Dying In Their Sleep: The Invisible Plague Attacking U.S. Soldiers

[unhappycamper]

Corporal Andrew White USMC


Dying In Their Sleep: The Invisible Plague Attacking U.S. Soldiers
Cilla McCain
Author, Murder in Baker Company
Posted: June 23, 2010 05:42 PM


While doing research for the book Murder In Baker Company, I came to know many military family members from the support group "Home of the Brave." The group's goal is to help one another gain information and justice in the noncombat related deaths of their loved ones. According to the Department of Defense nearly 1 out of 4 fatalities in the military are noncombat related.

Stan and Shirley White of West Virginia represent one of the "Home of the Brave" families. Three of their four children have served in the armed forces. Two have died because of their time in war. On September 26, 2005, their son Robert, an Army Staff Sergeant, was killed in a rocket attack in Afghanistan. On February 12, 2008, their youngest son, 23 year-old Marine Corporal Andrew White died in his sleep after being treated for PTSD with lethal prescription drugs.

Struggling with PTSD compounded by grief over the death of his brother, Andrew sought help from VA doctors. Their first line of defense was to prescribe him 20 mg. of Paxil, 4 mg of Klonopin and 50 mg of Seroquel. These medications helped at first, but later proved ineffective. Instead of changing the course of treatment, the doctors responded by continually increasing his dosage until the Seroquel alone reached a whopping 1600 mg per day. Within weeks of Andrew's death, three more young West Virginia veterans died while being treated for PTSD with the same drugs, prompting Stan and Shirley White to begin a mission to find out what the deaths have in common.

"When we first learned of the other West Virginia soldiers who died in their sleep," Stan says. "We thought it must be a reaction to biological warfare, we thought they must have been exposed to something in Iraq and now it is killing them."

Indeed, if you conduct an internet search with the phrase "soldier found dead" the results are staggering. Narrow it down even further by including the phrase "unexplained" and you will begin to get a glimpse of what some would call an epidemic.



unhappycamper comment: If your google "soldier found dead", you'll find about 895,000 results. :(

[babylonsister]

1. I'm stunned; that poor family. All the poor families who have

loved ones dying even more senselessly because of this damned occupation. And what were those doctors thinking?

[Liberal_in_LA]

18. me too. Didn't know about these deaths. omg.

[autorank]

32. What a shame and so unnecessary

The maintenance dose of Seroquel for both bipolar and schizophrenia is 400-800 mg a day.
What the heck were they doing at 1600 mg a day. All they had to do was check the prescribing
information http://www1.astrazeneca-us.com/pi/seroquelxr.pdf

[Scuba]

2. Yeah, but look at the upside....

Dick Cheney's getting richer every day. :sarcasm:

[tekisui]

3. We will have a generation of veterans to take care of.

I wish their needs were met and that they can all come home.

[patrice]

4. WE who participated in the birthing of this particular Hell, *MUST* be shaped by Andrew White and

what happened to him, if not, we are indeed The Damned.

[msongs]

8. "WE"? nt

[patrice]

9. Anyone who pays taxes and/or didn't go into the Streets starting, at least, in 2002,

anyone who has never called a Senator or Representative, never written letters on the issues, never sought more information on all of these life-and-death issues, never helped in a candidate campaign, never made themselves or anyone else uncomfortable by speaking the truth instead of just what makes them and their buddies feel good,

never modified their behavior to reduce economic dependence upon the carbon resources of

FOREIGN ROYALTY (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!~) . . .

any combination of one or more of the foregoing = We.

[Lasher]

5. I have confidence in my VA clinic here in West Virginia

I am therefore particularly shocked to see this.

From Wiki: To treat schizophrenia, AstraZeneca recommends starting (Seroquel) out at 50 mg a day, divided into two doses. The final effective dosage is usually in the 300–800 mg a day range, split into two or three doses a day.

And so, this article inappropriately criticizes the VA for increasing this dosage instead of switching to something else. That is the way the drug is administered. However, the maximum dosage appears to be 800 mg per day - half the amount that Corporal White was prescribed according to this account.

On edit, from another article about this tragedy:

The VA’s Office of Inspector General conducted a review of the quality of care received by Marine Cpl. Andrew White and another veteran whose name was not made public but whom The Washington Times was able to identify as Army National Guard Sgt. Eric Layne, an Iraq war veteran.

According to the Aug. 14 findings, the two combat veterans were taking three prescribed psychiatric medications:

• Paroxetine – an antidepressant that can produce panic attacks, sleeping problems and suicidal thoughts.
• Clonazepam – an anticonvulsive that should not be used with alcohol or other drugs, including narcotics or barbiturates.
• Quetiapine – an antipsychotic used to treat schizophrenia but, combined with clonazepam, can increase sedative effects.

“The medical examiner found that these patients died from combined drug intoxication involving prescribed and nonprescribed medications,” the report said. “In the presence of PTSD, other mental health conditions, and uncertain use of medications by patients, we are unable to draw conclusions about the relationship between medication regimens and these deaths.”

The report said Cpl. White “died as a result of combined drug intoxication,” including a nonprescribed medication that the IG declined to identify. “No contributory natural diseases or physical injuries were identified,” the report said.

Sgt. Layne died as a result of the VA-prescribed drugs and two unidentified nonprescribed medications, “under circumstances significant for fatal over-use of prescribed paroxetine” along with “apparent misuse of nonprescribed medications of uncertain intentionality.”

http://psychiatricnews.wordpress.com/2008/11/14/us-soldiers-being-killed-by-psychiatric-drugs/

[bobbolink]

24. PTSD is NOT schizophrenia.

[Lasher]

25. Well OK I thought the Wiki example was informative.

I should have shared the Wiki link so as to help those who want to get more specific than I sought to be.

[bobbolink]

26. That wasn't a criticism of you at all. It was a criticism of the profession, which

sometimes doesn't know what it is talking about.

edited so add.... if they can't get the diagnosis right, then how the hell are they going to get the treatment right?

There are other ways to treat PTSD that are more effective, but we have become so enamored of the Pharmco "solutions" (which pour big bucks into the corporations) that we refuse any more to look at what the suffering is really about.

:cry:

[Lasher]

27. Didn't take it personal at all, bobbolink.

You're right, the medical profession doesn't deserve the trust we have traditionally placed in it. But times are changing for the better in that respect. We now have the internet, where we can check out each and every new medication that is prescribed to us. Forgive me for offering unsolicited advice, but this is something that we should always do.

[bobbolink]

29. It goes much deeper than that, and it isn't that great an outlook.

It is about the collusion between the profession and the Pharmcos, and that isn't talked about on the internet tubes.

We simply don't get the truth, because of the big money involved.

We "progressives" should know that, but when it comes to medicine, we are just as oblivious as the rest of the population. Its the few, like DUer undergroundpanther, who are knowledgeable about stuff like this. The rest follow along the path laid out by the corporate media.

[Maru Kitteh]

39. Nice broad brush ya got there.

The whole medical profession, really?

[mopinko]

51. seroquil is used for other disorders. nt

[demigoddess]

53. seroquel is thrown at anything mental it was prescribed for

my daughter who is mentally retarded.

[mopinko]

60. i know

i was replying strictly to the comment ptsd is not schizophrenia, implying that there was an error giving him that medication.
they do try it for a lot of things.

[bobbolink]

62. It is time to stop relying on all the drugs, and treat the trauma that we as a nation

induced.

I will say again... all of this is promoted by big $$$.

[Beacool]

6. This is terrible. I hadn't heard of this problem.

Bad enough that these poor guys are trying to get over the horrors of the war. Are they being overmedicated to death?

:-(

[unhappycamper]

7. Yup. n/t

[patrice]

10. One wonders, from this story, if treating PTSD with psychotropics doesn't make it worse. Imagine a

ricocheting ball of intense energy, imagine that you can put up blocks to end the trajectory of the energy, but there is so much energy that your blocks don't end/absorb it, but, rather, just change the trajectory, so you have to keep putting up additional new types of blocks to deal with the changes in trajectory, so, not only do you have the tendency of the system itself to become saturated with an existing block, from the synaptic level up, thus necessitating increasing the dosages to maintain the status quo blocks, the changes in trajectory keep requiring new chemical blocks, which in turn also become saturated.

Now, add to this model the fact that each chemical block blocks not only the effects of that intense ricocheting ball of energy that you intend to block, but ALSO blocks or sets off OTHER STUFF that you DON'T WANT blocked or set off, stuff that serves other functions, one subset of which could quite likely be reinforcing excitation or inhibition of other regulatory subsets.

What a hell that must have been!

Brain, meet hammer, no wait a minute . . . not a hammer, but a whole bunch of them.

wow . . . just holy frakking wow . . .

[undergroundpanther]

35. Thorazine

I have complex pstd,I was years ago misdiagnosed.I was misdiagnosed for a long time..The shrinks denied bullying and child abuse resulted in a person getting injured psychologically,and there was no such thing as complex pstd. So, I was given anti-psychotics,thorazine,haldol,mellaril,prolyxin,abilify,seroquel, loxitane,and others..each drug began as a 'normal dose' and rapidly became a HUGE dose. My symptoms tormented me but I was too apathetic to do anything,I felt like my mind was submerged in mud thrashing to express but I could not muster expression until it had gotten to a point of rage than I would be forcibly injected and tied down,or even wrapped in ice cold wet sheets and kept isolated for months.The shrinks tinkered around once realizing the anti-psychotics were a fail.They gave me different kinds of anti-depressants with anti-psychotics paxil,zoloft,prozac,pamelor,tofranil,trazadone,etc.etc.,My symptoms got worse.I had sudden suicide attempts,they blamed it on my 'illness' and upped the doses more..more fail.
Than they started adding anti-convulsants,tegretol,dilantin,geodon,etc..into the 'cocktail'.Then they started in with anti anxiety drugs,ativan,klonopin,xanax,valium.,Minor improvements,but still had severe insomnia,So they started up with the sleeping pills,ambien..lunesta,....they did nothing at all

Now I take Adderall,Cymbalta& Klonopin..This seems to be an ok balance,so far.. the doses are low.I still get triggered ,I still have symptoms,and most nights I sleep like crap...But,because I have boundaries now,and will not take any scrip handed to me ,if it works or not and my psych GETS this,...I think a major help for me is a refuge,(the house when I am not alone,a place to have structure and building a social network however small or strange has been helpful along with staying away as much as possible from authoritarian assholes and not tolerating any crazy making shit that abusive people do.

[patrice]

47. Oh my goodness! I don't know what to say!

(And you may have noticed that's a little unusual for me.)

I can't imagine getting through that! For whatever your problems are, you, undergroundpanther, must be a strong person in ways most of us have never even guessed at.

The story of Andrew White really speaks to me; I wonder what would have made the difference he needed.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

11. That is insane.

And I say this as someone whose life was saved by antidepressents. :wow:

More soldiers slippng (helped) through the cracks. :(

[readmoreoften]

12. WOW. I just had a 28 yo Iraq vet friend drop dead in her sleep and she was on PTSD drugs.

She died last month. Went to sleep and never woke up. She was on a boat load of PTSD medications prescribed by the US military. Holy shit.

[Solly Mack]

13. k/r

[w8liftinglady]

14. wow!I am doing more research,and will write my next column on this

[autorank]

34. Check this out

The box with the dose range

http://www1.astrazeneca-us.com/pi/seroquelxr.pdf

[grahamhgreen]

55. Max of 800/mg day. By itself alone. NEVER take benzodiazepines (klonopin, Xanax, Valium, etc.)

If your depressed try 5-htp and ST johns wort first.

YouTube 'benzo withdrawal'

[w8liftinglady]

15. if you need more info...start with these

http://www.google.com/search?q=Three+months+ago+in+an+Armed+Services+hearing%2C+Army+Surgeon+General+Schoomaker+downplayed+media+reports+of+skyrocketing+prescription+drug+use+of+those+serving+in+the+Army&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7ADRA_en

[w8liftinglady]

16. holy shit!even MORE info

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7ADRA_en&&sa=X&ei=u7MjTK70FcrtnQeHx4XADw&ved=0CBQQBSgA&q=prescription+drugs+soldiers+ptsd+dying&spell=1

[w8liftinglady]

17. a list of ever growing truths-think this is an isolated problem?

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0427/military-concerned-overmedication-troops/

http://breggin.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=233

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1713485,00.html

http://wowktv.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=35457

http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20090322180554158

http://www.salon.com/news/special/coming_home/2009/02/14/coming_home_five

[burnsei sensei]

19. A dead veteran can tell no tales

of his grief or of the hardship of war.
This is a master-stroke of sociopathy.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

33. You're not cute

PTSD is no joke. You may think you're being serious but there isn't some plot to kill hundreds of thousands of veterans. You're not being serious about a very serious issue.

[burnsei sensei]

59. I am being dead serious.

My own son has PTSD, having served in Iraq.
This is the master-stroke of sociopathy. That is no joke. That is the truth.
And as for the truth?
Our government has had a rocky relationship with the truth ever since NSC 68.

[CoffeeCat]

58. I wholeheartedly agree...

...that they're attempting to harm or kill these soldiers with PTSD. The ones with PTSD
aren't tough enough, I guess. They'll return home and talk about the horrors of war and possibly
incite more people to be against it. Also, the ones with PTSD are expensive to treat
and require long-term care.

It's better to just mess them up horribly, or kill them with drugs--than to deal with
the expense and potential problems these soldiers bring to the military, once they
return home.

Just look at how the military treats soldiers with PTSD, once they are home. They don't.

[w8liftinglady]

20. kicking for the evening crew

[marions ghost]

21. Stan and Shirley White

:patriot: :patriot: :kick:

[bertman]

22. Recommend. We all owe these families a debt of gratitude for what

they are doing to expose and remedy this. And for their sacrifices.

This is the reality of our military culture. They DO NOT give a fuck about the men and women in the ranks. If they did, this would not be happening.

[Jennicut]

23. 1600 mg a day??? I am on 10 mg of an antidepressant a day.

I have had issues for years with depression and PMDD (Premenstrual dysphoric disorder -really bad mood swings and severe depression with my periods, since high school). 1600 mg a day of a drug like that is insane.

[Maru Kitteh]

41. It doesn't really work that way. 10mg of one drug may be fatal while 1600mg of another drug

may be insufficient to cause effect in a normal adult.

It depends on the characteristics of the individual drug.

[Swamp Rat]

28. k&r

[mnhtnbb]

30. Showing this to psychiatrist hubby with VA service.

[amborin]

31. very sad K&R

[jotsy]

36. I'm so weary of all these ugly layers.

like an onion, just more and more piercing on the senses.

[w8liftinglady]

38. here's a few reasons

The occupation of Iraq began on March 20th, 2003,Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001.
http://www.icasualties.org/Iraq/USCasualtiesByState.aspx
http://icasualties.org/OEF/index.aspx

[gleaner]

37. I didn't know about this .....

There are many different medicines effective in the treatment of PTSD, and sometimes they have to be switched and the doses raised or lowered to achieve the best result. Support groups help too, and sometimes obviate the need for medication. Either way, these soldiers deserve better.

The military spends so much on unnecessary crap and neglects the soldiers, their most valuable resource. This war had run its course before it even began. We need to stop it now and bring our military home. After all these years and all this time no one can even articulate a realistic expectation of what it is supposed to be doing. The cost is too high, and I don't mean the dollar cost. I mean the loss of all of these young lives and the losses to their families. It is just plain wrong.

[TygrBright]

40. Pills are so much cheaper than actual treatment.

And the VA specifically, as well as government-payer health care regulators in general, are highly uncomfortable with the reality that there is no one, reliable "evidence-based," effective treatment protocol for PTSD.

Instead, the programs and institutions that seem to have the best results with PTSD are those that have three things in common:

1. They make a long-term commitment to their patients. As in, longer than 28 days and longer than three months if necessary. YEARS, if needed. Usually going all the way from residential to transitional living to outpatient and aftercare treatment modes.

2. They are flexible and adaptable in applying treatment protocols-- that is, they'll try multiple options on the "whatever works" theory. Not all will be "evidence based" or insurance-approved or even clinically-reliable. Some may seem to make little sense, but where you are working with the mind/brain interface, you never know what will really work.

3. They rely on strong, continuing relationships with therapeutic professionals AND on case management to bring in treatment support services and help the patient make their way through the various services and levels of help needed to re-learn how to live.

None of that comes cheap. It doesn't have to be terribly expensive, but it's costlier than writing out a bunch of prescriptions, following up with 15-minute medication management visits every few weeks, and referrals to solo or group psych practitioners who may or may not have the expertise, access to technology and training, and other resources to do the job.

We owe our service women and men better, but we're not willing to pay. We're willing to spend untold millions and billions on graft-riddled weapons programs and training and nation-building schemes, but we're not willing to put the money into dealing with the damage inflicted on the men and women who willingly put themselves in harm's way because they believed that in doing so, they were serving a higher interest for all of us.

sadly,
Bright

[bobbolink]

49. Whoa... you have hit the nail squarely with this one.

Yes, it is the cheap "fix" (which obviously isn't fixing all that well, and the collusion of the profession and the Pharmcos.

And who loses? Those who have sacrificed.

Yes, they deserve better and we owe them.

[USArmyParatrooper]

42. My father-in-law is former Special Forces and has severe PTSD

He's been on countless combinations of drugs to treat it for years. Some have worked better than others but generally they do work if you find the right combination for a particular person. He also has other health issues associated with his time in Vietnam and I can't even imagine keeping up with how many pills he's supposed to take everyday.

He has the Silver Star, the Soldier's Medal, the Bronze Star with V devise and three Purple Hearts so I can't even imagine everything he's been through.

I've only read his citation for the Bronze Star, and seriously, he pulled some Forrest Gump shit to be awarded that medal.

To the point of the OP, that's horrible and it seems a Doctor somewhere really screwed up. But medications do work. I'm very sorry his family has gone through so much.

[PufPuf23]

43. Klonopin alone is extremely physically addictive

and one can die from withdrawal.

Edit to add: and is dangerous to use with alcohol.

[Divine Discontent]

45. my friend takes klonopin, has for years.

also, these drugs these Vets are on, many of them I wouldn't ever take, and I would try to find an herbal alternative. Too many side effects/suicide attempts that I've read about from these, and now, this story makes it even worse with over-prescribing worries.

[undergroundpanther]

48. I dunno why

I'm not addicted to it. I have missed doses and felt nothing realized it the next night.Been late on scripts for a week or two,felt no withdrawl.dunno why.

[McCamy Taylor]

44. Non theraputic RX. If a private MD did it the govt would be all over them.

That is over twice the maximum dose ok'd by the FDA---and that for severe disease like bipolar and schizophrenia. Wow. Just wow. It is amazing what government docs will try (knowing that they can not be sued).

[Barack_America]

46. I have no idea why the VA treats insomnia with Seroquel, an anti-psychotic.

But they do...a lot.

This isn't just happening in WV.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

50. War - the scourge of the masses and elixir of the elite.

It's past time to end the abuse.

[lovuian]

52. I'm truly sick about this

these poor men and women

[Angry Dragon]

54. The country of "We the People"

has become the land of serfs. We no longer have control of the government, the government controls the people, the government is controlled by the monied. We are nothing to them unless we can do their bidding to either fight for more resources, labor to make them more money, or to lick their boots.

[NoodleyAppendage]

56. I'm smelling Scientology anti-psychiatry bullsh*t.

I guess an e-meter would diagnose raging PTSD and drug-free bullsh*t Scientology voodoo is the answer, right?

J

[Wilms]

57. k&r n/t

[w8liftinglady]

61. kicking...still looking up research