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"Stunning": CBS
News Discovers "Hidden Epidemic" of Military Suicides
Rachel Sklar
Huffington
Post
Wednesday November 14, 2007
Tonight CBS will air the first of a two-part series
on the "hidden epidemic" of military suicides, revealing
numbers that CBS calls "stunning." The report examines
data on the suicide rate amongst veterans once they return home,
which indicates a serious mental health issue — and a hidden
mortality rate.
"We first started researching military suicides because
it had never been done before," said Armen Keteyian, CBS
News' chief investigative correspondent in a statement forwarded
by CBS News. "But when all the data was collected, we were
astonished. I had no idea how much of an epidemic CBS uncovered.
We expect this to be a wake up call."
Keteyian previewed the segment on the "CBS Early Show"
today, saying that the CBS five-month study found that vets were
"more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 as non-vets."
Chillingly, though the Veterans Affairs Department estimates that
"some 5,000 ex-servicemen and women will commit suicide this
year,' that's a lowball estimate. Said Keteyian: "Our numbers
are much higher than that, overall."
(Article continues below)
[Update, 5:30pm: CBS has just released some of those numbers:
"At least 120 Americans who served in the U.S. military killed
themselves per week in 2005, CBS News learned in a five-month
investigation into veteran suicides. That's 6,256 veteran suicides
in one year, in 45 states."]
According to a CBS spokesperson, the report represents the first
time an actual count of veteran suicides at home has been tallied,
as opposed to estimates. "We also have number from the DOD
of active duty suicides that we believed have never been reported
before dating back to 1995," said the spokesperson. "Many
believe, including the family members, that they VA hasn't done
a true nationwide count of the numbers (which are stunning) because
they just don't want to know." This echoes findings in a
CBS report on the matter back in January 2004, which focused on
soldier suicides during deployment but which also noted that the
Pentagon did not count post-release suicides, and that a pre-Iraq
war army study had predicted "an impending soldier-suicide
crisis" (which, according to critics, was "largely ignored").
The two-part series will focus tonight on the numbers, and tomorrow
on how the Dept. of Veterans Affairs is handling this problem
(our guess, based on the above: Not well). According to CBS, tonight's
segment runs 5 minutes — long for a newscast (though tonight
is a single-sponsor broadcast (Pfizer) which will definitely save
a few minutes).
Military suicides have been in the news recently owing to the
passage last month of the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention
Act (HR. 327), named for 22-year-old Army Reservist Joshua Omvig
who commited suicide a few months after his return from Iraq.
The bill "directs the Department of Veterans Affairs to develop
and implement a comprehensive program to reduce the incidence
of suicide among veterans," by virtue of better screening
of veteran patients for mental health, tracking of veterans, better
suicide prevention training for VA staff (including designating
one suicide-specific counselor at each facility), and a 24-hour
mental-health care, including a hotline. The legislation also
requires the VA to report back on "status, timeline and costs
for complete implementation within 2 years" within 90 days
(i.e. by late January). Hopefully they can reverse the trend.
If not, hopefully CBS will still be there.
The
Veteran Suicide Epidemic [CBS News] (video here)
Vets'
Suicide Rate "Stunning" [CBS News]
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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