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Sen. Murray Questions Defense Secretary Panetta on Military-Wide Mental Health Care Shortcomings

11mo ago
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U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee and a senior member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee questioned U.S. Department of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on the Pentagon's commitment to ensuring accurate mental health diagnoses and treatment for servicemembers as the military continues to face an epidemic of military suicides. Murray's questioning, which comes one week after the Pentagon announced that there had already been 154 active duty military suicides this year, focused on expanding a comprehensive Army review of mental health evaluations and diagnoses and new Army directives on mental health care to other branches of the military. The Army's recently announced review comes on the heels of a review of mental health diagnoses at Madigan Army Medical Center in Washington state that has already returned PTSD diagnoses to over a hundred servicemembers who had in many cases been accused of faking symptoms.