variety of environmental hazards during their service in Afghanistan or Iraq. These hazardous exposures may cause long-term health problems." The hazards include exposure to open-air burn pits, infectious diseases, depleted uranium, toxic shrapnel, cold and heat injuries and chemical agent resistant paint. The VA provides no estimates of exposure or damage, however.

• A 2010 Congressional Research Service report, presenting what it called "difficult-to-find statistics regarding U.S. military casualties" offers one indication of how the "wounded in action" category undercounts real casualties. It found that for every soldier wounded in action and medically evacuated from Iraq, more than four more were medically evacuated for other reasons.

• The Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center's most recent monthly report found that the proportion of returned deployers who, around 3 months after their return, rated their health as “fair” or “poor” was 10 to 13 percent. More than 20 percent said their health was worse than before they were deployed; a similar number had "exposure concerns" and more than 27 percent reported depression symptoms.

• A March 2010 report from the Institute of Medicine concluded that many wounds suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan will persist over veterans' lifetimes, and some impacts of military service may not be felt until decades later.

There are surely many other data points out there. But a comprehensive tally escapes us. In the meantime, the figure for "wounded" constantly cited by politicians and the media does not come close to reflecting the real cost to the servicemembers who went to fight in George W. Bush's war of adventure and will never be the same again.

Drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in U.S., data show

Fueling the surge are prescription pain and anxiety drugs that are potent, highly addictive and especially dangerous when combined with one another or with other drugs or alcohol
By Lisa Girion, Scott Glover and Doug Smith, Los Angeles Times



Propelled by an increase in prescription narcotic overdoses, drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States, a Times analysis of government data has found.

Drugs exceeded motor vehicle accidents as a cause of death in 2009, killing at least 37,485 people nationwide, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While most major causes of preventable death are declining, drugs are an exception. The death toll has doubled in the last decade, now claiming a life every 14 minutes. By contrast, traffic accidents have been dropping for decades because of huge investments in auto safety.

Public health experts have used the comparison to draw attention to the nation's growing prescription drug problem, which they characterize as an epidemic. This is the first time that drugs have accounted for more fatalities than traffic accidents since the government started tracking drug-induced deaths in 1979.

Fueling the surge in deaths are prescription pain and anxiety drugs that are potent, highly addictive and especially dangerous when combined with one another or with other drugs or alcohol. Among the most commonly abused are OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and Soma. One relative newcomer to the scene is Fentanyl, a painkiller that comes in the form of patches and lollipops and is 100 times more powerful than morphine.

Such drugs now cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.

"The problem is right here under our noses in our medicine cabinets," said Laz Salinas, a sheriff's commander in Santa Barbara, which has seen a dramatic rise in prescription drug deaths in recent years.

Overdose victims range in age and circumstance from teenagers who pop pills to get a heroin-like high to middle-aged working men and women who take medications prescribed for strained backs and bum knees and become addicted.

A review of hundreds of autopsy reports in Southern California reveals one tragic demise after another: A 19-year-old Army recruit, who had just passed his military physical, took a handful of Xanax and painkillers while partying with friends. A groom, anxious over his upcoming wedding, overdosed on a cocktail of prescription drugs. A teenage honors student overdosed on painkillers her father left in his medicine cabinet from a surgery years earlier. A toddler was orphaned after both parents overdosed on prescription drugs months apart. A grandmother suffering from chronic back pain apparently forgot she'd already taken her daily regimen of pills and ended up double dosing.

Many died after failed attempts at rehab — or after using one too many times while contemplating quitting. That's apparently what happened to a San Diego woman found dead with a Fentanyl patch on her body, one of five she'd applied in the 24 hours before her death. Next to her on the couch was a notebook with information about rehab.

The seeds of the problem were planted more than a decade ago by well-meaning efforts by doctors to mitigate suffering, as well as aggressive sales campaigns by pharmaceutical manufacturers. In hindsight, the liberalized prescription of pain drugs "may in fact be the cause of the epidemic we're now facing," said Linda Rosenstock, dean of the UCLA School of Public Health.

In some ways, prescription drugs are more dangerous than illicit ones because users don't have their guard up, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. Steve Opferman, head of a county task force on prescription drug-related crimes. "People feel they are safer with prescription drugs because you get them from a pharmacy and they are prescribed by a doctor," Opferman said. "Younger people believe they are safer because they see their parents taking them. It doesn't have the same stigma as using street narcotics."

Lori Smith said she believes that's what her son might have been thinking the night he died six months shy of his 16th birthday. Nolan Smith, of Aliso Viejo, loved to surf, sail and fish with his brother and father. He suffered from migraines and anxiety but showed no signs of drug abuse, his mother said.

The night before he died in January 2009, Nolan called his mother at work, asking for a ride to the girls basketball game at Aliso Niguel High School. Lori told him she couldn't get away.

When Nolan didn't come home that evening, his parents called police and his friends. His body was found the next morning on a stranger's front porch.

A toxicology test turned up Zoloft, which had been prescribed for anxiety, and a host of other drugs that had not been prescribed, including two additional anti-anxiety drugs, as well as morphine and marijuana.

All investigators could give the family were theories.

"They said they will have parties where the kids will throw a bunch of pills in a bowl and the kids take them without knowing what they are," Lori said. "We called all of his friends, but no one would say they were with him. But he must have been with someone. You just don't do that by yourself."

The triumph of public health policies that have improved traffic safety over the years through the use of seat belts, air bags and other measures stands in stark contrast to the nation's record on prescription drugs. Even though more people are driving more miles, traffic fatalities have dropped by more than a third since the early 1970s to 36,284 in 2009. Drug-induced deaths had equaled or surpassed traffic fatalities in California, 22 other states and the District of Columbia even before the 2009 figures revealed the shift at the national level, according to the Times analysis.

The Centers for Disease Control collects data on all causes of death each year and analyzes them to identify health problems. Drug-induced deaths are mostly accidental overdoses but also include suicides and fatal diseases caused by drugs.

The CDC's 2009 statistics are the agency's most current. They are considered preliminary because they reflect 96% of death certificates filed. The remaining are deaths for which the causes were not immediately clear.

Drug fatalities more than doubled among teens and young adults between 2000 and 2008, years for which more detailed data are available. Deaths more than tripled among people aged 50 to 69, the Times analysis found. In terms of sheer numbers, the death toll is highest among people in their 40s.

Overdose deaths involving prescription painkillers, including OxyContin and Vicodin, and anti-anxiety drugs such as Valium and Xanax more than tripled between 2000 and 2008.

The rise in deaths corresponds with doctors prescribing more painkillers and anti-anxiety medications. The number of prescriptions for the strongest pain pills filled at California pharmacies, for instance, increased more than 43% since 2007 — and the doses grew by even more, nearly 50%, according to a review of prescribing data collected by the state.

Those prescriptions provide relief to pain sufferers but also fuel a thriving black market. Prescription drugs are traded on Internet chat rooms that buzz with offers of "vikes," "percs" and "oxys" for $10 to $80 a pill. They are sold on street corners along with heroin, marijuana and crack. An addiction to prescription drugs can be costly; a heavy OxyContin habit can run twice as much as a heroin addiction, authorities say.

On a recent weekday morning, Los Angeles County undercover sheriff's deputies posing as drug buyers easily purchased enough pills to fill a medicine cabinet on a sidewalk a few blocks south of Los Angeles City Hall.

The most commonly abused prescription drug, hydrocodone, also is the most widely prescribed drug in America, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Better known as Vicodin, the pain reliever is prescribed more often than the top cholesterol drug and the top antibiotic.

"We have an insatiable appetite for this drug — insatiable," Joseph T. Rannazzisi, a top DEA administrator, told a group of pharmacists at a regulatory meeting in Sacramento.

In April, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy announced initiatives aimed at stanching prescription drug abuse. The plans include a series of drug take-back days, modeled after similar programs involving weapons, in which consumers are encouraged to turn leftover prescription drugs in to authorities. Another initiative would develop voluntary courses to train physicians on how to safely prescribe pain drugs, a curriculum that is not widely taught in medical schools.

Initial attempts to reverse the trend in drug deaths — such as state-run prescription drug-monitoring programs aimed at thwarting "doctor-shopping" addicts — don't appear to be having much effect, experts say.

"What's really scary is we don't know a lot about how to reduce prescription deaths," said Amy S.B. Bohnert, a researcher at the University of Michigan Medical School who is studying ways to lower the risk of prescription drugs.

"It's a wonderful medical advancement that we can treat pain," Bohnert said. "But we haven't figured out the safety belt yet."

Norway Mourns 92 Victims After 'Hell on Paradise Island'

(I have 4 friends who live in Oslo--all of whom are safe, thankfully. But I freaked whenI heard about this. I don't know what the families of those people must endure, it has to be just awful.--jef)

Friday, July 22, 2011 by Agence France-Presse
by Pierre-Henry Deshayes and Charles Onians

OSLO, Norway --  Police said they were questioning a man on Saturday over the massacre of 92 people in a killing spree that Norway's prime minister said had turned an island paradise into hell on earth.

As harrowing testimony emerged from the summer camp where scores of youngsters were mown down, Norway was struggling to understand how a country famed as a beacon of peace could experience such bloodshed on its soil.

"Never since the Second World War has our country been hit by a crime on this scale," Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told journalists as police searched for more bodies on the idyllic Utoeya island.

"Many of those who have died were friends. I know their parents and it happened at a place where I spent a long time as a young person... It was a paradise of my youth that has now been turned into hell."

The latest death toll from the island massacre stood at 85 and seven people also died in an earlier explosion which ripped through government buildings in Oslo. Police confirmed on Saturday that the blast was the result of a car bomb.

However the toll could still rise as police said four or five people were still missing from the island. A mini-submarine was deployed to aid the search operation, along with Red Cross scuba divers.

While there was no official confirmation of the suspect's identity, he was widely named by the local media as Anders Behring Breivik.

National police commissioner Sveinung Sponheim said said that investigators were still trying to establish if a second shooter was present on the island, as suggested by certain witness accounts.

The blond-haired Behring Breivik described himself on his Facebook page as "conservative", "Christian", and interested in hunting and computer games like World of Warcraft and Modern Warfare 2, the reports said.

On his Twitter account, he posted only one message, dated July 17, in English based on a quote from British philosopher John Stuart Mill: "One person with a belief is equal to a force of 100,000 who have only interests."

He is an "ethnic" Norwegian and a "Christian fundamentalist," police spokesman Roger Andersen said, adding that his political opinions leaned "to the right".

The head of the populist right-wing Progress Party (FrP) confirmed Behring Breivik had been a party member between 1999 and 2006 and for several years a leader in its youth movement.

"Those who knew the suspect when he was a member of the party say that he seemed like a modest person that seldom engaged himself in the political discussions," Siv Jensen said in a statement on the party's website.

Anti-fascist monitors meanwhile said Behring Breivik was also a member of a Swedish neo-Nazi Internet forum named Nordisk, which hosts discussions ranging from white power music to political strategies to crush democracy.

The attacks on Friday afternoon were western Europe's deadliest since the 2004 Madrid bombings, carried out by Al-Qaeda.

While there had been initial fears they might have been an act of revenge over Norway's participation in the campaigns in Afghanistan and Libya, the focus shifted when it emerged the suspect was a native Norwegian.

Seven of the victims were killed in the car bomb which seared through landmark buildings including Stoltenberg's office and the finance ministry.

It is thought that the car-bomber then caught a ferry to nearby Utoeya wearing a police sweater.
On arrival, he claimed to be investigating the bomb attack and began opening fire with an automatic weapon. The shooting spree last for an hour-and-a-half.

Witnesses described scenes of horror among the more than 500 people attending the youth camp. Some who tried to swim to safety were even shot in the water.

Khamshajiny Gunaratnam, a 23-year-old who swam to safety, said people had initially thought it was some kind of joke before she and her friends realized their lives were in danger.

"We ran and ran. The worst thing was when we found out the shooter was dressed as a policeman. Who could we trust then? If we called the police, would he be the guy would come to our 'rescue'?," she wrote on her blog.

She and her friend Matti swam towards the mainland as the gunman fired into the water. After a while, a boat picked them up and brought them to safety.

"We are just ordinary young people. We are involved in politics. We want to make the world a better place," she wrote.

Stine Haheim, a Labour party lawmaker who was on the island, said the gunman had carried out his killings methodically.

"He was very calm. He was not running, he was moving slowly and shooting at every person he saw," she said.

Stoltenberg, as he visited some of the survivors, spoke of his own anguish at the massacre on an island to which he was a frequent visitor. He had been due to give a speech on Saturday to the camp, organized by his Labour party.

The prime minister said he had been deeply moved by speaking to youngsters who had told him how they swam to shore under a hail of gunfire, in some cases helping friends who had been shot.

Norwegian police said they feared there could also be explosives on the island. According to a spokeswoman for a farming cooperative, the suspect bought six tonnes of fertilizer -- which can be used to make bombs -- in May.

There was widespread international condemnation with US President Barack Obama saying the attacks were "a reminder that the entire international community has a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring."

The Norwegian capital is a well-known symbol of international peace efforts and home to the Nobel Peace Prize.

Norway's Utoya Island (pictured below)

Responsible for the Most Deaths in the Bible?

Wow, I did NOT see that one coming...you let loose one flood and kill a bunch of first borns and all of a sudden, you're a mass murderer...

Death Toll in Bangkok Rises as Martial Law Declared to Quell Protests

(OK, in Thailand, their "finance minister" (similar to our Secretary of the Treasury) did the same thing Geithner did here: bailed out the banksters who were responsible for this mess to begin with rather than the people who get hit the hardest. Look how the people of Thailand responded...they obviously don't feel the need to gel in front of the TV. I don't know, I find that very inspiring that they rose up in protest against the same rich douchebags who screwed things up here while we bitch on our blogs or on Facebook...the deaths are are worrisome, but I figure they planned for that, too.-jef)

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Death Toll Rises as Thai Protesters Battle Troops in Bangkok
Live rounds, teargas and grenades used in Thai capital
by Ben Doherty in Bangkok

Thai troops fired rubber bullets and teargas at thousands of demonstrators, who fought back with guns, grenades and petrol bombs in riots that killed at least 15 people in Bangkok's worst political violence in 18 years. At least 521 people, including 64 soldiers and police, were wounded in the fighting near the Phan Fah bridge and Rajdumnoen Road in Bangkok's old quarter, a protest base near government buildings, and the regional UN headquarters.

After hours of violence, army spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said troops would pull back in the old quarter as the riot spread into Khao San Road, an area popular with back-packing tourists. "If this continues, if the army responds to the red shirts, violence will expand," Sansern said. He urged the protesters to do the same as they pelted soldiers with petrol bombs and M79 grenades. He said some protesters were armed with guns.

A red shirt leader later called on supporters to pull back to the main protest sites. The protesters, meanwhile, were upping the stakes in their public statements against the prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva. "We are changing our demand from dissolving parliament in 15 days to dissolving parliament immediately," one leader, Veera Musikapong, told demonstrators. "And we call for Abhisit to leave the country immediately."

Hundreds of red shirts forced their way into government offices in two northern cities. The protesters said they would besiege governors' offices in the provinces if there was a crackdown in the capital.

The protesters, mostly coming from Thailand's rural poor in the north and north-east of the country, oppose the current government, arguing that it is illegitimate and in effect a puppet regime for the wealthy Bangkok elite which has long controlled Thai politics. Many are supporters of the exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, but their movement has also been gaining increasing support among Bangkok's middle class.

A state of emergency was declared in Bangkok on Wednesday, after red shirts broke into the grounds of parliament, forcing the deputy prime minister to flee by helicopter.

The worst clashes appeared to have occurred from around 3pm near Phan Fah Bridge in the city's old area as the army tried to "reclaim" the area. While the stand-off was initially peaceful, as soldiers advanced towards a line of protesters who stood with arms interlocked, the confrontation became heated, witnesses told the Observer. As warning shots were fired, protesters rushed at troops. The army initially claimed it used only teargas and rubber bullets, later saying live rounds were fired but only into the air.

After nearly a month of protests, the government has proved unable to counter the growing confidence of the red shirts. Initially praised for his cool, Vejjajiva, holed up in an army barracks, is now being criticised as ineffective. There are doubts he has the army's full support, with many soldiers, in particular those from the north-east, said to favour the protesters.