1 in 7 Iraq vets may have PTSD

I've been struggling with a nasty bug and I was starting to feel a bit sorry for myself, as men tend to do after being laid up for a few days. But then I saw this, and got a little bit of perspective:

In an extensive, months-long investigation, "The Real Cost of War," in Playboy magazine's March issue (on newsstands and at http://www.playboydigital.com/ Friday, February 9), journalist Mark Boal discovers American troops fighting in Iraq and Iraq war veterans are not receiving the mental health care they deserve, specifically when it comes to the diagnosis and treatment of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Boal spoke with numerous mental health experts, government sources and former military personnel who paint a disturbing picture about the government's handling of PTSD.

Boal found that the Department of Defense (DOD) diagnoses about 2,000 cases of PTSD a year. Yet according to a landmark study conducted by Army researchers and published in The New England Journal of Medicine, PTSD rates for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are running between 10 and 15 percent. That means one would expect to see the military diagnosing 13,000 to 20,000 cases of PTSD.

Former government officials agree there is a problem. "PTSD is being underdiagnosed on a fairly wholesale level," says Dr. Robert Roswell, a former undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

But why?