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Iraq War Vets Scrutinized

Oct-19-2005 » Filed Under: General Military

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USA Today

Pentagon efforts to screen troops for medical and psychological problems before and after they go to war -- and in the months after they return home -- could make the Iraq war veteran the most scrutinized fighter in American history.

"They are collecting data before and after, and then doing follow-up. That's amazing," says Joseph Boscarino, a Vietnam War veteran and scientist at the New York Academy of Medicine who does research on post-traumatic stress disorder. "That was never done before. It was always ad hoc."

The screening began in 1997. When it was expanded in 2003, William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of Defense for health affairs, testified before Congress that it was necessary to avoid the kind of health problems that had occurred in the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

Thousands of returning veterans of that conflict complained of ailments ranging from memory loss to respiratory problems.

"That was a big problem in the Gulf War," Winkenwerder testified. "We really didn't know the baseline health status of people, so it was very difficult to compare when they came back as to what their status had been before they left."

The current screening before and after deployment is designed to correct that, Winkenwerder said.


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