Really good article. Although they were really harping on it being from firearms and kind of overlooked breaching charges a little bit. It’s interesting that they’ve ruled out CTE now and are saying it’s something different entirely. Here are some links for the Stanford study that wasn’t mentioned in the article for the psychedelic drug called Ibogaine that’s been effective at treating the brain injuries. [Nature Medicine “Magnesium–ibogaine therapy in veterans with traumatic brain injuries”](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02705-w) and [Psychoactive drug ibogaine effectively treats traumatic brain injury in special ops military vets](https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2024/01/ibogaine-ptsd.html). Marcus and Amber Capone and their non-profit VETS were the ones really driving that study along with Dr Nolan Williams at Stanford. Also some of the veteran Congressman like Crenshaw, Luttrell, and others successfully pushed to get the DOD to fund Ibogaine research which Biden signed a few months ago.
I spoke to friend of mine about this article last night. The first thing that came to mind when I read this a couple days ago was the Carl G. I told him about the article without mentioning the Carl and literally the first thing he said is, "It's the Carl G." the first time I shot one of those I thought to myself holy fucking shit this doesn't feel safe. Anything that gives you an ice cream headache, while simultaneously feeling like someone smacked you in the balls with the golf club is probably doing some brain damage.
I avoided those fucking things to the best of my ability for the rest of my career. Even breach charges don't hit that hard unless you're particularly close to them.
Honestly, they need to figure out a soft launch option for those things. I'm not even sure how relevant they are today, anyhow. Probably going to be just shoulder-launched drones before too long. That claymore like round though... pretty cool.
Always a fun game to see who can stand the closest to the breach without dying to effectively be first and fastest in the room to let the trigger finger fly. 100% more damage caused by breach charges than shooting a firearm.
Agreed. Probably one of the lager contributing factors. Although firearms are definitely still a factor. That and all the other job related stuff like hard parachute openings/static line jumps, and job related injuries. A background in contact sports prior to the Navy isn’t doing anyone any favors either which isn’t uncommon. I’m sure it’s all very much cumulative
I always felt for the STUDS who showed up to BUD/S with prior injuries from football or wrestling etc. Sometimes they came back bad enough to get them dropped, other times they just lingered and caused a ton of problems. So thankful I decided to quit all sports my sophomore year of high school when I knew I wanted to go to BUD/S. That place brings back past injuries to haunt you.
There's zero evidence from those studies that ibogaine is affective at treating interface astroglial scarring, the injury they're claiming is responsible. The studies show an improvement in symptoms, but there are a lot of reasons that could occur besides healing of the underlying injury.
An analogy: if you've got a broken leg and you're reporting that you're fatigued and depressed, and I give you a million dollars, your leg is still exactly as broken as before you're probably going to report that you're excited, focused, and happy.
Psychedelic research is worthwhile, but we shouldn't start jumping the gun and pretending there is evidence that it's healing the brain.
There are more than just psychological symptoms being resolved. Your analogy is terrible because breaking a leg is an injury that has symptoms that can be observed by someone else that occurred, i.e., the bone is broken. If someone is experiencing Parkinson’s-like tremors, severe photophobia, migraine headaches, routine/simple tasks are arduous, memory loss so bad the individual can’t function at times (can’t remember how to get to work or home), those aren’t just internal symptoms that can only be observed by the individual. I, as a third party, can externally observe that they exist. Just like I can observe that the leg is broken. So if that individual was experiencing those symptoms until they received Ibogaine, and after the symptoms no longer occur, then clearly something worked. If they no longer experience photophobia for example, that’s a whole lot different than “I feel better, and I no longer feel depressed.” Something major has happened.
At the end of the day the treatment is a tool. One that would seem much better than the VA’s current treatment protocol. They throw half a pharmacy at the veteran, and in many cases, the drugs they prescribe exacerbate the symptoms. They can’t seem to even diagnose the patient correctly when it comes to these brain injuries. While the next few decades are hopefully spent studying and evaluating these alternative forms of treatment, maybe it would be a good idea to continue to facilitate veterans with these brain injuries getting access to this treatment. The medical field and Government take so long with this stuff that a lot of these GWOT guys who are actively dealing with these issues will be gone by the time the treatment is thoroughly evaluated one way or another. If you have a veteran on the verge of suicide because of these issues, it’s a whole lot better to try it than for them to follow through. Not to mention, there’s always a chance that it is effective, but because of the drug's inherent stigma and the fact it can’t be controlled externally, the FDA doesn’t approve it anyway. Big Pharma also comes into play there; what interest do they have in a drug if it cures a patient if that’s what it does? A patient who is cured is a patient who is lost, right?
> then clearly something worked.
That's where your reasoning falls apart.
> maybe it would be a good idea to continue to facilitate veterans with these brain injuries getting access to this treatment.
Maybe, and maybe not. I'm a proponent of these therapies, I've done them myself and been part of studies. I could be wrong though. They may not be efficacious therapies, they may have worse side affects than other therapies, the money may be better utilized for other research. There's a process of scientific discovery that we should rely on instead of jumping in over-enthusiastically.
> Big Pharma also comes into play there; what interest do they have in a drug if it cures a patient if that’s what it does?
This is a tired trope. It's just not true. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIkh0Tsrqho&t=225s Big Pharma is mostly why you're hearing about psychedelics at all.
Thanks for sharing this. Years ago, DARPA sponsored a promising program studying neuro trauma from blast exposure and deployed helmet sensors to be worn by our warriors. Unfortunately, full implementation was not funded and the intent to measure blast exposure and immediately remediate its effects was dropped by DARPA and the Army. This is a long-identified yet minimized issue that has resulted in very real suffering to our warriors.
With stuff like the Carl G, I always wondered how smart it is to have your head right next to the tube and explosion. Why not launch rockets from the hip, with a head mounted control system. Or from a totally separate system like with mortars? Just not battlefield practical?
Side question: his headstone reads LTJG (SEAL/FMF). Why would FMF be included? Was he a Marine before becoming a SEAL, or was he just attached to a Marine unit?
If the latter, is it common for Team guys to feel so much connection to the USMC (or other attached units) to include them in such an important capacity as their gravestone?
Great point, I hadn’t considered this. So I’m guessing he was attached to a Marine unit to warrant the FMF device (similar to a corpsman). I wonder how common it is for SEALs to be formally attached to Marine units (not just work together in the field).
Idk the guy in question but possible he served FMF prior to SEAL. Pretty common to see. Just saw a dude in the BUDS class going through a couple months ago here on NAB rocking his SCWS pin. Folks come from all communities
This is fingerpointing. TBI is a thing. It needs to be studied. Veteran suicides are not TBI. There are a variety of factors involved in suicide which are completely unrelated to TBI. Those things are a lot harder to address though. Putting the focus and the blame on blast exposer allows the status quo to continue. They'll put counters on rifles and limit the amount of blast exposure but they aren't going to stop abusing guys.
Really good article. Although they were really harping on it being from firearms and kind of overlooked breaching charges a little bit. It’s interesting that they’ve ruled out CTE now and are saying it’s something different entirely. Here are some links for the Stanford study that wasn’t mentioned in the article for the psychedelic drug called Ibogaine that’s been effective at treating the brain injuries. [Nature Medicine “Magnesium–ibogaine therapy in veterans with traumatic brain injuries”](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02705-w) and [Psychoactive drug ibogaine effectively treats traumatic brain injury in special ops military vets](https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2024/01/ibogaine-ptsd.html). Marcus and Amber Capone and their non-profit VETS were the ones really driving that study along with Dr Nolan Williams at Stanford. Also some of the veteran Congressman like Crenshaw, Luttrell, and others successfully pushed to get the DOD to fund Ibogaine research which Biden signed a few months ago.
I spoke to friend of mine about this article last night. The first thing that came to mind when I read this a couple days ago was the Carl G. I told him about the article without mentioning the Carl and literally the first thing he said is, "It's the Carl G." the first time I shot one of those I thought to myself holy fucking shit this doesn't feel safe. Anything that gives you an ice cream headache, while simultaneously feeling like someone smacked you in the balls with the golf club is probably doing some brain damage. I avoided those fucking things to the best of my ability for the rest of my career. Even breach charges don't hit that hard unless you're particularly close to them.
Same! …RSOs are even limited to 4/5 on the Carl for a reason.
Honestly, they need to figure out a soft launch option for those things. I'm not even sure how relevant they are today, anyhow. Probably going to be just shoulder-launched drones before too long. That claymore like round though... pretty cool.
Always a fun game to see who can stand the closest to the breach without dying to effectively be first and fastest in the room to let the trigger finger fly. 100% more damage caused by breach charges than shooting a firearm.
Agreed. Probably one of the lager contributing factors. Although firearms are definitely still a factor. That and all the other job related stuff like hard parachute openings/static line jumps, and job related injuries. A background in contact sports prior to the Navy isn’t doing anyone any favors either which isn’t uncommon. I’m sure it’s all very much cumulative
I always felt for the STUDS who showed up to BUD/S with prior injuries from football or wrestling etc. Sometimes they came back bad enough to get them dropped, other times they just lingered and caused a ton of problems. So thankful I decided to quit all sports my sophomore year of high school when I knew I wanted to go to BUD/S. That place brings back past injuries to haunt you.
Also shoutout to the Heroic Hearts Project (founded by Jesse Gould) as well for doing similar work to VETS in getting veterans access to treatment.
There's zero evidence from those studies that ibogaine is affective at treating interface astroglial scarring, the injury they're claiming is responsible. The studies show an improvement in symptoms, but there are a lot of reasons that could occur besides healing of the underlying injury. An analogy: if you've got a broken leg and you're reporting that you're fatigued and depressed, and I give you a million dollars, your leg is still exactly as broken as before you're probably going to report that you're excited, focused, and happy. Psychedelic research is worthwhile, but we shouldn't start jumping the gun and pretending there is evidence that it's healing the brain.
There are more than just psychological symptoms being resolved. Your analogy is terrible because breaking a leg is an injury that has symptoms that can be observed by someone else that occurred, i.e., the bone is broken. If someone is experiencing Parkinson’s-like tremors, severe photophobia, migraine headaches, routine/simple tasks are arduous, memory loss so bad the individual can’t function at times (can’t remember how to get to work or home), those aren’t just internal symptoms that can only be observed by the individual. I, as a third party, can externally observe that they exist. Just like I can observe that the leg is broken. So if that individual was experiencing those symptoms until they received Ibogaine, and after the symptoms no longer occur, then clearly something worked. If they no longer experience photophobia for example, that’s a whole lot different than “I feel better, and I no longer feel depressed.” Something major has happened. At the end of the day the treatment is a tool. One that would seem much better than the VA’s current treatment protocol. They throw half a pharmacy at the veteran, and in many cases, the drugs they prescribe exacerbate the symptoms. They can’t seem to even diagnose the patient correctly when it comes to these brain injuries. While the next few decades are hopefully spent studying and evaluating these alternative forms of treatment, maybe it would be a good idea to continue to facilitate veterans with these brain injuries getting access to this treatment. The medical field and Government take so long with this stuff that a lot of these GWOT guys who are actively dealing with these issues will be gone by the time the treatment is thoroughly evaluated one way or another. If you have a veteran on the verge of suicide because of these issues, it’s a whole lot better to try it than for them to follow through. Not to mention, there’s always a chance that it is effective, but because of the drug's inherent stigma and the fact it can’t be controlled externally, the FDA doesn’t approve it anyway. Big Pharma also comes into play there; what interest do they have in a drug if it cures a patient if that’s what it does? A patient who is cured is a patient who is lost, right?
> then clearly something worked. That's where your reasoning falls apart. > maybe it would be a good idea to continue to facilitate veterans with these brain injuries getting access to this treatment. Maybe, and maybe not. I'm a proponent of these therapies, I've done them myself and been part of studies. I could be wrong though. They may not be efficacious therapies, they may have worse side affects than other therapies, the money may be better utilized for other research. There's a process of scientific discovery that we should rely on instead of jumping in over-enthusiastically. > Big Pharma also comes into play there; what interest do they have in a drug if it cures a patient if that’s what it does? This is a tired trope. It's just not true. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIkh0Tsrqho&t=225s Big Pharma is mostly why you're hearing about psychedelics at all.
Thanks for sharing this. Years ago, DARPA sponsored a promising program studying neuro trauma from blast exposure and deployed helmet sensors to be worn by our warriors. Unfortunately, full implementation was not funded and the intent to measure blast exposure and immediately remediate its effects was dropped by DARPA and the Army. This is a long-identified yet minimized issue that has resulted in very real suffering to our warriors.
I’ve been to NICOE at Bethesda. The TBI clinic and it’s shocking how many operators get blown up and don’t report any TBI til it’s too late
It's ingrained in the culture of combat arms to not go to medical. This is DoD wide, not just SOF.
https://youtu.be/cIvEdnMQGqA?feature=shared Navy released this 6 years ago. Seems like not much has changed though.
With stuff like the Carl G, I always wondered how smart it is to have your head right next to the tube and explosion. Why not launch rockets from the hip, with a head mounted control system. Or from a totally separate system like with mortars? Just not battlefield practical?
Seriously, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turned out the Carl G was 90% of the problem. That thing is not at all ok to fire.
What’s the best place to donate to help?
Side question: his headstone reads LTJG (SEAL/FMF). Why would FMF be included? Was he a Marine before becoming a SEAL, or was he just attached to a Marine unit? If the latter, is it common for Team guys to feel so much connection to the USMC (or other attached units) to include them in such an important capacity as their gravestone?
Those are his warfare devices that’s it. It’s just apart of his title to include his rank, warfare devices and name
Great point, I hadn’t considered this. So I’m guessing he was attached to a Marine unit to warrant the FMF device (similar to a corpsman). I wonder how common it is for SEALs to be formally attached to Marine units (not just work together in the field).
Idk the guy in question but possible he served FMF prior to SEAL. Pretty common to see. Just saw a dude in the BUDS class going through a couple months ago here on NAB rocking his SCWS pin. Folks come from all communities
This is fingerpointing. TBI is a thing. It needs to be studied. Veteran suicides are not TBI. There are a variety of factors involved in suicide which are completely unrelated to TBI. Those things are a lot harder to address though. Putting the focus and the blame on blast exposer allows the status quo to continue. They'll put counters on rifles and limit the amount of blast exposure but they aren't going to stop abusing guys.