Fort Hood Shooter and the Denial of Effective PTSD Treatments

April 6, 2014 - PRLog -- The shootings at Fort Hood, the second such incident in 5 years, are a local tragedy that points to a national tragedy: our failure as a society to treat veterans with PTSD adequately. The gunman, identified as Ivan Lopez, had been deployed in Iraq, and was apparently suffering from "depression, anxiety and a variety of other psychological and psychiatric issues" according to a statement made at a press conference by Lt. Gen. Mark Milley.

The Veterans Administration (VA) has struggled with the burden of a huge number of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD. Some 2.4 million Americans have been deployed there, and estimates of the number with PTSD run as high as 30%. Simply diagnosing PTSD has strained VA resources, with a backlog extending about 600 days.

In the face of this challenge, the VA has resolutely refused to implement promising new drug-free treatments that can eliminate PTSD in most cases, preferring to prescribe risky and and often-ineffective drugs instead. Between 2001 and 2011, the VA spent $717 million on a drug called Risperidone, touted as a treatment for PTSD. A 2011 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that Risperidone was no more effective than a placebo.

In that same time period, many practitioners presented case histories to various VA officials showing that a safe, drug-free behavioral treatment called Clinical EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) eliminated PTSD in veterans. Clinical EFT is a drug-free behavioral treatment that combines acupressure (manual stimulation of acupuncture points) with cognitive and exposure therapies.

EFT studies were presented to the VA as early as 2008, when Senator Carl Levin, Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, wrote a personal letter to Secretary for Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki enclosing an early outcome study showing veterans recovering from PTSD after EFT treatment. Three other congressmen wrote to Shinseki again in 2010, enclosing more research and further evidence. The VA took no action on this information either.

Therapists frustrated at the lack of progress at official levels set up their own web site to offer EFT and similar therapies to veterans. Called the Veterans Stress Project, it has now offered treatment to some 6,000 veterans. Over 200 therapists and life coaches all over the US offer their services free of charge or a minimal cost.

A randomized controlled trial, published in 2013 but made available to the VA in 2010, showed that 86% of veterans recovered completely and permanently after just 6 EFT sessions. In September of 2013, Congressman Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) wrote another letter to Secretary Shinseki, this time advocating EFT on the basis of 11 clinical trials.

Like all the other letters, this one was rebuffed, with the VA declining to examine the evidence, perform its own research, refer patients to the Veterans Stress Project, or take any other action to get EFT to suffering veterans. Over 20 randomized controlled trials have shown that EFT is effective for depression, anxiety, phobias, PTSD, and other problems commonly affecting veterans.

Each new act of violence by veterans with mental health problems reminds us of the consequences of the VAs approach. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) says that “The VA cannot have this 'see no evil hear no evil' attitude” towards EFT. Quoted in an article on the Fort Hood tragedy in Examiner.com, Dawson Church PhD of the National Institute for Integrative Healthcare said, "We've tried polite persuasion for 10 years to get the VA to offer EFT to veterans to no avail. It's not acceptable. Our soldiers deserve a treatment that can help them get their lives back."

The costs of failure are staggering. Each veteran with PTSD costs an estimated $1.5 million to treat (usually ineffectively), while a course of EFT treatment costs about $500 (and is effective in about 9 out of 10 cases). For what it spent on Risperidone alone, the VA could have offered EFT to every single veteran suffering from PTSD.

According to a report in the American-Statesman, in 2012 “the Pentagon spent more on pills, injections and vaccines than it did on Black Hawk helicopters, Abrams tanks, Hercules C-130 cargo planes and Patriot missiles — combined.” The results of an outcome study show that for the cost of treating one veteran with conventional treatments, the VA could offer EFT to 2,000 sufferers.

At the local level, several VA hospitals aren't waiting for official approval from above. They're training mental health professionals in Clinical EFT on their own initiative. Many Fort Hood mental health professionals are electing to receive CME (Continuing Medical Education) in EFT, and EFT is offered to veterans by a handful of psychiatrists at Walter Reed, the San Francisco Veterans Center, and other facilities.

Website:  www.eftuniverse.com