Atlanta, Georgia Personal Injury Lawyer
Atlanta personal injury lawyer blog
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Marine Continues to Battle Traumatic Brain Injury, Part 2
Monday, March 1, 2010
Battle Not Over for Brain Injured Marine
Monday, February 8, 2010
Study Linking Autism to Vaccines Retracted
After years of faithful dedication the Marines, Staff Sergeant David Marino found himself struggling with a desk job. Formerly reliable, Marino found himself forgetting phone calls and conversations that he'd had only minutes before. Formerly even-tempered, he quickly became frustrated with his wife or the men in his command when they pointed out his uncharacteristic lapses. The Marine, who had been stationed in Iraq and respected for his service, a man who had been known as a "Marine's Marine," had thought he was coming home to a desk job while he treated injuries to his back and knee. What he discovered was a much longer and more fraught road to recovery than he ever expected.
Marino was suffering the permanent effects of a traumatic brain injury (TBI) - a fact which had gone undiagnosed for two years.
He was also not alone. Nearly one in five of the men and women in uniform who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq have suffered TBI. In a service which prides itself on its able-bodied men and women in uniform, these people too often find themselves suddenly invisible, fighting a new battle. As for Marino, finally armed with the knowledge of what was wrong with him, he was placed in the Wounded Warrior Battalion.
The Wounded Warrior Battalion is a relatively new sort of organization, created by Lt. Colonel Timothy Maxwell after his own experience with TBI when an explosion left shrapnel near the left side of his brainstem. Maxwell's injuries were terrible, but it was the isolation of coping with treatment alone, without any support system that truly understood what he was going through, which he found unbearable. Starting in 2004, the Wounded Warrior Battalion has served as a home for Marines too injured for regular duty. There, they could heal together, sharing barracks as well as support.
Over time, the Wounded Warrior Battalion has grown into the Wounded Warrior Regiment. Over 4,000 soldiers strong, the regiment now has Battalions in North Caroline and California, as well as a budget of 4.5 million dollars with which to attempt to see to the soldier’s needs.
The Wounded Warrior Battalion is not a permanent solution for Marino – simply being assigned there is not a solution for soldiers who wish to continue to serve in the Corps. However, without their help and support, he would find himself facing a continuing uphill battle alone.
Marino needed to be granted permanent limited duty status (PLD). Very few uniformed Marines actually achieve this status. In 2008, after nearly a year of paperwork, requests, and medical examinations, Marino became one of only 50 Marines recognized for PLD out of a force of 203,000.
Now, Marino works with the Wounded Warrior Battalion as a career retention specialist in their West Coast Battalion, where he can continue to support others who have had suffered TBI in the service of their country. With his help, hopefully, more American soldiers will be able to continue their careers doing what they want – serving their country actively. While TBI itself may be associated with a life of limited abilities, the success of soldiers like Marino prove that overcoming brain injury is not impossible.
Marino was suffering the permanent effects of a traumatic brain injury (TBI) - a fact which had gone undiagnosed for two years.
He was also not alone. Nearly one in five of the men and women in uniform who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq have suffered TBI. In a service which prides itself on its able-bodied men and women in uniform, these people too often find themselves suddenly invisible, fighting a new battle. As for Marino, finally armed with the knowledge of what was wrong with him, he was placed in the Wounded Warrior Battalion.The Wounded Warrior Battalion is a relatively new sort of organization, created by Lt. Colonel Timothy Maxwell after his own experience with TBI when an explosion left shrapnel near the left side of his brainstem. Maxwell's injuries were terrible, but it was the isolation of coping with treatment alone, without any support system that truly understood what he was going through, which he found unbearable. Starting in 2004, the Wounded Warrior Battalion has served as a home for Marines too injured for regular duty. There, they could heal together, sharing barracks as well as support.
Over time, the Wounded Warrior Battalion has grown into the Wounded Warrior Regiment. Over 4,000 soldiers strong, the regiment now has Battalions in North Caroline and California, as well as a budget of 4.5 million dollars with which to attempt to see to the soldier’s needs.
The Wounded Warrior Battalion is not a permanent solution for Marino – simply being assigned there is not a solution for soldiers who wish to continue to serve in the Corps. However, without their help and support, he would find himself facing a continuing uphill battle alone.
Marino needed to be granted permanent limited duty status (PLD). Very few uniformed Marines actually achieve this status. In 2008, after nearly a year of paperwork, requests, and medical examinations, Marino became one of only 50 Marines recognized for PLD out of a force of 203,000.
Now, Marino works with the Wounded Warrior Battalion as a career retention specialist in their West Coast Battalion, where he can continue to support others who have had suffered TBI in the service of their country. With his help, hopefully, more American soldiers will be able to continue their careers doing what they want – serving their country actively. While TBI itself may be associated with a life of limited abilities, the success of soldiers like Marino prove that overcoming brain injury is not impossible.
Labels: athletes and traumatic brain injury, children and brain damage, Marines and brain injury, Marines and traumatic brain injury, soldiers and brain injury, traumatic brain injury
Our nation's armed forces take pride in their abilities - the ability to face circumstances that most Americans would shy away from, to be ready and on the scene as soon as humanly possible, to do what needs to be done. The image that we as citizens have of them, and the image which they project through ceremony and symbolism, is an able bodied one.
However, as careers wear on and wars continue to wage on, these high expectations leaves more and more of our service men and women at loose ends. What happens to soldiers who find themselves no longer able to serve? What does it mean for the nearly 20 percent of soldiers who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq who, in their tours of duty, have suffered from traumatic brain injury?
There are no cures for traumatic brain injury (TBI), but for soldiers who have been diagnosed, and who wish to continue serving their country, there is still hope. The way ahead may not be easy, and far too many of them slip through the cracks or fall by the wayside in what is an uphill battle both to recovery, and to continued service. But, true to their reputation as spirited fighters, at least some of these injured soldiers choose to fight this battle.
Marine Staff Sergeant David Marino is such a man.
Marino enlisted at seventeen, over a decade ago now. He continued a family tradition, following both his father and brother into the armed services.
"I didn't want to go to college," he said. "I wanted to be a warrior."
Between 2004 and 2006, Marino served in Iraq, where he led mean on a variety of missions, from patrols and escort missions, to raids to capture resistance fighters. It was in the course of this duty that Marino received his traumatic brain injury.
Marino was exposed to two separate explosions. After the first, he talks about feeling out of sorts. There was not any time or place for worrying about vague feelings of sickness. He experienced headaches, ringing in his ears, and what he describes as being "discombobulated." He was not gushing blood, not suffering from obvious, visibly life threatening injuries. He did what he had to - he did his best to meet his responsibilities, to not make anyone else pick up the slack because he could not keep up.
"Back then, if you weren't physically bleeding, you didn't go to medical. We would just try to be hard as nails, take care of your brother," Marino explained. "Because if you missed a patrol, you were making someone else fill your position."
Even after his injuries, Marino was a respected Marine. It was not until other injuries landed him in a desk job that the symptoms of TBI began to surface. He was supposed to be receiving treatment for severe back and knee pain which were preventing him from maintaining the rigorous lifestyle being a Marine demands. Instead, Marino found himself frustrated with confusion, memory lapses and mood swings - all tell-tale signs of a traumatic brain injury.
For more on dedicated Marine David Marino’s story, stay tuned to tomorrow’s post.
However, as careers wear on and wars continue to wage on, these high expectations leaves more and more of our service men and women at loose ends. What happens to soldiers who find themselves no longer able to serve? What does it mean for the nearly 20 percent of soldiers who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq who, in their tours of duty, have suffered from traumatic brain injury?There are no cures for traumatic brain injury (TBI), but for soldiers who have been diagnosed, and who wish to continue serving their country, there is still hope. The way ahead may not be easy, and far too many of them slip through the cracks or fall by the wayside in what is an uphill battle both to recovery, and to continued service. But, true to their reputation as spirited fighters, at least some of these injured soldiers choose to fight this battle.
Marine Staff Sergeant David Marino is such a man.
Marino enlisted at seventeen, over a decade ago now. He continued a family tradition, following both his father and brother into the armed services.
"I didn't want to go to college," he said. "I wanted to be a warrior."
Between 2004 and 2006, Marino served in Iraq, where he led mean on a variety of missions, from patrols and escort missions, to raids to capture resistance fighters. It was in the course of this duty that Marino received his traumatic brain injury.
Marino was exposed to two separate explosions. After the first, he talks about feeling out of sorts. There was not any time or place for worrying about vague feelings of sickness. He experienced headaches, ringing in his ears, and what he describes as being "discombobulated." He was not gushing blood, not suffering from obvious, visibly life threatening injuries. He did what he had to - he did his best to meet his responsibilities, to not make anyone else pick up the slack because he could not keep up.
"Back then, if you weren't physically bleeding, you didn't go to medical. We would just try to be hard as nails, take care of your brother," Marino explained. "Because if you missed a patrol, you were making someone else fill your position."
Even after his injuries, Marino was a respected Marine. It was not until other injuries landed him in a desk job that the symptoms of TBI began to surface. He was supposed to be receiving treatment for severe back and knee pain which were preventing him from maintaining the rigorous lifestyle being a Marine demands. Instead, Marino found himself frustrated with confusion, memory lapses and mood swings - all tell-tale signs of a traumatic brain injury.
For more on dedicated Marine David Marino’s story, stay tuned to tomorrow’s post.
Labels: brain injury, children and brain damage, Marines, Marines and brain injury, soldiers and brain damage, soldiers and brain injury, traumatic brain injury
The Lancet, a major British medical journal, has retracted a study which it ran in 1998 linking autism and bowel disease to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.
This retraction followed just one day after BMJ, a competing journal, called for The Lancet to do so in an embargoed piece of commentary. It comes a week after Britain's General Medical Counsel, which oversees all doctors, found lead author Dr. Andrew Wakefield's methods unethical.
Unfortunately, it comes over ten years after the beginning of the much publicized and highly controversial crusade against vaccines which this study inspired. Yes, this is the medical research which set off the anti-vaccine movement which has swept not only through the UK, but across the Atlantic to the US too, where the anti-vaccine crowd has received a voice in many high traffic media outlets - including being featured on Oprah in the form of former MTV personality and current activist, Jenny McCarthy.
According to BMJ's commentary, after The Lancet published Andrew Wakefield's study linking the common measles, mumps, rubella vaccine to autism, "the arguments were considered by many to be proven and the ghastly social drama of the demon vaccine took on a life of its own."
After this study was published, British vaccination rates fell sharply. In direct result of this, measles outbreaks - formerly rarely heard of - have made a resurgence among unvaccinated British children. Even as subsequent research has time and again failed to replicate the original paper's findings and more and members of the medical establishment have spoken out against it, measles vaccination among British children has not fully recovered.
This is not the first time that The Lancet has admitted that it should never have run the original paper. Over the years, ten of Wakefield's original twelve co-authors have reached similar conclusions, and in the face of that fact, the medical journal has attempted to respond accordingly.
"It has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al. are incorrect, contrary to the findings of an earlier investigation. In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were 'consecutively referred' and that investigations were 'approved' by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record," the Lancet's editors said in their statement.
Wakefield and his two co-authors who have stood by this study are being stripped of their privilege to practice medicine in Britain as a result of what General Medical Council ruled as "callous disregard" for the children involved in his study, and for patient selection which they found both biased and dishonest when they ruled his work unethical. They have called his conduct "dishonest and irresponsible."
Alison Singer, mother of an autistic child and president of the Autism Science Foundation, has said "That study did a lot of harm. People became afraid of vaccinations. This is the Wakefield legacy: this unscientifically grounded fear of vaccinations that result in children dying from vaccine-preventable diseases."
This retraction followed just one day after BMJ, a competing journal, called for The Lancet to do so in an embargoed piece of commentary. It comes a week after Britain's General Medical Counsel, which oversees all doctors, found lead author Dr. Andrew Wakefield's methods unethical.
Unfortunately, it comes over ten years after the beginning of the much publicized and highly controversial crusade against vaccines which this study inspired. Yes, this is the medical research which set off the anti-vaccine movement which has swept not only through the UK, but across the Atlantic to the US too, where the anti-vaccine crowd has received a voice in many high traffic media outlets - including being featured on Oprah in the form of former MTV personality and current activist, Jenny McCarthy.According to BMJ's commentary, after The Lancet published Andrew Wakefield's study linking the common measles, mumps, rubella vaccine to autism, "the arguments were considered by many to be proven and the ghastly social drama of the demon vaccine took on a life of its own."
After this study was published, British vaccination rates fell sharply. In direct result of this, measles outbreaks - formerly rarely heard of - have made a resurgence among unvaccinated British children. Even as subsequent research has time and again failed to replicate the original paper's findings and more and members of the medical establishment have spoken out against it, measles vaccination among British children has not fully recovered.
This is not the first time that The Lancet has admitted that it should never have run the original paper. Over the years, ten of Wakefield's original twelve co-authors have reached similar conclusions, and in the face of that fact, the medical journal has attempted to respond accordingly.
"It has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al. are incorrect, contrary to the findings of an earlier investigation. In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were 'consecutively referred' and that investigations were 'approved' by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record," the Lancet's editors said in their statement.
Wakefield and his two co-authors who have stood by this study are being stripped of their privilege to practice medicine in Britain as a result of what General Medical Council ruled as "callous disregard" for the children involved in his study, and for patient selection which they found both biased and dishonest when they ruled his work unethical. They have called his conduct "dishonest and irresponsible."
Alison Singer, mother of an autistic child and president of the Autism Science Foundation, has said "That study did a lot of harm. People became afraid of vaccinations. This is the Wakefield legacy: this unscientifically grounded fear of vaccinations that result in children dying from vaccine-preventable diseases."
Labels: autism, autism study, brain injury, child safety, children and autism, children and brain damage, Lancet, vaccines
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