I take the occasion to use my blog to post my own thoughts occasionally, normally they are just tidbits to news articles, but this appointment and confirmation screams for me to speak out a little more, I have worked tirelessly as a advocate on behalf of veterans of the Cold War Experiments and not just the ones I was used in Edgewood Arsenal Chemical Weapons and Drugs but I work on behalf of the Nuclear test veterans, the men of SHAD/112 and the ones of the biological experiments at Fort Detrick known as Operation WhiteCoat.
I have another blog dedicated to just information about them Military experiment veterans 1941-now it is my opinion that all of these veterans have been used and are now being ignored by the government, DOD is sitting on evidence that could help these veterans or their widows, and the Veterans Administration does not do enough to help them, they produce many reports, books, and manuals but when it comes to the claims process, all of a sudden the VA gets amnesia, and a wall goes up.
In my personal case I received a letter from the Director of Compensation and Pension, then Renee Szybala in October 2005, the letter was sent to myself and a courtesy copy was sent to then Senate VA Chairman Larry Craig, it plainly stated that my records showed that I arrived at Edgewood Arsenal on 25 June 1974 and that during inprocessing I became ill and was returned to Fort Lewis, Washington on 10 July 1974.
There is one problem with her letter, whomever gave her that information lied to her, my records plainly show that yes I did arrive on 25 June 1974, that a note to Dr Fredrick Siddell showed that due to a "bad trip from LSD on 13/14 June 1974 caused by someone slipping the acid into my coke without my knowledge caused me to lose comprehension and act irrationally and I ended up in a lockdown cell at Madigan Army Hospital and that due to my sensitivity to psycho-chemicals (hallucenegencis) I would be a great subject for ALL medical tests and was classified as a Level A test subject. I was taken ill and was sent to Aberdeen Proving Grounds Hospital on 7 July and was returned to Edgewood Arsenal on 10 July. I was then used in various tests and had a lot of days off, I was in DC on the day President Nixon resigned on 9 August 1974, I could have hardly been sent back to Fort Lewis on 10 July if MS Szybala's letter was accurate, could I?
My record also shows that I our processed from Edgewood Arsenal on 22 August 1974 after I refused to participate in a mustard agent experiment. I left Edgewood about a week before the entire group was supposed to leave at the end of the 60 day TDY period.
What concerns me is not that the VA is willing to lie to me a veteran, but that they are willing to lie to a sitting United States Senator. If they are lying to Senators who will they not lie to?
I am not asking for DOD or the VA to disclose any classified information, I am asking that they recognize the research previously done on the long term health effects of low level exposures there are a few that show definitive links to many medical issues, like all bosy systems are affected by the exposures one is the National Institute of Health Toxicity of the Organophosphate Chemical Warfare Agents GA, GB, and VX: Implications for Public Protection and then there is this longer study based on German Soldiers that worked on the WW2 Chemical weapons program and were followed and treated by this Doctor Kalr Heinz Lohs who wrote this study Delayed Toxic Effects of Chemical Warfare Agents
from page 40:
A psychiatric delayed-effect syndrome was found as a result of systematic investigations
on former members of CW production and testing stations for the Wehrmacht. In
terms of frequency, two groups of symptoms can be distinguished–each consisting of
four separate symptoms or signs.
(1) The great majority of persons examined showed:
(a) persistently lowered vitality accompanied by marked diminution in drive;
(b) defective autonomic regulation leading to cephalalgia, gastrointestinal and
cardiovascular symptoms, and premature decline in libido and potency;
(c) intolerance symptoms (alcohol, nicotine, medicines);
(d) impression of premature aging.
(2) Further, one or more symptoms of the second group were found:
(a) depressive or subdepressive disorders of vital functions;
(b) cerebral vegetative (syncopal) attacks;
(c) slight or moderate amnestic and demential defects;
(d) slight organoneurological defects (predominantly microsymptoms and singular
signs of extrapyramidal character).
Our results are a contribution to the general question of psychopathological delayed
and permanent lesions caused by industrial poisoning. On the basis of our studies of
the etiologically different manifestations of toxication, the possibility of a relatively
uniform–though equally unspecific–cerebro-organic delayed effect syndrome is conceivable
I have the above medical problems 1 A defective autonomic regulation leading to cephalalgia, gastrointestinal and
cardiovascular symptoms, and premature decline in libido and potency;
1D, 2 A, B, C and D I might understand a coincidence if I had one or two of the above problems, but almost the entire list? I ask for the "benefit of the doubt" that the VA states it gives the veterans in areas where it is questionable if the medical problems are related to military service.
Since the DOD is sitting on the evidence that the veterans need to "prove without a doubt" links to the exposures and their current medical problems without disclosing classified data, then I and the other "test veterans" or "Medical volunteers" or "med vols" as they have been called at various times.
There is also the question of consent and informed consent, they are not the same, and it is without a doubt that the men used in the Cold War experiments did not have or give "informed consent". You need all of the facts to give "informed consent" and the Army was not forthcoming with all pertinent information. No one really knew the long term health effects and there was no money budgeted to do follow up health care on the veterans.
Now we have extremely high death and disability rates and it is ridiculous to assume that the experiments have nothing to do with this, the last health study paid for by DOD involving the Edgewood Arsenal volunteers was not to determine our helth problems, rather it was a way to tell Gulf War One veterans that they could not blame Sarin exposure for their current health problems, yet the study planly states they could not find enough of the test vets to make a determination yet they ignored the fact that 40% of the test vets were assumed deceased in FY2000, these were men aged 45-65. Of the 4022 men of the 7120 original volunteers, 54% of the 4022 survivors reported being disabled, yet the report does not explain why or the causes.
This report also completely ignored mustard agents which were also released at Kamisayah Iraq on March 19, 1991 when the Army destroyed the Iraqi ammunition dump. The ammo bunkers contained both Sarin and mustard filled missiles and Mustard agents, why only survey Sarin problems? Because DOD knows that mustard agents have many known expensive medical problems related to them, so they wrote the parameters for the March 2003 Sarin report to be very limited and not expose the known liabilities.
It is time for a VA Secretary that is willing to look at the evidence and make the known medical problems for these veterans, both the Cold War test veterans and the Gulf War One veterans Presumpive conditions and stop the BS of the DOD and the decades of useless studies that ignore already known medical prblems from people exposed to chemical weapons at low level exposures, as the above studies show.
I use to be able to write an e mail to Secretary Principiin 2002 and until he left, he wasavailable to veterans, since then Secretaries Nicholson and Peake have not made e mail addresses available to veterans and even when they went to VA hospitals they did their best to ignore veterans, and refused to speak with them why?
Secretary Shinseki can improve veterans feelings about the VA by just being accessible, he is not a god, he works for us America's veterans at the behest of the President of the United States, he is our chief advocate and I hope he shows this to us.Sphere: Related Content
