Scientist Offers Compelling Images of Gulf War Illness

Since the early 1990s, some 175,000 U.S. troops have returned from service in the first Gulf War reporting a host of vague complaints, notes Richard Briggs, a physical chemist at UT Southwestern involved in the new imaging. Their symptoms ranged from mental confusion, difficulty concentrating, attacks of sudden vertigo and intense uncontrollable mood swings to extreme fatigue and sometimes numbness – or the opposite, constant body pain.

With funding from the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, Haley has assembled a team of roughly 140 researchers. Many work with patients. Others are developing new animal, biochemical and genetic studies to identify the biological perturbations underlying Gulf War Illness. But the vast majority – some two-thirds of these scientists – are now involved in brain imaging.

As a result of these studies, Briggs says, “In the last two years we have learned more about Gulf War Illness than we did in the previous 15.”

What’s emerged is evidence to suggest “that there are three major syndromes responsible for Gulf War Illness,” he says. They appear loosely linked to at least three different types of agents to which many troops were exposed: sarin nerve gas, a nerve gas antidote (pyridostigmine bromide) that presented its own risks and military-grade pesticides to prevent illness from sand flies and other noxious pests. But Briggs acknowledges that no one knows for sure which combination of agents or environmental conditions might have conspired to trigger Gulf War illness.

Link to article and images

Army Pesticides in the Military

Mental Health & Patient Safety: Broadening our Understanding. Building the Momentum

"Mental Health & Patient Safety: Broadening our Understanding. Building the Momentum

Presented by Ontario Hospital Association

Course name: Mental Health & Patient Safety: Broadening our Understanding. Building the Momentum
Course duration: September 17, 2009 - September 18, 2009
Location: Marriott Eaton Centre Hotel
525 Bay Street
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
Course code: EP 144

Join colleagues from across Canada on September 17 & 18 as the Ontario Hospital Association and the Canadian Patient Safety Institute jointly launch the research paper, “Patient Safety in Mental Health”. The first paper of its kind in Canada defines the patient safety issues unique to mental health and highlights the important opportunities for improving patient safety in mental health.

The Ontario Hospital Association, in partnership with the Canadian Patient Safety Institute, is pleased to present this one-day national conference on patient safety in mental health. This conference will provide participants with the opportunity to hear about current strategies to address some of the critical patient safety issues in mental health from leading experts across Canada and the US.

Topics to be addressed include: the key findings and themes from the research, using evidence and best practice to provide safer care, suicide and risk assessment, transitions of care, and creating safe environments for both patients and staff."

Link: http://www.oha.com/Education/Pages/CalendarofEventDetails.aspx?eventid=EP%20144


We'd like to see a focus on proper physical workups for diagnosis and healing through nutrition. Drugs are a leading cause of dependency, disability, morbidity and mortality.

Remember the Primum - "First, do no harm".

THE EXTRAORDINARY WALKER EXAM helps us understand diagnosis and correction of the real physical causes of mental disorders....



"The following Field Manual was compiled by order of the California legislature. It reveals that 39% of psychiatric patients studied were found to have active medical diseases, many of which caused or worsened their mental condition. The Manual explains the importance of screening patients for disease and lays out a step-by-step process for doing so.
Prepared for theCalifornia Department of Mental Health and Local Mental Health Programs Pursuant to Chapter 376, Statutes of 1988 Assembly Bill

By Lorrin M. Koran, M.D., Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences,
Stanford University Medical Center
Stanford, California 1991

...The SB 929 Study team performed complete medical evaluations of 476 patients drawn from 24 county mental health programs spread across four Northern California counties and of 53 patients at Napa State Hospital.

The most important findings of that study are: 31,32 para 1. Nearly two out of five patients (39%) had an active, important physical disease.

2. The mental health system had failed to detect these diseases in nearly half (47.5%) of the affected patients.

3. Of all the patients examined, one in six had a physical disease that was related to his or her mental disorder, either causing or exacerbating that disorder.
4. The mental health system had failed to detect one in six physical diseases that were causing a patient’s mental disorder. (Five of 33 cases of physical disease causing a mental disorder had not been detected.)

5. The mental health system had failed to detect more than half of the physical diseases that were exacerbating a patient’s mental disorder. (Twenty-seven of 49 cases of physical disease exacerbating a mental disorder had not been detected.)"
Link - MEDICAL EVALUATION FIELD MANUAL

More on the physical causes of mental symptoms can be found here.

Disease Mongering

"Driving the annual double-digit growth in the legal drug supply are a band of specialist "healthcare" PR companies working for behemoths such as Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Astra Zeneca. Heading the healthcare PR league table are Edelman, Ruder Finn and Chandler Chicco Agency in the US and Medical Action Communications, Shire Health Group and Meditech Media in the UK.

"Medical education" includes cultivating and deploying sponsored "key opinion leaders" such as doctors. Patient groups too can be created or wooed to assist with "disease awareness campaigns" or provide emotionally charged testimony in favor of speedy regulatory approval of new drugs.

Other lucrative revenue streams for healthcare PR companies can include organizing events such as medical conferences that provide a platform for well-trained "product champions" to announce promising results of drug research. Such results can be reported by medical journalists--who can be hired by PR firms--in medical journals that they can create for their clients."

Link