John Liebert, M.D., a psychiatrist who has examined hundreds of violent offenders with combat experience, tells Newsmax Health the Veterans Affairs Department and military doctors are too focused on conducting disability assessments and are not enough on diagnosing and treating veterans with PTSD.

 

Dr. Liebert, author of "Wounded Minds: Understanding and Solving the Growing Menace of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," also argues that financial considerations are making military officials reluctant to diagnose the mental-health disorder, which he said can cost $1 million per-person to treat effectively.

 

"I think [the Fort Hood shooting] spotlights for me my main advocacy in my writings: the need to totally restructure — radically restructure — military medicine and VA medicine and get the doctors and other clinicians in the system out of the insurance-adjuster business and into the field and treat these people," he says. "I don't believe in the VA and military medicine being overly weighted in being involved in disability assessments."


 Dr. Liebert also suggests PTSD is more common among veterans than VA officials estimate. According to the agency, about 20 percent of the 830,000 veterans treated at VA medical centers over the last decade, had been diagnosed with PTSD. The VA also estimates 11-20 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are coming back with PTSD.
 

But Dr. Liebert argues many more with PTSD symptoms are not being diagnosed properly, but are being sent from base to base or released back into civilian life without treatment. He suggests a fund be created — like those established for 9/11 first responders and Vietnam vets exposed to toxic Agent Orange — to help treat veterans in need.

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 "These people are being dumped back on their families, back on their communities," he says. "We should get rid of the whole issue of disability and get rid of the whole issue of, has this guy been injured by war? Of course these guys have PTSD, and most of them need help. So instead of differentiating those [who have] PTSD .... from those who don't, we should buy out all their contracts at discharge and get them off the base, get them home, and get them into treatment."
 

Ivan Lopez, a 34-year-old Iraq war veteran, was reportedly being evaluated for PTSD and undergoing treatment for mental health issues before he opened fire at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas last Wednesday. His history of instability and psychiatric issues are believed "to be the fundamental underlying factor" in the shootings, Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, the post's commanding general, told reporters.
 

Lopez took a .45-caliber handgun onto the Army facility and opened fire, killing three and wounding 16 before taking his own life, after what authorities described as an altercation with a fellow solder. It was the second shooting in five years at Fort Hood, which was the scene of a 2009 massacre that killed 13.
 

The VA has set up a center for PTSD, after President Barack Obama issued an executive order in 2012, telling the agency to expand its suicide prevention and mental health services.

 

Dr. Liebert says he hopes the latest Fort Hood shooting will lead to a greater emphasis on the effort to improve diagnosis and treatment of PTSD, which can cause violent outbursts and mood swings.
 

"It likely played a role [in Fort Hood] in terms of the conflict over diagnosing PTSD," he argues. "There's great resistance for monetary reasons within the military and VA system to diagnosing it, because you've got hundreds of thousands of combat veterans in the war on terror in line waiting for treatment — at a cost of $1 million per person. I would have to say that the fact of the matter is the Department of Treasury simply can't afford to run a long-term disability company."

 

He adds, however, that doing nothing to improve the current system of care of veterans is also costly, as the recent shooting underscores.

 

Paraphrasing Calvin Coolidge, he notes: "The nation that forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten."