Bill Aims To Expand Fertility Services for Wounded Veterans WASHINGTON - Sen. Patty Murray, D-WA., recently introduced new legislation targeting fertility treatment services for severely wounded veterans and their spouses. The legislation, the Women Veterans and Other Health Care Improvement Act of 2012, seeks to provide expanded fertility options to include assisted reproductive technology for severely wounded veterans and their spouses. Currently, IVF is excluded from fertility services offered by the VA. More
GAO Finds Flaws in VA's Dialysis Pilot WASHINGTON - A Government Accountability Office report says a VA project to reduce costs of dialysis treatment for veterans is not having the desired effect because of poor forethought in the early stages of the program. Through a pilot project begun in 2009, VA established four outpatient dialysis clinics in communities surrounding select VA medical centers. More
Panetta: Suicide Trends Moving in Tragic Direction WASHINGTON - Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta said that suicide trends among troops “continue to move in a troubling and tragic direction.” He said at the annual DoD/VA Suicide Prevention Conference, “All those in command and leadership positions, particularly junior officers and NCOs who have day-to-day responsibility for troops, need to be sensitive, need to be aware, need to be open, to signs of stress in the ranks, and they need to be aggressive, aggressive, in encouraging those who serve under them to seek help if needed. They also must set an example by seeking help themselves if necessary.” More
Focus On: On Sleep Disorders
Dawn M. Bravata, M.D.
VA Patients More Likely to Suffer Sleep Apnea, Have More Treatment Options Because of their unique demographics, VA patients are four to five times more likely to suffer from sleep apnea than the general population. They also have more options for treatment, including new technologies to diagnosis and treat sleep apnea not yet adopted by the private sector. The first, an iPod-size testing device, allows veterans access to home-based sleep evaluation. The second, Provent, provides an option for treatment that many people with mild to moderate sleep apnea find less cumbersome and easier to use consistently than the traditional continuous positive airway pressure device. More
Promising Therapies Available for Sleep Disorders Frequently Related to PTSD and TBI WASHINGTON - Research has documented that sleep disturbances in TBI and PTSD patients are common. One 2007 study suggested a high prevalence of sleep disorders (46%) and excessive sleepiness (25%) in TBI patients. Another study, conducted by the National Intrepid Center of Excellence looked at 94 patients, most of whom had either TBI, PTSD or both, and found that most of them suffered from insomnia. Presentations at a recent conference suggest that military clinicians now have some new tools to help treat the issue. More
DURHAM, NC — Research into investigational drugs focuses on clinical safety and effectiveness after use and must assume that the correct drug was administered in the correct dose. Inadequate or confusing labeling and packaging sometimes can make that difficult, however. To remedy that problem, the investigational drug team at the Durham VA Medical Center took a long, hard look at their storage and handling practices and, immediately, recognized opportunities to improve patient safety. More
Specialty Update: Obesity
VA Study Identifies Factors In Veterans' Weight Changes While active-duty military personnel are less likely to be overweight or obese compared with civilians of similar ages, that benefit does not always persist after servicemembers become veterans. A new study from the VA Puget Sound Health Care System and the University of Washington in Seattle sought to quantify weight changes before, concurrent with and following discharge from the military.More
Specialty Update: Infectious Disease
Soldier's Death from Rabies Underscores Infection Danger Overseas For the first time in nearly 40 years, a U.S. servicemember died last year from rabies because of an overseas exposure to an infected dog, according to the national Centers for Disease Control, which emphasized that overseas travelers, including deployed military, need to be warned of the risks. CDC said the case “highlights the importance of rabies risk awareness for all travelers, including servicemembers, and the need for prompt medical care, including post-exposure prophylaxis for potential exposures.” More
Brenda L. Mooney Editorial Director, U.S. Medicine mooney@usmedicine.com 39 York Street Lambertville, NJ 08530
WASHINGTON - A Government Accountability Office report says a VA project to reduce costs of dialysis treatment for veterans is not having the desired effect because of poor forethought in the early stages of the program. Through a pilot project begun in 2009, VA established four outpatient dialysis clinics in communities surrounding select VA medical centers. 
