Found below are a few news items that caught my attention this past week. I am hopeful that the titles and short commentary will encourage our readers to click on the embedded links to read more on subjects that may be of interest to them.

Drop me an email at [email protected] if you believe that there are other subjects that are newsworthy.

Should women register for the military draft?
The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday that he believed the role of women in the military had expanded so broadly in recent years that they should be required to register for the draft just as men do.  Mr. McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, was quick to stress that he did not envision any return to the use of the Selective Service and believed that the volunteer, professional military had been “very successful.”   Read more . . .

Can Congress save the U.S. Military?
This week the House of Representatives takes up the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2017. Much of the debate and media coverage will revolve around a handful of controversial provisions ranging from nuclear weapons to religious freedom. These debates are important, but the most important question that Americans should ask Congress is this: Will this bill begin to rebuild the U.S. military?   Read more . . .

The U.S. Needs to Revisit PTSD Treatment Guidelines
Organizations from the United Kingdom and Australia and the World Health Organization take the position that trauma-focused psychotherapies such as prolonged exposure, cognitive processing therapy, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing are most effective when it comes to PTSD treatment. Basically, their stance is that the evidence for meds is just not as strong. A recent study carried out by military and VA researchers, and published in the journal Depression and Anxiety, supports this position.  Read more . . .

Size of Brain Region Associated with Response to PTSD Therapy
A study has found that PTSD patients with a larger hippocampus–a region of the brain key to distinguishing between safety and threat–are more likely to respond to exposure-based therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  In this study, the researchers examined the relationship between hippocampus volume, measured with MRI, and response to treatment in 50 participants with PTSD and 36 trauma-exposed healthy controls. The participants were evaluated at baseline and after 10 weeks, during which time the PTSD group had prolonged exposure therapy, a type of cognitive behavioral therapy that has been shown to help patients with PTSD discriminate between real and imagined trauma.   Read more . . .

Worst Charity for Veterans Run by VA Employee
At first glance, the National Vietnam Veterans Foundation is a roaring success. According to its tax filings, the charity has received more than $29 million in donations from generous Americans from 2010 to 2014 for what it calls on its website “aiding, supporting and benefiting America’s veterans and their families.”  But look a little closer on those same filings and you can see that nearly all of those donations have been cycled back to telemarketers, leaving less than 2 percent for actual veterans and veterans’ charitable causes.   Read more . . .

How Congress and the VA Left Many Veterans without a ‘Choice’
NPR — together with member stations from across the country — has been reporting on troubles with the Veterans Choice program, a $10 billion plan created by Congress two years ago to squash long wait times veterans were encountering when going to see a doctor. But as we reported in March, this fix needs a fix.  Around the nation, our joint reporting project — called Back at Base — has found examples of these problems. Emily Siner of Nashville Public Radio reported on troubles with overcrowding in Tennessee. And Monday, we reported on hospitals and doctors not getting paid in Montana and veterans getting snarled in the phone systems trying to make appointments in North Carolina.  Read more . . .

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