http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/us/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-may-cause-erratic-driving.html?_r=1&ref=veteransaffairsdepartment

Unfortunately, veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan conjure up memories of their tours when they come home to the States and get behind the wheel. Driving can be dangerous under the best of circumstances, but consider what U.S. military veterans have to cope with.

Take the case outlined by The Times, that of Californian Susan Max, who served in Iraq. She didn’t want to park in any lot that didn’t have an easy escape route. At times she drive over the middle line in a road, The Times reported, because back on the war front there were sometimes bombs buried on the side of the road. 

She isn’t alone in these  experiences. Roadside bombs were a constant peril for the military who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that’s why doctors and psychologists are increasingly characterizing bad, dangerous driving as related to PTSD.

The problem is severe enough that insurance companies, the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs are all doing research on the relation of combat experience and aggressive driving. And they are trying to find ways to help veterans overcome their fears about driving.

In fact, Max is involved in a trial to develop techniques to allay the anxieties of vets while they’re behind the wheel. She drove around in a special car equipped with gear to measure her vital signs — such as her breathing and heart rate — along with a driving rehabilitation specialist, according to The Times.

When she started to get very nervous, he had her pull over and gave her time to relax and calm down.

Another issue regarding reckless driving and vets is that these former soldiers may be unconsciously applying the driving tactics they used in Iraq back here in the states, The Times reported, for example, that vets may run stop signs because they are used to speeding up when they come to intersections, where they were vulnerable to gunfire when in combat.    

s ittiw

http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/phillipsburg/index.ssf/2011/12/new_jersey_ski_helmet_law_take.html

The Garden State this spring, in April, became the first state to pass legislation that requires juvenile skiers and snowboarders to wear helmets, beginning this season. Those who are 17 and younger have to wear the safety gear.

The penalities for violation of the new law fall on the parents or guardians of the kids. They will have to pay a $25 fine the first time their child doesn’t wear a helmet while skiing or snowboarding, and $100 for each additional violation, according to The Express-Times. 

So right now ski resorts in areas such as Sussex County, N.J., and the stores that surround them, are loading up their inventories of helmets. One shop, Cannonball Winter Sports, has stocked up with 150 helmets, The Express-Times reported.

The ski resort Mountain Creek has quadrupled it stock of rentable helmets since 2009, to 2,000 from 500, according to The Express-Times. The resort rents the helmets at $10 a pop.

Is it worth the trouble? Some research says it is. A study by the University of Calgary found that a helmet cuts the chance of a head injury by about 35 percent for skiers and snowboarders. 

The new helmet law is well-intentioned, but appears difficult to enforce, according to The Express-Times. Ski resorts are not empowered to enforce the law, only local police and and New Jersey State troopers are. But when is the last time you saw any of them on a ski slope?  

The Los Angeles Times wrote that “the trifecta of alcohol abuse, cigarette smoking and a high body may be linked with alcohol-related brain injuries.”  

 http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-brain-20100907,0,7994320.story

That story was based on a study described in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-0277.2010.01305.x/abstract

 That study analyzed data from 54 male veterans, from 28 to 66 years old, who “were dependent on alcohol and were in treatment  and had not been drinking for about a month,” The Times wrote.

Researchers looked at several aspects of the men’s health, including their body mass index, or BMI. They also did brain magnetic resonance imaging on the men, as well as checking blood flow and the level of metabolites, byproducts of metabolism, in their brains.

The study found that those with a higher BMI often had low concentrations if N-acetylaspartate, a metabolite, in their central nervous systems. Lower levels of NAA can signal brain dysfunction, according to The Times.

“Excessive weight is not only a risk factor for cardiovascular disease or diabetes, but it is also a risk factor for deveoping dementia,” Stefan Gazdzinski, a researcher at Jagiellonian University in Poland and the lead on the study, said in a press release. “Knowing that individuals in develioped counries who overuse alcohol are usually heavier than individuals enjoying alcohol in moderation — because of the caloric intake — we wanted to investigate if excess weight accounts for some of the brain injury usually observed in alcoholics.”   

The New York Times did a Page One story Saturday on the Food and Drug Administration’s investigation of Columbia’s Kreitchman PET Center, which is on West 168th Street in Manhattan. This center over the years has received millions of dollars from the federal government and drug companies to conduct research on the effects of drugs and brain disorders.   

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/17/health/17columbia.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=FDA%20and%20Columbia%20University%20&st=cse

The center, according to The Times, is regarded as the leader in the use of positron emission tomography, or PET, for psychiatric research. 

 In a nutshell, the FDA found that the radiotracers used in PET, which the center has been producing for its own use, had impurity levels above and beyond what the agency permits.   

During exams radiotracers are injected into patients. The radiotracers build up in the parts of the body that are being studied — in the brain for psychiatric research – and release low-level radiation that researchers can detect. 

The FDA has standards for the radiation levels the purity and purity levels of radiotracers, but the ones that Columbia’s center was injecting into patients didn’t meet those standards.

And the purity levels of radiotracers are particularly important and sensitive in psychiatric research, because the drug can remain active in the brain and change a patient’s moods and behavior. That’s a particularly risky proposition when you’re dealing with people with depression and mental illness.

 The FDA has conducted several investigations of the Kreitchman Center, and repeatedly found that the facility was in violation of federal guidelines over a four-year span, according to The Times. In its most recent probe, which was in January, the FDA cited the center for six types of violations.

 In that investigation, the FDA said that since 2007 at least 10 batches of drugs with high levels of impurities that permitted had been injected into human subjects, The Times said. And in at least four cases, the impurity levels were twice what are permitted.

In the face of  those citations regarding its PET center, Columbia halted research as the facility.

Why would a respected research center inject their subjects with impure drugs? Ex-workers at the center explained that the lab “was under such pressure to produce studies that it papered over and hid impurities in drugs to stretch its resources and went ahead with business as usual despite FDA warnings,” The Times reported.

Columbia conducted its own  audit of its PET center, and decided that the FDA charges had enough substance to warrant an internal investigation. And the university added that so far, it hasn’t found any evidende that patients were harmed.

One would have thought that Dr. Richard Ellenbogen and Dr. Hunt Batjer would have been fully prepared for a grilling by the House Judiciary Committee at the forum in Manhattan. Instead, they were skewered by both Congressmen Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., and Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y. 

Sanchez accused the two co-chairmen of sounding “like the same old NFL,” according to The New York Times Tuesday. And that remark wasn’t meant as a compliment.  

 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/sports/football/25concussion.html?ref=sports

 And Weiner was obviously annoyed when he threw out a question to the panel that was testifying, asking if someone could talk about helmet technology. But no one, not even Ellenbogen or Batjer, volunteered a word. Needless to say, that didn’t go over big with Weiner.

Ellenbogen and Batjer are meant to represent the NFL’s fresh start, and newly aggressive tack, in terms of dealing with player concussions. In March they replaced Dr. Ira Casson and Dr. David Viano on what the NFL is now calling its Head, Neck and Spine Committee. 

Casson and Viano stepped down from the committee last November, just a month after congressional hearings blasted the alleged inaccuracy  of research that the league had commissioned, as well as the NFL’s overall concussion policy.

At Monday’s hearing, according to the Associated Press, Weiner was not happy to learn that Casson and Viano were still involved in league research on helmets.

“Two so discredited people were part of these studies,” Weiner said,  his voice rising, said AP. “You have years of an infected system that needs to be cleaned up. The idea is to prevent injuries in the first place and there is a blind spot if you are not involved with helmets.” http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jKImpZ7t9A0jLJ6fQdP5cH2GRM2gD9FTFI981

 During his testimony, Ellenbogen noted that NFL Commissoner Roger Goodell last week sent letters to 44 governors askng them to pass bills based on Washington State’s so-called Lystedt laws in their states. The concussion-protection law is named after a high school football player who went back to the field after sustaining a concussion, and then developed life-threatening problems.

During Monday’s session Sánchez remained concerned about retired players, with studies finding that they are  reporting dementia and other cognitive disease at a greater rate than the national population. She didn’t understand why the NFL’s concussion committee member could use data collected by Casson that others had  discredited

 Ellenbogen maintained that the league is committed to studying the cognitive woes of retired players and has a new NFL injury database.

As The Times noted, Monday’s testimony by Tammy Plevretes seemed to have a strong impact on Weiner. Plevretes’s son  Preston was badly injured while playing football for La Salle University in 2005. The Plevretes family alleged that the school didn’t have a proper policy for dealing with concussions, and the family eventually settled a lawsuit against La Salle last fall for $7.5 million, according to The Times.

Preston, who was in the audience during Monday’s hearing, suffered permanent brain injuries and now can barely talk  or walk.

“This is not a broken arm or a broken leg,” The Times quoted Tammy Plevretes, in tears, saying at the hearing. “This is a broken life.”

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/lifestyle/stories.nsf/healthfitness/story/EB4F233FBE11B772862576E9006F382D?OpenDocument

The proposed law mandates that athletes can only return to play after they are examined by a licensed medical professional and then give written permission to come back.

The concussion bill before the Missouri House is being sponsored by Rep. Don Calloway, although some of his fellow lawmakers don’t think his proposal goes far enough.

Rep. James Morris told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he wants the final law to be stricter. He is especially concerned about the issue because Morris witnessed his own son being knocked unconscious during a football practice. Morris insisted that his son be taken to the hospital.

More than 20 states are considering legislation to set stricter rules to bench athletes when they sustain head injuries. Several of those bills, including Missouri’s, are similar to a Washington law that was passed after Zachary Lystedt, 13, sustained traumatic brain injury at a junior high school game.

Missouri’s high school athletic organization is also preparing to take steps regarding head injuries, by instituting new rules regarding concussions.

According to the Dispatch, high school athletes who have symptoms of concussions will not be allowed to return to play the same day they are hurt, even if they don’t lose consciousness.

Nowinski, co-founder of the Boston University School of Medicine Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, is collecting the brains of athletes. He is gathering physical proof for his belief that permanent brain damage is pervasive among athletes who suffer concussions.

So Nowinksi has taken on what some might consider the unenviable task of calling up the survivors of athletes who have died within 48 hours of their deaths to request their brains. He also solicits athletes who are now alive, getting them to agreed to donate their brains to his research. So far 270 have signed up.

Nowinski himself is a colorful character, with a personal stake in his research. Harvard-educated, Nowinski also wrestled for World Wrestling Entertainment. He’s an athlete who sustained two concussions while playing college football and four concussions as a pro wrestler, and he fears their permanent impact on his brain.

His brain bank now has the brains of 23 athletes. Why would a relative give up their loved one’s brain for Nowinski’s research? The decision was easy for Caroline Creekmur, the widow of NFL Hall of Famer Lou Creekmur. During his career his sustained 16 concussions, and after he retired he would break into rages and lose his memory.

Caroline tells Business Week/Bloomberg, “My husband died a hard death, and I did not know what was wrong. I wanted to know why this happened.”

This is really important stuff. It is from autopsy that we have learned the overwhelming majority of what we know about neuropathology. What is needed is to broaden this bank to include far more of those who have suffered concussions, particularly in accidents. While they never get the publicity that athlete’s concussions get, they affect far more people, far more profoundly. Through the study of the 40 year old accident victims brain, that we might unravel the deep mystery of why some people have such devastating results from TBI.

The story got significant play in the state’s primary newspaper, The Star-Ledger of Newark, which ran it on Page One. http://blog.nj.com/hssportsextra/2010/03/njsiaa_sets_guidelines_for_dea.html

If the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) approves the new measures, there would be a standard set of regulations to treat concussions for athletes in every single sport, according to The Ledger.

One of the new regulations is that players who sustain a concussion or head injury must show no symptoms or problems for a week before they can play again.

They must also do a six-step regimen where they gradually do aerobic exercise and get the OK of a medical professional to play again.

Trainers, student athletes and coaches will receive annual training on concussions, including their symptoms.

Those are some, but not all, of the requirements under the new NJSIAA guidelines. That body oversees athletic programs at 434 high schools in the Garden State.

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/state/nj-ignores-law-banning-cell-phone-use-while-driving

During the same time span since 2008, there were 3,129 accident in which a driver was using a hands-free device, with 1,495 injuries and six deaths.

Those were some of the statistics supplied this week by the N.J. Division of Highway Traffic Safety.

Since the law prohibiting Garden State drivers from using hand-held cellphones went into effect 23 months ago, police have issued 224,725 citations for its violation. That constitutes just 4 percent of almost 5.4 million overall moving violations, not including DUI offenses, that took place in the same period.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/03/nj_police_issued_225k_citation.html

New Jersey’s ban on cell phones went into effect March 1, 2008. But some might question its impact after seeing the results of a poll conducted last year by Fairleigh Dickinson University and the state highway traffic division. That survey found that the number of drivers who claim they have sent text messages while they were driving rose 40 percent between 2008 and 2009, according to NewJerseyNewsroom.com.

But talking on cellphones while driving has dropped, with 80 percent maintaining that in 2009 they never or rarely did it, an increase from 71 percent in 2007.

The penalty for violating New Jersey’s cellphone law is a $100 fine, along with court costs and fees.

New Jersey will be putting up signs, especially on highways that enter the state, warning drivers that it’s illegal to use a hand-held cellphone while you’re driving in thr Garden State.

Earlier this week, on Thursday, there was a bill before the New Jersey Assembly that would make police officers to note whether a driver was distracted before having an accident.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/03/nj_may_ask_police_to_link_cras.html

When doing an accident report, police would have to check off a box that would say what the distraction was. The choices include using a cellphone, hair grooming, changing the radio, eating, using a FAX machine interacting with a pet.