Durbin step up on Brain Injury Research

[Monkeyman]

Dear Dale from Benjamin Venning Veterans Outreach Sen. Durbin's office

DVBICfullfundingamdt.pdf

By now I am sure that you have heard about the planned budget shortfall ($7 Million) for the Defence and Veterans Brain Injury Center.The Defence and Veterans Brain Injury Center is located at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. Its leaders have requested $19 million for the coming year,citing the growing number of patients,the cost of long-term care,current staffing requirements,and the need for research to improve treatment and prevention.On Tuesday,Senator Durbin will offer and amendement to fully fund the Brain Injury Center to the amount it has requested for fy 2007,$19 million.

The Center estimates that about 1 in 10 service members in Iraq,and 2 in 10 troops on the front lines,return from combat tours with concussions. Brain injuries have been called "the signature wound" of the Iraq war. The nature of that theater of operations,where insurgents often use roadside bombs instead of bullets, produses more frequent brain injuries than we have seen in previos wars.

As of March 31, the Pentagon reported about 1,200 traumatic brain injuries as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Experts say the real total is much because closed-head injuries in which there may be no obvious wound and often goes undiagnosed.

While I have seen your reports and your concerns about the budget cut to the Brain Injury Center. I sent you this email to pass the word on that the fight has just started for the full funding of Brain Injury research. Brother as always feel free to contact me about veterans issues. Keep the fight up with brother veterans like you we will win this fight.

Enjoy your Weekend Dale oh excuse me Monkeyman ph-202-224-2152 fax [phone]
email [e-mail]

[saltpoint]

1. 'Sounds like a hell of a nice person working for a hell of a fine senator.

[Monkeyman]

2. Ben is still in he's a Marine don't make him all bad LOL

[saltpoint]

4. I hope Ben'll be safe, and I wish there were ten or twelve more Dick

Durbins in the U.S. Senate.

[Warpy]

3. I worked in a TBI ward in a VA

and I was always amazed to see what intensive rehab could do for the guys. Guys who came in ventilator dependent and comatose for weeks were discharged many months later walking, talking, and ready to cope with earning their own way in the world. There was no way the severely injured could go into mentally taxing professions, but they were equipped to do jobs like stocking retail store shelves and managing their own money and lives.

It's a dirty shame to see this level of rehab being cut for soldiers injured in this war of corporate convenience. It is criminal.

This gang of thieves really does belong in prison, all of them.