Battlefield medical techniques may assist civilians

What a strange world we live in! The carnage continues in Iraq, yet this report from Reuters suggests that all civilians will gain from the medical knowledge and know-how gained in treating all those US military men and women injured in battle. Of course whatever medical treatment may be given to the military people overlooks any mental scarring they probably suffered - and totally ignores the poor Iraqis, mostly innocents victims, caught up in the War.

"Advances in treatment of horrific battlefield injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan that have saved the lives of many U.S. soldiers who would have died in previous wars may yield valuable techniques for treating civilian trauma victims, military doctors said.

Survival rates have improved to 90 percent in this war from about 75 percent during the Vietnam War, even though today's weapons are more lethal.

"People are surviving more mutilating injuries," Dr. Dana Covey, a Navy captain and chairman of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the San Diego Naval Medical Center, said in an interview.

According to the U.S. government, nearly 24,000 soldiers have been injured in the conflict so far. Critics argue that the estimate doubles when military accidents sustained away from combat, brain injuries that can turn up later or other diseases like pneumonia are included."

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