Laws urges servicemen to claim

Laws urges servicemen to claim

YEOVIL MP David Laws has urged veterans who were "experimented upon" at the Ministry of Defence's chemical laboratories at Porton Down to put in claims for any health problems they may have suffered.

From the 1940s to the 1980s servicemen were exposed to various chemical agents including sarin and mustard gas.

Veterans have stated that they were not informed about the nature of the chemical agents or the associated health risks. Many were simply told that they were assisting in finding a cure for the common cold.

Claims must be made to the Ministry of Defence by June 30, 2008.

And Mr Laws said: "The Ministry of Defence behaved abysmally towards some servicemen who took part in experiments at Porton Down, and it is only right that they should put in claims for compensation.

"I would urge all affected veterans to explore whether they have grounds for a claim, either by contacting the Volunteers Helpline or their solicitor."

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I do NOT understand why they HAVE to sign up by June 30,2008 to be able to receive veterans benefits, the system is totally different than here in the US, as veterans we can file a claim at anytime for compensation and service connection for medical problems we feel are related to things that happened to us during military service.

I do feel the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration have done very limitied and restricted outreach to our own veterans used at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland, Fort Detrick, Maryland, Dugway, Utah, Fort Richardson, Alaska (Cold Weather Training Area) plus dozens of smaller locations where single experiments were conducted kind of like a "drive by" there are the ones I know about the their names MKULTRA (infamous LSD experiments) MKSEARCH, NAOMI, Bluebird, Artichoke, SHAD/112, Tuskegee Syphlis experiments (they have been notified) the GAO released this report on February 28, 2008 to show that DOD has given up even trying to "find" these veterans CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE
DOD and VA Need to Improve Efforts to Identify and Notify Individuals Potentially Exposed during Chemical and Biological Tests

Our nation has failed these veterans and their families and especially the widows and children left behind by husbands and fathers that do NOT have a clue that they may eveb be entitled to compensation from the government if their loved ones death can be linked to the toxic substances they were exposed to either in the "tests" or by environmental agents (Edgewood Arsenal has 77 toxic substances in the drinking water and soil of the base) this base has been used as a chemical weapons research center since 1917, and they have been dumping or burying old wooden and metal barrles for nearly a century, they stopped the practices in the 70's.

This nation owes these veterans a lot more than they are doing for them, a little honesty would go a long ways these days, or even the "benefit of the doubt" on compensation claims, if National sucurity demands they not discuss the experiments or the tests, then award the claim based on the available data from the CDC in Atlanta. They know what the chemical cause in humans, they have the best research database in the world.

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