The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the
combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government's
top psychiatric researcher said. Community mental health centers, hobbled by
financial limits, haven't provided enough scientifically sound care, especially in
rural areas, said Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health
in Bethesda, Maryland. He briefed reporters today at the American Psychiatric
Association's annual meeting in Washington.

Insel echoed a Rand Corporation study published last month that found about 20
percent of returning U.S. soldiers have post- traumatic stress disorder or
depression, and only half of them receive treatment. About 1.6 million U.S. troops
have fought in the two wars since October 2001, the report said. About 4,560
soldiers had died in the conflicts as of today, the Defense Department reported on
its Web site. Based on those figures and established suicide rates for similar
patients who commonly develop substance abuse and other complications of
post-traumatic stress disorder, ``it's quite possible that the suicides and
psychiatric mortality of this war could trump the combat deaths,'' Insel said.

Soldiers who'd been exposed to combat trauma were the most likely to suffer from
depression or PTSD, the Rand report said. About 53 percent of soldiers with those
conditions sought treatment during the past year. Half of those who got care were
judged by Rand researchers to have received inadequate treatment. Failure to
adequately treat the mental and neurological problems of returning soldiers can
cause a chain of negative events in the lives of affected veterans, the researchers
said. About 300,000 soldiers suffer from depression or PTSD, the report said.

SOURCE: Bloomberg