Traumatic Brain Injury suffered by our troops

David Brockett reports in DC Dirty Laundry,

TBI (traumatic brain injury), it’s called the “signature injury” of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the DoD does nothing to prevent it.

Today brought another update from the Pentagon on the number of troops with Traumatic Brain Injuries from the Iranian retaliatory missile strike on our base in Iraq. We’re now up to fifty, almost five times the number initially reported by the military brass.

These troops made it to shelter and were protected from fragmentation injuries, what happened? Well, the same thing that has happened to over 340 thousand other service members. They each suffered brain damage from shock waves associated with the blasts.

...A helmet can’t be designed to protect for everything

That’s the excuse the DoD has been using since 2010 when researchers published a study showing that the current helmet design was little better than no helmet at all for blast protection, and in some cases might actually increase the likelihood of a TBI. By adding a face shield, injuries could be reduced by up to 80 percent.

The next year (2011) the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory published their own study showing TBI’s could be reduced by another 30 percent with better padding in the helmets. By adding a face shield and better padding, the blast-induced TBIs could be reduced by well over 90 percent.

What’s the damned holdup?

Read more here.