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Sent: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 8:42 pm
Subject: VA Concealed --and Lied About-- Suicide Epidemic among Veterans
Apr 21, 2008 11:29 pm US/Eastern
http://wbztv.com/national/VA.suicide.risk.2.705269.html
VA Hid Suicide Risk, Internal E-Mails Show
NEW YORK (CBS News) ― The
Department of Veterans Affairs came under fire again Monday, this time in
California federal court where its facing a national lawsuit by veterans rights
groups accusing the agency of not doing enough to stem a looming mental health
crisis among veterans.
As part of the lawsuit, internal e-mails raise questions as to
whether top officials deliberately deceived the American public about the
number of veterans attempting and committing suicide. CBS News chief
investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports.
In San
Francisco federal court Monday, attorneys for veterans' rights groups accused
the VA of nothing less than a cover-up -- deliberately concealing the real risk
of suicide among veterans.
"The system is in crisis and unfortunately the
VA is in denial," said Veterans Rights Attorney Gordon Erspamer.
The
charges were backed by internal emails written by Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's head
of
Mental Health.
In the past, Katz has repeatedly insisted while the risk
of suicide among veterans is serious, it's not outside the norm.
"There
is no epidemic in suicide in VA," Katz told Keteyian in November.
But in
this e-mail to his top media advisor, written two months ago, Katz appears to
be
saying something very different, stating: "Our suicide prevention coordinators
are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among veterans we see in
our metical facilities."
Katz's email was written shortly after the VA
provided CBS News data showing there were only 790 attempted suicides in all
2007 - a fraction of Katz's estimate.
"This 12,000 attempted suicides per
year shows clearly, without a doubt, that there is an epidemic of suicide among
veterans," said Paul Sullivan of Veterans for Common Sense.
And it
appears that Katz went out of his way to conceal these numbers.
First, he
titled his e-mail: "Not for the CBS News Interview Request."
He opened it
with "Shh!" - as in keep it quiet - before ending with
"Is this something we
should (carefully) address … before someone stumbles on it?"
Today we
showed the e-mail to Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., who chairs the House Committee
on Veterans Affairs.
"This is disgraceful. This is a crime against our
nation, our nation's veterans," Filner told CBS News. "They do not want to come
to grips with the reality, with the truth."
And that's not
all.
Last November when CBS Newsexposed an epidemic of more than 6,200
suicides in 2005 among those who had served in the military, Katz attacked our
report.
"Their number is not, in fact, an accurate reflection of the
rate," he said last November.
But it turns out they were, as Katz
admitted in this e-mail, just three days later.
He wrote: there "are
about 18 suicides per day among America's 25 million veterans."
That
works out to about 6,570 per year, which Katz admits in the same e-mail, "is
supported by the CBS numbers."
In an e-mail late Monday to CBS News, Katz
wrote that the reason the numbers were not released was due to questions about
the consistency and reliability of the findings - and that there was no public
cover-up involved.
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