This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 21, 2011 - WASHINGTON - Probing the Pentagon's rationale in refusing to cover certain treatments for traumatic brain injuries, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., has opened a subcommittee investigation into contracts related to that policy.
In aletter sent this week to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the senator -- who chairs the Contracting Oversight subcommittee -- demanded that the Pentagon provide the panel with contracts, reports and reviews that may have influenced its TRICARE health-care program for service members not to cover a treatment called "cognitive rehabilitation therapy."
In a statement Friday, McCaskill said that recent reports by National Public Radio and ProPublica have called into question the methodology and scientific validity of a study, commissioned by TRICARE, that concluded there was insufficient evidence supporting cognitive rehabilitation therapy as an effective treatment.
"If true, these reports raise significant questions regarding the department's award and management of the contract . . . and may have profound implications for hundreds of thousands of injured service members and their families," McCaskill wrote to Gates.
Traumatic brain injuries -- often suffered when a soldier is exposed to bomb blasts -- have become a signature injury of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Pentagon has estimated that about 115,000 service members have sustained "mild" traumatic brain injuries since 2002, and NPR suggested that between 5,750 and 60,000 troops are still affected by such injuries, including many who can no longer "think straight."
Cognitive rehabilitation therapy, which is covered by some insurance companies but not by others, is an expensive and time-consuming treatment during which therapists help patients relearn simple tasks such as cooking, counting or remembering basic directions. While some studies have questioned the therapy's effectiveness, NPR reported that a Pentagon-assembled panel of 50 brain specialists concluded that cognitive therapy was an effective treatment that would help many brain-damaged troops.