New Bill Mandates Independent Review of Veterans’ Suicide-Prevention Programs

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“A bipartisan group of senators recently introduced the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention bill, an attempt to improve the Department of Veterans’ Affairs suicide-prevention efforts,” reported USA Today. “The bill would require VA and the Pentagon to submit to an independent review of all of their suicide-prevention programs.” The bill coincided with special hearings on veterans and suicide held this week by the US Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

VAntagePoint has published links to several recent suicide data reports from Veterans’ Affairs.

The US Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs has released some of the testimonies on its website.

In Op-Ed News, Martha Rosenberg discusses the VAs tendency, exemplified in a recent JAMA Psychiatry study, to avoid even suggesting psychiatric drugs may be playing a role.

At-risk veterans need help on suicide, senators say (USA Today, November 19, 2014)

Mental Health and Suicide Among Veterans (Testimonies, The United States Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, November 19, 2014)

January 2014 VA Suicide Data Update (VAntagePoint, January 10, 2014)

Suicides Not Caused By Suicide-Linked Drugs Say Pharma Consultants to the Military (Op-Ed News, November 14, 2014)

2 COMMENTS

  1. I’d like to see the senators take a look at the NAMI-endorsed assisted suicide program that is firmly entrenched in the VA “Mental Health Care” System.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VQf4cvCy4Y

    Our troopers are already well-trained in how to defend themselves when the hostiles come to take their scalps.

    The Cavalrymen’s Poem

    Halfway down the trail to Hell,
    In a shady meadow green
    Are the Souls of all dead troopers camped,
    Near a good old-time canteen.
    And this eternal resting place
    Is known as Fiddlers’ Green.

    Marching past, straight through to Hell
    The Infantry are seen.
    Accompanied by the Engineers,
    Artillery and Marines,
    For none but the shades of Cavalrymen
    Dismount at Fiddlers’ Green.

    Though some go curving down the trail
    To seek a warmer scene.
    No trooper ever gets to Hell
    Ere he’s emptied his canteen.
    And so rides back to drink again
    With friends at Fiddlers’ Green.

    And so when man and horse go down
    Beneath a saber keen,
    Or in a roaring charge of fierce melee
    You stop a bullet clean,
    And the hostiles come to get your scalp,
    Just empty your canteen,
    And put your pistol to your head
    And go to Fiddlers’ Green.

    Author Unknown.

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