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$571 million in VA spending on suicide prevention isn’t working, vets groups say
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Task and Purpose
Posted: April 1st, 2025
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/veteran-suicide-prevention-a...
Veteran advocates are calling on recently confirmed Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins to investigate why the millions of dollars that the agency spends each year to prevent suicides has yet to significantly curtail the number of veterans who take their own lives. The VA received an estimated $571 million for suicide prevention efforts in Fiscal Year 2024 ... and it requested even more money for this fiscal year. In a press release, Grunt Style Foundation, a veteran advocacy group, pressed Collins to look at how the VA’s suicide prevention funds are being used. “We’re looking at 156,000 of our brothers and sisters that have taken their lives over the last 20 years,” [said] Tim Jensen, president of Grunt Style Foundation. “That is just frankly unacceptable.” The foundation has partnered with Veterans of Foreign Wars on looking at different ways to prevent veteran suicide, such as promoting alternative treatments for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other mental health issues that veterans face. Some of the topics that Grunt Style Foundation officials hope to address in front of Congress are issues that they have long advocated for, such as the overmedication of veterans by the VA and the lack of data around alternative therapies like hyperbaric oxygen therapy and veteran-centric community events like hiking for mental health treatment. Suicide was the second-leading cause of death for veterans younger than 45 in 2022. There was an average of 17.6 veteran suicide deaths per day in 2022.
Note: Task & Purpose is the leading online publication for the military and veterans community. Read about the tragic traumas and suicides connected to military drone operators. A recent Pentagon study concluded that US soldiers are nine times more likely to die by suicide than they are in combat.
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