The Walter Reed Fracas

By now if you read any MilBloggers, you probably have heard about the "outpatient mess" at Walter Reed and all of the subsequent blame being shifted around because of it.

Blogger and Walter Reed frequent flyer CPT. Chuck Ziegenfuss has some interesting things to add to the debate:

Look at the charities who help the wounded--whether flying them or their families to hospitals, making Velcro clothes so they can dress themselves, helping to take care of the soldier's kids, getting them a drastically discounted rental vehicle so they can get from hospital to hotel and back, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam. Every single gap that a charity had to fill equates to a leadership failure--a failure to recognize the unique needs of the soldiers and their families. Please don't misconstrue this as my dislike of charities, the exact opposite is true, they are lifesavers. But when a wounded soldier has to rely on the sympathy and charity of others to simply live day to day, to meet his most basic needs, then the Army, and the government as a whole, has failed them.

As a leader in the Army, who has gone through this system, I SHOULDER PART OF THE BLAME FOR NOT TRYING TO FIX THE PROBLEM. I left my brothers behind, and got myself home. After recovery, I moved on to other things, even though the complaints made today are the same as they were 2 years ago. Families are in the dark, medhold is a ridiculous and poor taste joke and apparent cover-your-ass move by the chain of command. I am an officer. I am a leader. By allowing this to happen, and continue to happen, I am at fault for not getting it fixed earlier or fixing it myself.

Other people who share the blame: The soldiers and family members who didn't use normal channels, like the Inspector General, the Chain of Command, or even letters to congressmen to fix the problem. They ran to the press, and embarrassed the Army. The chain of command, and more to the point, the NCO support channel and "chain of concern." Every Sergeant from the newly-minted Corporal to the Command Sergeant Major is tasked with looking out for the health, safety, and welfare of the soldier, and advising the command on the soldier's needs. As a matter of fact the ONLY role of a Command Sergeant Major is to advise the commander on enlisted matters. Clearly, the ignorance of these issues by the chain of command indicated an extreme dereliction of duty on the part of the Non Commissioned Officer (Hey CSM: maybe if you'd spent more time with the soldiers at the Mologne house, Fisher house, and other places the wounded congregate, instead of chasing me another 25 feet up the hill to the designated smoking area; or making sure that there were plenty of signs in the right areas to tell people they couldn't smoke there.)

Maybe you, hospital commander, and all of your high-ranking staff could move your designated parking spots to the other side of post, forcing yourselves to walk up and down the hill to the Mologne house every day, through winter's ice and snow, spring's rain, and summer's heat, just like the men on prosthetic legs and wheelchairs do. (But hey, thanks bunches for the chain link handrail, it sure does come in handy when trying to pull yourself up the hill.

As a company commander, I made time to walk through my billets, and even in combat I made soldier's living conditions a priority. I agree with Dr. Harvey. The command is to blame for this. I will accept the challenge of fixing it, assuming that I receive the commensurate promotion and pay raise. It'll be fixed in 6-12 months--but I need the authority to hire and fire anyone working on Walter Reed, military and civilian, to move people and organizations as I deem necessary, and the authority top bring in other officers and soldiers who I know will get the job done. (not that it'll happen, but hey, I'd take the job in a heartbeat.

As for getting that job done, Chuck's not alone.  There are plenty of folks who would be more than happy to pitch in.  Myself included.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 09:38 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Gardasil: doesn't protect against HPV or cancer?

Turns out one of the main reasons that Merck is backing off on the Gardasil lobby is that the vaccinations as recommended may be pointless:

Lawmakers looking to force preteen girls to take Gardasil, a new vaccine against a virus that causes cervical cancer, are targeting the wrong age group, cancer data shows.

Middle-school girls inoculated with the breakthrough vaccine will be no older than 18 when they pass Gardasil’s five-year window of proven effectiveness — more than a decade before the typical cancer patient contracts the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV). emphasis mine --Ed.

Gardasil is currently only FDA approved for girls and women age 12-26, and is therefore not KNOWN to be effective at the age when the majority of HPV  infections occur and HPV-related cancers are diagnosed for ANY woman receiving the vaccine, under current guidelines.

This is why I (and MANY medical professionals) am against mandating this vaccine.  All of this bandwagon science in the name of "the children" completely jumped the gun on this one.  If there is no evidence that the vaccine will even protect these girls from this virus or subsequent cervical cancer at the age when many of them will contract it, then why should we subject our daughters to the potential hazards and side effects of the injections?

Nurse and Cotillion sister Raven has a lot more in her very thoughtful post:

Far be it for me to say, but with the known side effects being reported so far, from doctors who have given the shots to young girls, I question itÂ’s worth. Reports of seizures, blindness, episodes of passing out, tremors, memory problems, vision loss-are coming in at an alarming rate. Are these true side effects of the vaccine, or just the bad luck of coincidence for the young ladies? We donÂ’t know, yet. It takes many years of data collection and analysis to come up with an honest, medically sound answer.

One thing we do know: Condoms prevent the spread of ALL forms of HPV. Period. As well as other viral infections and disease. TheyÂ’re much cheaper and donÂ’t cause the serious side effects drugs cause. Why are little girls being mandated to get vaccinations that cause them harm, that do not guarantee freedom from the very disease the vaccine is said to protect against when we could mandate condom use for boys? DonÂ’t answer that because I know itÂ’s a stupid question. But for the love of GAWD peopleÂ…do we see a problem here?

Read the whole thing!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 04:13 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Super Bowl aftermath

Ugh.

Happy for the Colts, but man what a crappy game. The score was close for a while, but the Colts ran up and down the field on the Bears.

And the commercials pretty much sucked. 24 hours out here's what I remember: Carlos Mencia was funny. I liked the Dalmation ad. And the two animated Coke Ads were pretty sweet.

In the "funny once, but I don't care if I ever see them again" category: Bud Light: No Fist Bump, Sprint's Connectile Dysfunction, and the Garmin Mapasaurus.

DH liked the Tundra ad with the cliff stop. A lot.

In the "vomitaceous" category we have Dave and Oprah in "Honey", Dave and Dr. Phil (all), that Blockbuster ad with the poor little mouse, and especially the Snickers commercial.

Boy that was a BRIGHT idea, Snickers people.  Sell a SNACK FOOD with a commercial that makes people barf. BRILLIANT.

And what kind of rock is this guy under?

No commercial that appeared last night during Super Bowl XLI directly addressed Iraq, unlike a patriotic spot for Budweiser beer that ran during the game two years ago. But the ongoing war seemed to linger just below the surface of many of this year's commercials.

More than a dozen spots celebrated violence in an exaggerated, cartoonlike vein that was intended to be humorous, but often came across as cruel or callous.
...
It was as if Madison Avenue were channeling Doc in "West Side Story," the gentle owner of the candy store in the neighborhood that the two street gangs, the Jets and Sharks, fight over. "Why do you kids live like there's a war on?" Doc asks plaintively. (Well, Doc, this time, there is.)

Give me a freaking break. This is reaching so far that somebody's gonna get hurt when Gumby-boy snaps back into reality. About the most redeeming thing related to this article is that if you click over, several commercials are linked on the NY Times page. Including KFed's spot for Nationwide Insurance, which I intentionally hadn't seen, and which I laughed at.

In case you haven't seen them, most of the commercials can be found at CBS SportsLine.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 10:29 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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