Reporting on the war in Iraq often boils down to numbers... number of attacks, number of troops injured, or killed. And if you look closer at the figures, you'll see at least one bit of good news: The number of US service members who survive serious injuries in Iraq is higher than in any other U.S. conflict. That means more troops make it out of Iraq alive. It also means that they survive long enough to develop all sorts of serious, and rare, side-effects... complications that doctors don't always know how to treat. In May of 2006, CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier went from reporter to newsmaker. A 500-pound car bomb went off as the U.S. Army patrol she was riding with drove down a Baghdad street. She's almost fully recovered now, and in an op-ed in the Washington Post yesterday she stresses that victims of war injuries need more funding for research... to treat their injuries, and to study these side-effects. She'll join us today to talk about what happened to her, and what she's trying to do to help.
Blog of the Nation
This program got me off my chair because I had a hard time believing what I heard. It showed vividly what some of theobstacles the medical profession is up against with this war's injuries.
A good part of this (great) piece was hearing about how there are big holes in various aspects of soldiers' post-injury care -- and how those holes come to light only through media attention, at which point they get addressed. I think it's telling that rather than spend much time on this topic, Talk of the Nation had to cut away to the next segment which was on "The TV shows America watches". Does anyone else see the irony here?
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