Article Finds Politics, Budget Constraints and Lack of Manpower to Blame NEW YORK, Feb. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In an extensive, months-long investigation, "The Real Cost of War," in Playboy magazine's March issue (on newsstands and at http://www.playboydigital.com/ Friday, February 9), journalist Mark Boal discovers American troops fighting in Iraq and Iraq war veterans are not receiving the mental health care they deserve, specifically when it comes to the diagnosis and treatment of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Boal spoke with numerous mental health experts, government sources and former military personnel who paint a disturbing picture about the government's handling of PTSD. Boal found that the Department of Defense (DOD) diagnoses about 2,000 cases of PTSD a year. Yet according to a landmark study conducted by Army researchers and published in The New England Journal of Medicine, PTSD rates for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are running between 10 and 15 percent. That means one would expect to see the military diagnosing 13,000 to 20,000 cases of PTSD. Former government officials agree there is a problem. "PTSD is being underdiagnosed on a fairly wholesale level," says Dr. Robert Roswell, a former undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). But why? According to sources in the Pentagon and former officials of the VA, doctors working for the VA and DOD are being pressured to limit diagnoses of PTSD in order to save the military money and manpower, reports Boal. Budget pressures may be the motivation to discourage diagnoses of PTSD, according to the article, which reports that when the DOD submitted a war budget to Congress, the line item for mental health casualties was simply left blank. "DOD never prepared for a long war; it never prepared for an occupation," says one senior congressional staffer. "Now we're seeing the third thing it didn't anticipate: what to do with the soldiers when they come home. Now they really don't have the money." Boal discovered politics may also be a factor. "The soldier has tremendous symbolic power in American politics. Healthy, happy soldiers bespeak a just war. Like the amputees and flag-draped coffins the administration hides from public view, such soldiers are antithetical to the hawkish goal of mitigating the costs of the conflict," writes Boal. "The critical difference is that mental illness isn't always obvious and is therefore easier to sweep under the rug." As one congressional staffer puts it, "It's much easier to deny the reality of mental illness than it is to deny the spinal cord injury of some guy sitting in a wheelchair." When questioned for the piece, Pentagon and VA officials vigorously denied there is a policy to underdiagnose PTSD. "That would be immoral and unethical," says Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, the assistant secretary of defense for troop readiness. Officials attribute the low rates of diagnosis to a reluctance on the part of military doctors to "stigmatize the person or bring harm to their careers" by labeling them with PTSD according to Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Charles Engel, the director of the deployment health clinic center at Walter Reed Medical Center. "It's out of respect for the patient that they don't make the diagnosis." Dr. Sally Satel, a psychiatrist and adviser to President Bush on mental health issues views PTSD this way: "I'm not saying PTSD doesn't exist, but it's gotten out of hand. I mean, if you see a lot of action and then you come home you have a hard time walking your dog by the bushes at night, maybe you just avoid the bushes." Boal's article follows the case of Private Jacob Burgoyne, whose story suggests PTSD is more complicated than simply avoiding the bushes. According to Adam Koroll, a former National Guardsman serving as a mental health nurse in Iraq, he diagnosed Burgoyne as having PTSD and says higher officials ignored his order to evacuate Burgoyne to a psychiatric hospital. Koroll details how Burgoyne was instead released to return home after fighting in Iraq, visited an Army hospital where he talked briefly with an Army psychiatrist, then stabbed a fellow soldier to death two days later. He is currently serving 20 years in prison for murder. Mark Boal's article "Death and Dishonor," also about the Iraq war, was published in Playboy magazine in 2004 and adapted for the upcoming film In the Valley of Elah. Playboy Enterprises is a brand-driven, international multimedia entertainment company that publishes editions of Playboy magazine around the world; operates television networks and distributes programming globally; owns Playboy.com, a leading men's lifestyle and entertainment web site; and licenses the Playboy trademark internationally for a range of consumer products and services. DATASOURCE: Playboy Enterprises CONTACT: Linda Marsicano of Playboy Enterprises, +1-312-373-2447, or Web site: http://www.playboydigital.com/

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