General Chiarelli: “We have a totally dysfunctional research system (for brain and mental health)”

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Gen­er­al Chiarelli’s Brain Cru­sade (Politi­co):

“Soon after Peter Chiarel­li became vice chief of staff of the Army in 2008, a sub­or­di­nate showed him a bar graph depict­ing the num­ber of sol­diers deter­mined by the Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Affairs to be at least 30 per­cent dis­abled. The tallest col­umn was on the far left.

Those are ampu­ta­tions, Chiarel­li thought. Or burns.

Then he exam­ined the graph more care­ful­ly. Burns were off to the right, account­ing for just 2 per­cent of dis­abled sol­diers. Ampu­ta­tions were in the mid­dle, at 10 per­cent. The big col­umn, which rep­re­sent­ed 36 per­cent of seri­ous­ly injured sol­diers, was labeled “PTSD or TBI.”

Chiarel­li was dumb­found­ed. PTSD, or post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der, is the catchall term to explain the anx­i­ety, anger, and dis­ori­en­ta­tion peo­ple can expe­ri­ence after expo­sure to phys­i­cal harm or the threat of it.

Chiarel­li moved back home to Seat­tle and assumed com­mand of One Mind for Research, a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion focused on advanc­ing research and treat­ment of men­tal ill­ness and brain injury…

…he found that instead of col­lab­o­rat­ing, the smartest physi­cians and sci­en­tists were com­pet­ing for the biggest share of a grow­ing pot of fed­er­al research dol­lars. He had naive­ly assumed that they would come togeth­er in the man­ner of the sci­en­tists who worked on the Man­hat­tan Project to solve what he believed was a pro­found nation­al chal­lenge. Instead, they seemed to be act­ing as rain­mak­ers for their uni­ver­si­ties. “They see data as their pow­er to get more mon­ey,” he said.

We have a total­ly dys­func­tion­al research sys­tem, Chiarel­li thought. The prob­lem isn’t mon­ey. The prob­lem is the doc­tors. He tossed aside his fund-rais­ing plan. “We’ve abdi­cat­ed to the researchers,” he said. “We’re afraid to chal­lenge them because they all went to school for twelve more years than we did.”

–> Learn more about the Apol­lo Brain Data Exchange Por­tal, as pre­sent­ed by Gen­er­al Chiarel­li at the 2013 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: