BETHESDA, MD—Efforts in basic science at FDA have, in recent years, been “underappreciated, under resourced, and underfunded,” even though they are an essential component of the agency, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, MD told the members of FDA’s Science Board at a recent meeting.

WASHINGTON, DC—DoD will do more to provide commanders and supervisors with the information and tools they need to identify and respond to internal threats, according to a new report.

WASHINGTON, DC—Injured servicemembers are often first confronted with the reality of reintegration when they are lying in a hospital bed. “It is a shock. All you can think about is ‘where are my guys? Are they able to do the mission without me?’” said Michael Schlitz, who was flown to Brooke Army Medical Center after he was seriously injured in 2007 when an IED stuck his vehicle in theater.

WASHINGTON, DC—Line commanders will play a greater role in ensuring that servicemembers in theater who may have sustained a head injury get medical attention, a DoD official said at the 4th Annual TBI Military Training Conference held in August.

WASHINGTON, DC—A House subcommittee was critical of the military’s treatment of Marines and dependents who were exposed to contaminated drinking water while living at Camp Lejeune.

BETHESDA, MD—Harold Varmus, MD, former director of NIH, does not think of his new post as director of the National Cancer Institute as a step back, but rather as the perfect place to be for someone who has spent his career researching cancer.

Executive Dysfunction and Suicide in Psychiatric Outpatients and Inpatients

Objective: To assess decision making in the context of an interaction between suicide and TBI. Findings will also allow for exploratory analyses aimed at identifying associations between performance on measures of executive functioning and psychological distress.

WASHINGTON, DC—“I said I didn’t have a personality disorder, and he told me if I signed the paperwork that I would get back home and get help and I would have all my benefits. After the endless nights of sleep deprivation, harassment, and abuse, I finally signed just to get out of there. I was broken.” This is how Spc Chuck Luther described his last few months serving with the First Squadron, Seventh Cavalry Regiment of the US Army to members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee last month.

Some of you young men think that war is all glamour and glory but let me tell you boys, it is all hell! —Major General William Tecumseh Sherman

The famous phrase, “War is hell,” is attributed to General Sherman, who likely knew this subject better than most based on his exploits during the Civil War. In September 1864, he directed the inhabitants of the city of Atlanta to be evacuated before his army entered the city to burn it.