VA's opiate overload feeds veterans' addictions, overdose deaths

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the agency charged with helping veterans recover from war instead masks their pain with potent drugs, feeding addictions and contributing to a fatal overdose rate among VA patients that is nearly double the national average.

Prescriptions for four opiates – hydrocodone, oxycodone, methadone and morphine – have surged by 270 percent in the past 12 years, according to data CIR obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. CIR’s analysis for the first time exposes the full scope of that increase, which far outpaced the growth in VA patients and varied dramatically across the nation.

Continue Learning:  http://www.wbez.org/news/vas-opiate-overload-feeds-veterans-addictions-overdose-deaths-108792

VA: Combat injuries to urinary tract and genitals deserve payment

Since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, 570 service members have suffered severe wounds of the urinary tract and genitals, the department said.

The payments will be made under the Servicemembers Group Life Insurance program that offers life insurance at the rate of $13 a month for $200,000 of coverage.

At a rate of $1 per month, the program was expanded during the height of the war in Iraq to include payments for traumatic injuries.  Genitourinary injuries have been added to a list of combat injuries for which payments are already made; that list includes amputations, burns, loss of sight, and paralysis.

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