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The legislation increases the amount of funding for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center to $19-million dollars, which is $12-million more than requested by the Administration in the Department of Defense Fiscal ’07 Appropriations bill.
The increased funding will be used by the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center – which is headquartered at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and coordinates efforts at 10 facilities in several other states, including Virginia, California, Texas, Florida, Minnesota and North Carolina. These centers provide state-of-art, innovative medical care including physical rehabilitation and speech therapy.
According to the Office of the Surgeon General of the Army, 64 percent of soldiers recently wounded in Operation Iraqi Freedom have sustained "blast injury," which is the leading cause of traumatic brain injuries for active duty military personnel in war zones.