Epoch Times - What’s Behind the Rise in Veteran Suicides? | Derek Blumke
Aired: 2025-08-07
Duration: 01:20


=== Failed Informed Consent (01:20) ===

[00:00:00]  As an example, Hunter Whitley is a 23-year-old former Marine.
[00:00:06]  He was at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan during the withdrawal.
[00:00:09]  He'd suffered a minor TBI during the bombing there.
[00:00:13]  Wound up at the University of Alabama, was a student veteran going to school full-time there, and then is also volunteering at the mental health clinic on campus, a VA mental health clinic on campus.
[00:00:24]  The program that I built was focused on helping veterans on college campuses access VA mental health care.
[00:00:31]  And so Hunter took his own life about two and a half years ago.
[00:00:37]  And the program that I built is basically what became of that clinic, which was to help get vets into care.
[00:00:44]  And Hunter was prescribed an antidepressant, mirtazepine, along with hydroxazine.
[00:00:49]  And a month and a half later, he was dead.
[00:00:52]  And the VA did an investigation into his death and found that they failed to provide informed consent, failed to provide safe medication management.
[00:01:01]  My friend Brian and Kim Brumfield, we were with last night, along with Shannon, they lost their son Connor, 22 years old.
[00:01:09]  Both of these young men had fit cleanly within the box warning by the FDA.
[00:01:17]  But in both cases, it seems neither had been provided informed consent.