‘We’re looking at alternative medicine’: VA secretary reveals MAJOR changes

Veterans of the United States military are struggling, and they have been for a long time.

“Many of them are taking their own life,” U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins tells Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck on “The Glenn Beck Program.” “We’ve got to try something differently here, because we’re not moving the needle.”

“Since 2008, the suicide number has not changed in this country, and yet we’re spending $588 million or more every year to quote, ‘prevent it.’ But yet, in our services, we’re still treating it many times with medicine,” he continues.

However, as America starts on the path to making itself healthy again, the VA is beginning to look at alternative forms of medicine to help veterans who otherwise feel forgotten.

“We’re looking at alternative medicines. We’re looking at hyperbaric chambers, we’re looking at possible use of psychedelics along with counseling, anything we can to get them the help that they need so they don’t feel like the VA is not listening to them or they’re just getting handed a bottle of pills,” Collins explains.

Glenn believes this is a good direction to head in, especially considering how much energy is put into preparing veterans for war — but not what they’ll be facing when they come home.

“We train our people to be able to go in and pull the trigger when they have to, but is it fair to say we spend all that money doing that, but when they come home, we don’t spend enough money and enough time to try to deprogram that, to bring them back into our society,” Glenn says.

The Department of Defense is responsible for the transition of veterans back into society, which Collins has made clear needs reworking to the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

“This is why the secretary of defense and I are on an unprecedented level,” Collins tells Glenn. “So I just told Pete, I said, ‘We’ve got to fix this, we’ve got to start working on this. You may own it, but I’m getting blamed for it. And I’m not going to get blamed for something I can’t do.’”

“So right now, we’re working on getting that transition better,” he continues, adding, “So that we have a warm handoff, especially for those who are hurting already.”

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