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U.S. army acts to curb rising suicide toll
Seoul News.Net
Friday 17th July, 2009
A ground-breaking study of behavioral health in the Army may provide answers soon on what causes suicide and what programs can best prevent it.
A media roundtable at the Pentagon this week provided an update on a five-year, $50-million study of suicide and behavioral health among military personnel, launched in October 2008 in partnership with the National Institute on Mental Health.
Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, Army Secretary Pete Geren and other top medical officials participated in the roundtable.
"We are working at all levels currently to do everything we can to reverse this trend, and we are excited about this partnership, this collaboration, with the National Institute of Mental Health, the Uniformed Services University [of the Health Sciences], and Harvard, Columbia and University of Michigan," Geren said at the roundtable.
While the Army is implementing many initiatives and programs to reduce suicide, Geren said, officials aren’t yet sure which ones are the most effective.
"We hope at the end of this study, we'll be able to make a better connection between 'this worked, this didn't work,'" he said.
Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, presented what he described as his "dream team" of researchers. The project director is Dr. Robert Ursano, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md.
The research team also includes Dr. Ronald Kessler, professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School; Dr. Steven Heeringa, director of the Statistical Design Group at the University of Michigan; and Dr. John Mann, vice chair for research at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and scientific director of the Kreitchman PET Center at Columbia University.
The idea of the study is to eventually understand pre-existing behaviors and factors that make soldiers vulnerable to suicide, in addition to forming "actionable" results, officials said.
Chiarelli described the Army's efforts to prevent suicide and promote wellness as "assess, educate, train and intervene early," and provided an update on the “Army Campaign Plan for Health Promotion, Risk Reduction and Suicide Prevention,” published in April 2009.
Although the suicide rate among soldiers traditionally has been lower than among their civilian peers, last year the two rates became nearly the same.
No confirmed soldier suicides occurred in June, although 11 deaths are still under investigation. Geren noted that while the number of Army suicides has dropped since March, it was too early to tell which factors, if any, could be credited.
"We're not here to tell you we think we have turned the corner; next month could be another tragic month. We are putting tremendous effort into this and perhaps the intervention that we have taught has helped avoid a suicide forever, or it may have postponed it; we don't know," Geren said.
The Army required that every soldier complete interactive suicide-prevention training earlier this year, followed by suicide-prevention chain teaching that units had until July 15 to complete.
"Although suicide can impact anyone, we're finding that male soldiers in combat-arms occupational specialties, between ages 18 and 27, are more vulnerable," said Brig. Gen. Colleen McGuire, director of the Army's Suicide Prevention Task Force, in a released statement.
Kessler described the work ahead as both an experiment and a study, because the demographics of the Army population will change over the next five years. Army officials simultaneously are implementing a range of programs to mitigate risk and improve soldier resiliency.
The researchers plan to collect data from about 500,000 soldiers over time, with about half of that number drawn from the ranks of the Army's 80,000 new recruits each year. The researchers will continue to study these soldiers through the early stages of their career in hopes of determining which individuals are more predisposed to suicide and other mental-health issues.
"Eventually, we want to see what we could have learned the first week they were in the Army that could predict how they would have responded when they got into a complicated situation," Kessler said.
Researchers will collect blood and saliva samples, hold psychological exams, and conduct interviews with families and unit leaders. They also will analyze archival data on soldiers who have committed suicide, new cases of suicide, and surveys.
One critical aspect of the study is privacy. The researchers will use on-site data collection during training studies and confidential survey techniques. The Army will not be testing recruits prior to enlistment.
"We will maximize the research utility, but protect the identity of the individual soldier and their family," Heeringa said.
Updated results of the study will be released roughly every six months, beginning in November.
"This is a matter of the highest urgency for the United States Army,” Geren stressed. “We are doing everything we know to do now [to reduce the number of suicides], and as a result of this effort, in six months we'll be better, a year from now we'll be better, and five years from now we'll be better.”  Email this story to a friend
Comments on this story
Steel Helmet
07-18-09, 02:12 AM |
U.S. army acts to curb rising suicide toll
It is time the whole Armed Forces pay attention to the man at war veterans in cative or presently on the line about suicide in which never given to the Vietnam vets.
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` ~galljdaj+
07-18-09, 06:44 AM |
We were taught...
...killing was the answer! Back home we murdered or committed suicide for the answer to problems, because why argue, unless we drank ourselves stupid, or we finally realized Our leaders lied, and we made a decision. A decision not to kill!
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guyzeko
07-18-09, 09:08 AM |
u know what?
u know what americans? the only different between u & my country is that u can speak better english than me..haha..
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Anonymous
07-18-09, 04:29 PM |
Allegations again. Our leaders lied. So lets see ANY proof you have COMRADE haha.
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` ~galljdaj+
07-18-09, 05:26 PM |
Boy this lil messianic is stupid!
Are you really so stupid to not know that for the past 10 years its been killing is the answer! lil bush is beyond your knowledge? If so you have less capability than a 1 year old!
But your a coward with lies and an agenda!
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Unregistere
07-18-09, 05:38 PM |
He has an agenda not for the truth but to smear.
Unregistered;150235:
Allegations again. Our leaders lied. So lets see ANY proof you have COMRADE haha.
Never looks at whats relevant now.
Refuses to see the rampant fraud occuring on a scale never seen in human history.
Never looked at the crimes of the previous regime.
I bet GWBush nailed his sister.
That’s right huh girliejihad did Bush pump and dump someone in your family?
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` ~galljdaj+
07-18-09, 07:16 PM |
Who has the agenda
Our lil coward claims only what is relevant today counts. Immature? certainly but stupid more likely, and even more likely our coward has a republican agenda, which crowds out the US CITIZENS AGENDA!
I was taught by the Roosevelt Leaders, and the reference used from History belonged to thw Wilson Leaders.
And the Lessons were both Kill to solve the Problems, WWl, and WWll.
Truman later had his Leaders and Eisenhower continued it, then Nixon. wonderful ronnie had his special kind of killing leaders, Clinton added a new twist to his leadership of killings, and of course we come to lil bush and the absolute criminal minds that have continued the agenda of killing to solve a problem perceived or invented!
There are huge differences between the lies told/taught to me, and what is being taught Today!
The Point under discussion is why suicide is increasing? Well the issue is short the other killings, murders, which go along with suicides. I don’t know the numbers and or the ratios of murders we had after WWll, but I know more than a few that went to jail, or suicide after murdering. I know it took me some 4 to 5 years to break the urge to solve problems the way I knew how! Lots of booze kept me numb enough to get to a decision day! Once I figured out killing was not the answer, my leaders were cowards that sent men to do their killings, I overcame my urges at the easy quick solution! It is by choice! That Choice separates the men from cowards!
That being said, there comes a time and a place of unexpected. I have never accused or even thought the men and women that are enlisted and serving, are making cowards' choices. Their Leaders, now that’s another matter!
Take for example the young woman that went to jail for torture in Iraq; Completely innocent for the charge she served time in jail for. Roughly she was called a bad apple, and convicted by the Leaders to serve time over having her picture taken! The Orders came from the real bad apples the lil bush gang! They escaped!
So Our lil coward that thinks of sex agendas rather than the realities of following orders and giving the orders as the killings is either a fool or is fooling for his agenda!
In any case he lies, which says a lot about him! And he has no moral reason to exist!
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Unregistered123456
07-19-09, 11:08 AM |
Ignorance or lies?
` ~galljdaj+;150260:
Our lil coward claims only what is relevant today counts. Immature? certainly but stupid more likely, and even more likely our coward has a republican agenda, which crowds out the US CITIZENS AGENDA!
I was taught by the Roosevelt Leaders, and the reference used from History belonged to thw Wilson Leaders.
And the Lessons were both Kill to solve the Problems, WWl, and WWll.
Truman later had his Leaders and Eisenhower continued it, then Nixon. wonderful ronnie had his special kind of killing leaders, Clinton added a new twist to his leadership of killings, and of course we come to lil bush and the absolute criminal minds that have continued the agenda of killing to solve a problem perceived or invented!
There are huge differences between the lies told/taught to me, and what is being taught Today!
The Point under discussion is why suicide is increasing? Well the issue is short the other killings, murders, which go along with suicides. I don’t know the numbers and or the ratios of murders we had after WWll, but I know more than a few that went to jail, or suicide after murdering. I know it took me some 4 to 5 years to break the urge to solve problems the way I knew how! Lots of booze kept me numb enough to get to a decision day! Once I figured out killing was not the answer, my leaders were cowards that sent men to do their killings, I overcame my urges at the easy quick solution! It is by choice! That Choice separates the men from cowards!
That being said, there comes a time and a place of unexpected. I have never accused or even thought the men and women that are enlisted and serving, are making cowards' choices. Their Leaders, now that’s another matter!
Take for example the young woman that went to jail for torture in Iraq; Completely innocent for the charge she served time in jail for. Roughly she was called a bad apple, and convicted by the Leaders to serve time over having her picture taken! The Orders came from the real bad apples the lil bush gang! They escaped!
So Our lil coward that thinks of sex agendas rather than the realities of following orders and giving the orders as the killings is either a fool or is fooling for his agenda!
In any case he lies, which says a lot about him! And he has no moral reason to exist!
Look at this lie shall we dissect it or let it stand for the piece of propaganda and fluff.
Notice this fool above never served in the military yet calls others cowards.
Nice rambling nonsense from the do nothing whining gas bag.
I suppose you think talking to people who want you dead will keep everyone safe huh?
Next he talks about boozing it up!
That explains a lot your brain is pickled!
Hey Bozo it’s the Prozaic causing people to commit suicide!
Send people into war with screwed up rules of engagement into a populace of people who believe you are Satan!
The populace has been told for years how evil all Americans are so they help the insurgency kill bomb maim and the soldiers react to the stress in a perfectly human manner!
Then they drug them up with poison pills turn them into zombies with ever increasing doses of pills that actually make them worse!
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1811858,00.html
The girl you speak of was following orders and should not have been jailed.
She should have been sent to seek mental health counseling.
Abu Ghraib was not as bad as some wanted to make it and far worse then some wanted us to believe.
If we treated them like they treat our captured soldiers they would have all lost their heads been burned drug behind cars!
Finally after all that their shattered bodies would be hung from a bridge to poked at with sticks and geered at.
Peace is the answer but will it ever break out?
Many on both sides are invested in war and killing!
Many want to see the human race shrink by 80%.
http://stevenjohnhibbs.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/holdren-forced-to-respond-to-new-controversy-over-totalitarian-population-control-proposals-in-co-authored-text-book-ecoscience/
Holdren Forced To Respond To New Controversy Over Totalitarian Population Control Proposals In Co-Authored Text Book: Ecoscience
Filed under: Bio-Chem Warfare, Conspiracy, Eugenics, Genocide, Health, New World Order, Science / Technology, Transhumanism, World Government â Steven John Hibbs @ 11:52 am
Paul Joseph Watson / Prison Planet â July 15, 2009
Obamaâs top science and technology advisor John P. Holdren has been forced to issue a statement in which he denies advocating the totalitarian population control proposals outlined in his own academic textbook. However, Holdrenâs response is a tissue of half-truths, spin and outright lies.
The controversy began this past weekend when fresh attention was given to passages from the 1977 book Ecoscience, which Holdren Co-authored with close colleagues Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich, leading to accusations that Holdren supported the numerous eugenicist policies outlined in the book.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=34198
The real agenda is the above.
It’s not about Republican vs. Democrat they are a two pincer attack upon the American people and their liberty!
If you can find a copy of the ecoscience textbook you will see GWBush had a coauther advising him!
You claim to be so smart but your sucked into the stupidity of partisan poliitcs!
My claim of what’s relevant really is about pointing out how far down the police state the new regime has gone.
The American people stampede from one party to the next but always the drift is further along the police state lines.
It never gets better it always gets far far worse.
Again look at what was done to Argentina and compare to what is being done now to the US.
I can only assume you are part of the political machine attempting to bring in a new world order!
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