U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand Visits Rome to Address Disturbing Trend for Veterans

There is a disturbing trend facing veterans across the country and that is crippling traumatic brain injury. Much like what NFL players and other football players have been exposed to from years of hard hits and possible concussions, these brain injuries are having devastating effects on those who served this country.

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York visited Rome today and held a press conference at VFW Post 2246 to announce legislation she was introducing to address the impacts of these injuries on our veterans and active service members. What are some of the causes of these injuries? Gillibrand says it could be as simple as military members firing their own weapons. Gillibrand says,

After repeatedly being exposed to blasts from their own weapons during both training and combat, our service members are sustaining severe and crippling brain trauma. This bill will require the DoD to investigate the prevalence and causes of these brain injuries; to track each service member’s exposure to blasts; and to help service members access care. This is a critical bill and I look forward to getting it passed in the NDAA.

These blasts from explosives nearby or their own weapons cause what is known as blast overpressure. The impact of this can cause depression, anxiety, cognitive problems, hallucinations, panic attacks, violent outbursts, suicidal tendencies, psychiatric disorders, dementia, and a variety of other serious health problems. The bill introduced by Senator Gillibrand aims to work in the following ways.

1. Mandate regular neurocognitive assessments over a service member’s career, including a baseline neurocognitive assessment before training.
2. Create blast overpressure exposure and TBI logs for all service members.
3. Increase transparency regarding blast overpressure safety in the weapons acquisition process. DoD must consider the minimization of blast overpressure during the acquisition process, require contracting entities to provide blast overpressure safety data, and publish blast overpressure safety data for weapons systems and its plans to better protect service members from in-use weapons systems.
4. Improve data on concussive and subconcussive brain injuries service members sustain. This includes information on discharges related to and medical providers trained in these injuries, as well as efforts with allies and partners to better address these injuries.
5. Enhance efforts to mitigate exposure and help service members access care. This includes retaliation protections for those who seek care; modifying existing weapons system to reduce blast exposure; updating and making publicly available blast overpressure thresholds and creating a waiver system for exceeding these thresholds; training high-risk service members to help them recognize exposure symptoms and creating strategies to mitigate their risk; and expanding the types of technologies in the Warfighter Brain Health Initiative pilot blast monitoring program.
6. Support service member treatment by establishing a Special Operations Comprehensive Brain Health and Trauma program, making the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE) a program of record and requiring DoD to provide child care services to those seeking treatment there, and mandating training for medical and training personnel on blast overpressure and exposure and TBI.

Reports indicate that over a dozen NAVY Seals who have committed suicide in the past decade were found to have had negative impacts of blast overpressure. Gillibrand feels the Pentagon and federal government need to do more and she hopes this legislation will help.