The Pentagon has issued new guidelines aimed at protecting personnel from shockwaves that can cause brain damage, including running cognitive tests on recruits before they begin their military service.
The new policy follows numerous studies and reports suggesting that some military personnel and veterans may be suffering from “hidden injuries” caused by exposure to the powerful shockwaves created by high-powered firearms or explosives. It also comes five months after a lab at Boston University found evidence of severe brain injuries in the Army reservist, Robert Card II, who shot 31 people in Lewiston last October, killing 18.
Starting later this year, all new recruits will undergo testing in order to get a baseline of their cognitive function. The Pentagon also plans to complete baseline cognitive testing for all current personnel in high-risk positions by October of next year, according to a memo released by the Defense Department.
The department is also updating its policies for “stand-off distances” or safety zones for others — including trainers — around weapons as well as additional protective equipment. The new guidelines apply to both full-time military personnel and members of the Reserves.
The additional measures are aimed at reducing the risk of damage from what’s known as “blast overpressure,” or BOP, in the brain.
“Brain health effects from BOP exposures are not yet fully understood, but adverse health and cognitive performance impacts have been reported from acute exposures to BOP above 4 pounds per square inch,” Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks wrote in a memo last Friday. “An interim BOP exposure safety guideline of 4 psi will be used as a threshold to require initiation of appropriate risk management actions until further research is complete, defining brain health impacts from BOP exposure. Weapons systems known to produce BOP exposures exceeding 4 psi include breaching charges, shoulder fired weapons, 0.50 caliber rifles/guns, and indirect fires.”
Earlier this year, Boston University’s chronic traumatic encephalopathy laboratory analyzed tissue from Card’s at the request of the Maine medical examiner’s office. The analysis did not find signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is often found in the brains of professional football players and other athletes who suffer repeated concussions.
But the study did find evidence of traumatic brain injury, including degeneration and inflammation in the nerve fibers that allow for communication in the brain.
“These findings align with our previous studies on the effects of blast injury in humans and experimental models,” Dr. Ann McKee, the lab’s director, said in a statement at the time. “While I cannot say with certainty that these pathological findings underlie Mr. Card’s behavioral changes in the last 10 months of life, based on our previous work, brain injury likely played a role in his symptoms.”
As an Army reservist, Card spent several weeks a year training cadets from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in the use of hand grenades and high-powered weapons. Family, friends and other reservists had become concerned about his sudden change in behavior in the months before the shooting, especially his extreme paranoia and anger toward people he accused of talking about him or spreading false rumors.
Card’s family members — many of whom tried to get him help in the months before the mass shooting and his eventual suicide — said at the time that the study results do not fully explain or excuse his behavior. But they said that by releasing the results of the brain analysis, they “hope to raise awareness of traumatic brain injury among military service members, and we encourage more research and support for military service members with traumatic brain injuries.”
Researchers at the Walter Reed military hospital in Maryland are also expected to study Card’s brain for signs of service-related injuries.
This article appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.
