Review of Landmark Study Finds Fewer Vietnam Veterans With Post-Traumatic Stress

By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: August 18, 2006

Far fewer Vietnam veterans suffered from post-traumatic stress as a result of their wartime service than previously thought, researchers are reporting today, in a finding that could have lasting consequences for the understanding of combat stress, as well as for the estimates of the mental health fallout from the Iraq war.

The report, published in the journal Science and viewed by experts as authoritative, found that 18.7 percent of Vietnam veterans developed a diagnosable stress disorder that could be linked to a war event at some point in their lives, well under the previous benchmark number of 30.9 percent. And while the earlier analysis found that for 15.2 percent of the veterans the symptoms continued to be disabling at the time they were examined, the new study put that figure at 9.1 percent.

The findings come at a time of simmering debate over the emotional effects of service in Iraq which, with its lack of a conventional front echoes the Vietnam experience more than it does other wars. Politicians have clashed over the Department of Veterans Affairs’ budget, including its $3 billion annual bill for mental health, in part because of a suspicion that the estimated rates of post-traumatic stress, based on Vietnam veterans, were too high. Last year, the department commissioned a review of combat stress disability claims for evidence of exaggeration.

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The report is numbers crunching. Please go to my website and review the information there on PTSD.

That's one of the reasons I posted this...hoping someone like you would explain it. That and to let people know that this kind of reporting is taking place. I take it (from reading your article) that when they "redefined" PTSD, the numbers "magically" went down?