THREAD
Outrage over Trump downplaying troop injuries
While there’s a brief recess in the impeachment trial, we can bring you the development that a leading New York expert in traumatic brain injuries has criticized Donald Trump for
Outrage over Trump downplaying troop injuries
While there’s a brief recess in the impeachment trial, we can bring you the development that a leading New York expert in traumatic brain injuries has criticized Donald Trump for
downplaying the injuries suffered by US military personnel in Iraq during Iran’s missile attacks on bases where they were stationed earlier this month.
Michael Kaplen, chair of the New York State Traumatic Brain Injury Services Coordinating Council and past president of the Brain Injury Association of New York State said that he was “shocked at the ignorant statement”
made by Trump at a press conference earlier today discussing traumatic brain injuries.Though Trump initially said no US troops were harmed in the 8 January attack on two Iraqi bases housing them, the Pentagon announced last week that 11 service members had been flown to
medical hospitals in Germany and Kuwait to be “treated for concussion symptoms from the blast”, my Middle East correspondent colleague Michael Safi reports.
Asked about the discrepancy on Wednesday, Trump said he learned about the injuries “numerous days later”.
“I heard that they had headaches and a couple of other things, but I would say and I can report it is not very serious,” he told a news conference in Davos, Switzerland.
“I heard that they had headaches and a couple of other things, but I would say and I can report it is not very serious,” he told a news conference in Davos, Switzerland.
“I don’t consider them very serious injuries relative to other injuries I have seen.”😳😡But Kaplen vigorously disagreed.
To equate traumatic brain injuries as just a headache is insulting and disrespectful to the 1000s of military service members suffering from the signature wound of the Iraq/Afghanistan conflict,” he said.He added that the condition, also known as TBI, is a life altering” injury
“It’s physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral consequences affect every aspect of an individual’s life,” he said. “A brain injury is only ‘mild’ if it is someone else’s brain. There is nothing “mild” about a mild brain injury.”
