STOP THE LIES! LISTEN TO GULF WAR VETS! (REMEMBER VIETNAM/AGENT ORANGE)
Listen to the truth. Testimony by Gulf War Vet Anthony HardieVA staff must be forced by law to seek out, foster, and find the best Gulf War Illness treatment research aimed at improving the health and lives of those whose health has been impacted by their wartime exposures. To that and related ends, Congress should develop and pass legislation that includes:
1) A provision making it a crime punishable by federal imprisonment for a government employee or contractor to attempt to manipulate an IOM report ordered by a government agency, or for an IOM employee or member to conspire with a government employee or contractor for the purpose of manipulating a report.
2) A provision directing VA to immediately contract with the IOM for a study to determine the prevalence of multiple sclerosis in Gulf War and later veterans, as directed by P.L. 110-389, Section 804, and to provide criminal penalties for failure to comply.
3) A provision directing VA to immediately terminate the IOM case definition contract and contract instead with the DoD Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) Gulf War Illness program to develop a case definition that is linked to Gulf War service and excludes mental conditions, and that follows customary case definition practices (including assembling a committee of experts in the illness, who can consult original data sources).
4) Provisions to defund mis-performing VA-OPH and DOD FHP functions.
5) A provision requiring VA to make the data obtained from its surveys available to qualified researchers subject to reasonable restrictions, similar to other agencies.
6) A provision requiring an addendum to the national Follow-Up Survey of Gulf War and Gulf War Era Veterans be sent immediately to the full survey cohort that asks the RAC’s recommended symptom inventory.
7) A provision requiring VA medical staff be trained in the new 2011 standards, which show Gulf War Illness is not psychiatric.
8) A provision mandating future VA Gulf War research be focused on developing effective treatments to improve the health and lives of ill Gulf War veterans.
9) A provision amending the statute requiring the reports (Section 707 of Public Law 102-585, as amended by section 104 of Public Law 105-368 and section 502 of Public Law 111-163), to provide that these annual VA research summary reports to Congress should include only those human studies in which 1990-1991 GW veterans represent at least a majority of the cases (vs. controls), and only those animal studies addressing exposures pertinent to the 1990-1991 Gulf War.
10) A provision requiring VA to contract with the DoD CDMRP Gulf War Illness research program, to conduct the review of best treatments for chronic multisymptom illness in Persian Gulf War veterans specified in Sec. 805(a) of PL 111-275, which VA staff manipulated into an inconsequential literature review.
11) Provisions providing adequate funding for Gulf War Illness research to identify effective treatments, including:
a) Provisions in the FY14 and subsequent DoD authorization and appropriations bills that allocate at least $25 million in annual DoD funding to the CDMRP Gulf War Illness research program;
b) Provisions in the FY14 and subsequent VA authorization and appropriations bills, requiring that VA spend at least $25 million annually on GWI research AND directing VA to contract with DoD CDMRP to conduct at least $20 million of VA-funded research as part of the CDMRP Gulf War Illness research program, as the CDMRP determines in its sole discretion.
c) Adequately funding research to identify treatments for Gulf War Illness is imperative now to make up for the twenty-two years lost while the federal government has obstructed this research.
12) Provisions in the FY14 and subsequent VA authorization and appropriations bills directing to expand the number, scope, reach, and funding for VA’s War Related Illness and Injury Study Centers (WRIISC’s).
13) A provision directing VA to implement the February 1, 2012 published RAC recommendations for the New Gulf War-Era Data Report.
14) A provision directing VA to implement the consensus Gulf War Illness Research Strategic Plan recommended by the RAC and NRAC, prior to unilateral VA staff revisions.
15) A provision mandating the continuation in perpetuity of the “Gulf War Review” and related quarterly veteran-oriented publications for veterans of other eras, which should include ongoing, clear updates free of “strategic health risk communication” minimization, on each newly concluding federally funded research study, and each benefits change relevant to the target population.
16) Provisions to correct injustices in the ratings for fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue.
17) Provisions strengthening the authority of the present Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses.
18) Provisions that repeal and replace portions of Presidential Review Directive-5/National Science and Technology Council (PRD-5/NSTC), and subsequent programs and governing regulations, including:
a) Provisions related to the use of investigational drugs and products on military service members.
b) Provisions related to health risk communication.
c) Provisions related to interagency applied research program on health risk communication for military members, veterans, and their families.
d) Provisions related to electronic communications with state and community public health departments to disseminate health risk information to veterans and their families through local public health infrastructure.
e) Provisions related to training local public health officials on the use of essential information technologies to disseminate and receive health risk information from veterans and their families.
f) Repeal and replace the Military and Veterans Health Coordinating Board (MVHCB).
19) A provision requiring the consistent federal government use of a term for “Gulf War Illness”.
B. Finally, as a group of 14 Gulf War veteran advocates has previously recommended, Congress should immediately develop and ensure the enactment of legislation to:
1) Reauthorize the expired provisions of the Gulf War Acts of 1998 [Persian Gulf War Veterans Act of 1998 (Title XVI, PL 105-277); Title I of the Veterans Programs Enhancement Act of 1998 (PL 105-368)]
2) Provisions that explicitly and directly grant exposure-based service-connection presumptions to known, suspected, or plausible Gulf War exposures including:
a. Sarin (GB)
b. Cyclosarin (GF)
c. Sulfur Mustard (HD)
d. Tabun (GA)
e. Lewisite (L)
f. Soman (GD)
g. VX nerve agent
h. Particulates (PM2.5: sub-2.5 micrometer in size, which are respirable and too small to be removed by the lungs’ natural exfoliating processes)
i. Pyridostigmine Bromide (PB) nerve agent protective pills (NAPP)
j. Anthrax vaccine
k. Multiple vaccinations
l. Depleted Uranium (DU)
m. Chemical pesticides
3) A provision that grants exposure-based service-connection presumptions for exposures in (2) above for all U.S. servicemembers who served anywhere in the Southwest Asia theater of operations (38 CFR 3.317) or were awarded the Southwest Asia Service Medal (32 CFR 578.27) for service between January 16, 1991 and the end of 1991. {Note: last oil well fire put out “by November” 1991}.
4) Require VA to contract with the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences to identify a comprehensive listing of health conditions and symptoms, including chronic and delayed onset, which are associated in humans or animals with exposure to acute, subacute, and low levels for each of the named exposures in (2) above and explicitly and directly require VA to include each of these conditions as presumptives for Gulf War veterans as described in (3) above. The review should be explicitly required to include data from a comprehensive review of the medical literature, and to also include:
a. 1993 IOM report on WWII veteran Mustard/Lewisite experimentation survivors;
b. Medical literature assessing long-term health effects of the cohort of Iranian mustard-exposed veterans of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War;
c. Classified and unclassified published and unpublished research by the federal government, federal contractors, and federally funded entities into acute and long- term health effects of even low levels of the above named exposures;
d. Animal studies.
5) Ensure the perpetuity, without expiration, of adding new presumptive conditions as described in (4) above as they become identified by medical research.
6) Expand the definition of the Southwest Asia theater of operations, for purposes of all VA benefits including healthcare, to include service qualifying for the award of the Southwest Asia Service Medal.
7) Establish permanent eligibility by law for Priority Group 6 VA healthcare for veterans who have been awarded the Southwest Asia Service Medal.
8) Require DOD to monitor, develop and retain accurate and detailed records regarding future troop hazardous exposures.
Stop the lies! Tell the truth! Compensate us! We are sick and are probably going to end up like the Vietnam Veterans. We'll finally get the truth/compensation when most of us are dead/gone.
-
Pepejoe commented
I apply for Amtrac nerve pills that I was given and I was deniad. Thanks for killing us one by one.