‘Not all injuries bleed’: prevent military’s silent epidemic

By Lydia Denworth Bloomberg News The toll from a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan is high. Almost 7,000 U.S. servicemembers have lost their lives, with more than 50,000 listed as wounded in action. Thanks to extensive wounded-warrior efforts, the nation is more aware of the dangers of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, and of the challenges and possibilities for amputees using prosthetic devices. But military men and women, in far greater numbers than the Pentagon numbers reflect, have sacrificed something else that is too seldom acknowledged: their hearing. As of last year, 414,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan had experienced service-related hearing loss, tinnitus (ringing in the ears) or both. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, veterans are 30 percent more likely to have severe hearing impairment than nonveterans; those who served after September 2001 are four times more likely. Read Full Article Here