| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
08 Mar 2006 08:56:43 AM |
| Object: |
Rates of hearing loss climbing for troops |
The percentage of troops whose hearing has been damaged in Iraq could
actually be higher than one fourth, some experts said, for a soldier
who loses an arm or leg in a roadside bomb blast often suffers hearing
damage, too, but is listed as an amputee rather than a hearing
casualty.
The Institute of Medicine study cited "reports of hearing loss among
62 percent of personnel with blast injuries who were treated at Walter
Reed Army Medical Center from March 2003 through May 2005."
Whatever the actual number, the future cost to taxpayers will be
billions, experts predicted.
From The Mercury News, 3/8/06:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/14046626.htm
Rates of hearing loss climbing for troops
BY RICHARD WHITTLE The Dallas Morning News
WASHINGTON -
Experts say the war in Iraq has led to epidemic rates of hearing loss
among troops.
Yet while all the armed services are scrambling to come up with better
hearing protection, the Army is slashing its staff of military
audiologists - the specialists who combat hearing loss - to make room
for more "trigger pullers" at the front.
Only two military audiologists, for example, are at Fort Hood in
Texas, home base for more than 40,000 soldiers.
"It's frankly alarming," Theresa Schulz, a former Air Force
audiologist and incoming president-elect of the National Hearing
Conservation Association, said of the reduction in military
audiologists even as noise-induced hearing loss is on the rise.
Army officials say that most or all of the military audiologists lost
will be replaced by civilians and that the service has enough
audiologists in any event.
A review of recent studies and interviews with experts by The Dallas
Morning News show that:
Perhaps a fourth - and probably more - of troops who have served in
Iraq since March 2003 have returned with hearing loss from gunfire,
bomb blasts or other noise.
Exact figures on how many troops have suffered hearing damage in Iraq
or Afghanistan don't exist, in part because the Army failed until
recently to give most troops hearing tests at both the beginning and
end of their service, a 2005 study by the independent Institute of
Medicine found.
And as the American Journal of Audiology recently noted, Army Reserve
and Guard members may be "underrepresented" in Army medical
evaluations because "they are more likely to seek care through
civilian providers."
Despite the evidence of rapidly rising hearing damage, the Army plans
to cut the number of uniformed audiologists in its ranks from 36 to a
projected 19.
The Army had 70 uniformed audiologists in 1991, before a post-Cold War
reduction in the Army's overall size.
The bill to taxpayers for disability payments for hearing damage to
all veterans - already roughly $1 billion annually - is likely to soar
in future years as increasing numbers of those who served in Iraq and
Afghanistan realize the extent of their hearing loss.
"As they're coming back, they're just starting to come into our
system," said Lucille Beck, director of audiology and speech pathology
for the Veterans Affairs Department.
Hearing loss, she said, is often "a gradual decline. You're the last
one to know, because you don't know what you're missing. You think
that everyone else is mumbling."
______________________________________
Another example of how this chickenhawk Republican administration
"cares" about our troops. They just send 'em into battle and screw
'em.
Harry
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