Editorial: History is in the making
Dell Corner has a great sense of history.
Corner, a World War II vet, pulled off an excursion to the 2004 dedication of the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., for five busloads of northern Michigan veterans. Last year, 400 people attended an all-northern Michigan reunion of WWII vets he created here in Traverse City.
Now, he's ready to make history again -- a first-in-the-nation statewide reunion of WWII veterans from every branch of the service, May 31 to June 1 in a Traverse City location still to be decided.
Corner has appropriately billed the gathering as the "last lasting tribute." With WWII vets mostly in their 80s or older, time matters.
Contributions to Northern Michigan World War II Veterans organization can be sent to the Traverse City State Bank, 310 West Front St., Traverse City, MI, 49684. Call Corner at (231) 947-8438.
WW2 Reunion for all Michigan Veterans
Friday, March 28, 2008
Editorial: History is in the making
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Missing files stretch VA appeals process
Missing files stretch VA appeals process
By RICK MAZE
March 27, 2008
Chauncey Robinson spent six months in the Army — and has spent the past 16 years in a battle for veterans’ disability benefits.
It hardly helps the Albany, N.Y., native that the Veterans Affairs Department has lost all his personnel and medical files.
“I don’t even know where my VA files are today,” Robinson said. “In New York, they say the files are in Washington, D.C. In D.C., they say the files are in New York. I don’t think the VA knows where they are, which means I may have to reconstruct my claim all over again.”
Robinson, 47, said he has files stored in boxes and suitcases throughout his house and with relatives, and that he could reconstruct his personnel and medical records if forced to do so.
“This is not something I want to do, or think I should do, but it might be something I have to do,” he said.
Many veterans who have filed claims with VA have had problems with missing files. Veterans groups and even VA have long talked about the need to establish electronic records and an electronic claims process that would make it easier to track progress of claims and provide instant access to files.
No common system
But progress on this front has been complicated by VA’s problems with trying to make its computer systems compatible or create a new common system.
Robinson, who never rose above the rank of private, served in the Army in 1992, from January to July, according to VA records.
Within months of his discharge, he filed a disability claim for what he said was service-related hypertension related to the incident that seems to have been the beginning of the end of his brief military career — being tossed out of bed by a drill sergeant while assigned to Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., where he completed basic training and was attending advanced training to be a heavy machine mechanic.
His initial disability claim was rejected, but Robinson has continued to appeal in a process made longer and more difficult by the fact that his files were lost.
A 2005 ruling by the Board of Veterans Appeals noted the incomplete files, suggesting that they may have gone astray in VA or in the legal system but stating that reconstructing the medical and personnel records was necessary so Robinson could get a fair hearing.
Robinson said he started receiving veterans’ disability compensation in 1995 after being rated as 100 percent disabled with post-traumatic stress disorder.
He’s getting about $2,600 a month in tax-free benefits but continues to appeal the initial denial for hypertension and cardiovascular disease.
“This could be over if the VA didn’t keep losing my records,” Robinson said. “It has happened so often that it is hard for me to believe it isn’t being done intentionally.”
VA officials were unable to comment on Robinson’s case, other than to say his appeal is still under consideration under an order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims to reconstruct missing records.
Lawmakers urge progress
In a Feb. 28 letter that laid out their views on the 2009 veterans’ budget, Democrats on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee said they recognize that building a centralized information technology system takes time. But they said it would be nice to see some progress.
Although it is unlikely to help Robinson, VA is working on an electronic records system called Virtual VA that involves scanning paper files into the computer system.
But the House committee report said that effort “does not begin to realize the advantages that a true electronics benefits system can yield to veterans seeking benefits.”
A symposium held in 2006 to look at issues facing Iraq and Afghanistan veterans included a discussion about lost paperwork.
The final report of the National Symposium on the Needs of Young Veterans, which was sponsored by AmVets, said VA practices for handling paperwork should be audited to determine where documents are most likely to go astray.
The report also recommended that managers be held accountable for lost paperwork.
“The best protocol is worthless if the organization’s staff does not comply with it, and management tolerates the noncompliance,” the report says.
Email this story to a friend Missing records make VA claims hard to process
Shalala: Veterans benefits system is broken
Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars won't get proper health care until the U.S. government updates and simplifies the bureaucracy strangling benefits and outpatient care.
This is the conclusion of Donna Shalala, former secretary of the U.S. Department Health and Human Services during the Clinton administration. President George W. Bush commissioned Shalala, Bob Dole and several other experts to evaluate the care of wounded veterans after the Washington Post exposed dire conditions at Walter Reed Hospital: deteriorating, rat- and roach-infested housing for family members, neglectful staff, and a mind-numbing bureaucracy. Shalala spoke about their findings to an auditorium packed with students and military personnel Monday, March 10, at N.C. State University.
While deployed, U.S. soldiers have access to world-class health care. But as soon as they leave the hospital bed, Shalala said, "it falls apart ... in the coordination of outpatient care."
This new generation of veterans has different medical needs, yet the dated, convoluted veterans health care system fails many of them. More survivors are returning home with brain injuries and long-term mental health issues, conditions that tend to be more severe and complex. These patients suffer most as they and their families struggle to find continuity among lost records, shuffling caseworkers and miscommunication typical of the military health care system.
"We need a sensible way of transferring records," Shalala said. Medical records are often lost or simply unobtainable because the three agencies that handle military health care have computer systems that are incompatible with one other.
The complexity likely arose from a tendency to respond to problems by adding more programs or rules, effectively creating new problems in order to fix old ones. Shalala and the commission recommended streamlining and stabilizing the system. This includes assigning each veteran a civilian coordinator, who could handle the long-term cases, instead of a military coordinator, who might be deployed at any moment. The coordinator should also have the power to cut through inter-agency red tape.
Updating the benefits and computer systems are next on the list. While many soldiers join the military to help pay for college, many don't complete their education. "The drop-out rates for educational benefits looks like inner-city schools," Shalala said. Many veterans are told they must go to community college, where tuition is cheaper, but they are also eligible to attend four-year universities. They need more money and incentive to finish their schooling, Shalala said, as well as a centralized Web site to clearly explain how to apply and use benefits.
Only about 10 percent of these suggested changes would go before Congress; most of them would need presidential approval. Shalala estimates that about half of the suggestions have already been implemented and the other half are in the works.
However, she said that veterans benefits aren't the president's top priority—and never will be without public pressure. "All of us have a stake in the quality of health care we provide for the military," she said.
Shalala: Veterans benefits system is broken
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Yes the VA system is broken, but some of the suggestions that Sec Shalala and Senator Dole made are not reasonable and create a two tier system where older vets get less benefits than newer disabled veterans and create re-evaluations that will create tremendous stress on mentally ill veterans suffering from PTSD by requiring them to be re-evaluated every three years, a check of the medical treatment records should indicate the necessity for a reevaluation not just an arbitrary date, if veterans quit going to doctors appointments or group therapy then yes call them in, but if they are going in and continuing treatment causing the angst of a formal C&P re-evaluation is not necessary and will end up causing many suicides, as did the proposed re-evalution three years ago by the VA and was cancelled after a few vets did committ suicide and 2100 files were reviewed and the errors were not the veterans fault nor fraud but mishandling of the file by the VA itself.
Rob Miller opens his bid for Congress
Rob Miller Files for US Congress
March 24, 2008 | Filed Under Press Releases, The Shot
Written by The Shot
Iraq War Combat Veteran: “It is time for Washington to truly support the troops”
Columbia, SC – Today, former Marine Captain and Iraq War Veteran Rob Miller of Beaufort filed to run as a Democratic Candidate for the United States Congress in the Second Congressional District, currently held by Congressman Joe Wilson.
A native of South Carolina, Miller served twice in Iraq, including the Battle of Fallujah in 2004. After 13 years, Miller completed his service with the Marine Corps in February of this year. Miller, 33, has been married to his wife Shane for 11 years and the couple has one child.
Miller says he began to consider a run for Congress during his deployment in Iraq. “Just like so many others, I proudly served my county in Iraq and I’d do it again without hesitation if called on. Many politicians in Washington love to talk about how they support the troops, but all too often their actions do not match up with their rhetoric,” Miller said.
“It’s one to thing to wave the American Flag when the cameras are running but it’s another thing to actually support the troops. America’s men and women in Iraq have been forced to buy their own tactical gear and have been required to travel in ‘armed’ vehicles with armor duct taped to the doors because politicians like Joe Wilson wouldn’t support them when it mattered most,” Miller said. “Congressman Wilson is quick to introduce resolutions supporting the troops, but did nothing when our wounded veterans couldn’t get the basic care they needed at Walter Reed.”
If elected Miller says he will push for stronger ethics laws for members of Congress. “For years we had Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff running the show, getting rich off the American people. We need to make sure that something like that never happens again. The reforms implemented over the past couple of years just don’t go far enough. Members of Congress should listen to the voters, not the lobbyists. Joe Wilson isn’t going to push for stronger ethics laws, but I will,” Miller said.
Miller said that other goals in Congress would include reducing the national deficit by cutting government spending and repealing the Bush tax give-a-ways to the super wealthy. “We can’t expect our economy to be strong and our children’s future to be secure if we continue the Joe Wilson policies of borrow, spend and mortgage,” Miller said.
Rob Miller opens his bid for Congress
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Chronic Pain Web sites
Chronic Pain Web sites
Quality of Chronic Pain Websites
Based on Quality Website Index (QWI) scores, clinicians can recommend chronic pain websites to provide their patients with accurate and pertinent information.
Iraq contractor fights suit over toxic exposure
Iraq contractor fights suit over toxic exposure
WASHINGTON - When the American team arrived in Iraq in the summer of 2003 to repair the Qarmat Ali water injection plant, supervisors told them the orange, sand-like substance strewn around the looted facility was just a "mild irritant," workers recall.
Edward Blacke, a safety representative on the project, said he tried to raise safety concerns but was told not to get involved.
SOUNDING ALARM
more stories like thisThe workers got it on their hands and clothing every day while racing for 2 1/2 months to meet a deadline to get the plant, a crucial part of Iraq's oil infrastructure, up and running.
But the chemical turned out to be sodium dichromate, a substance so dangerous that even limited exposure greatly increases the risk of cancer. Soon, many of the 22 Americans and 100-plus Iraqis began to complain of nosebleeds, ulcers, and shortness of breath. Within weeks, nearly 60 percent exhibited symptoms of exposure, according to the minutes of a meeting of project managers from KBR, the Houston-based construction company in charge of the repairs.
Now, nine Americans are accusing KBR, then a subsidiary of the oil conglomerate Halliburton, of knowingly exposing them to the deadly substance and failing to provide them with the protective equipment needed to keep them safe.
But the workers, like all employees injured in Iraq, face an uphill struggle in their quest for damages. Under a World War II-era federal workers compensation law, employers are generally protected from employee lawsuits, except in rare cases in which it can be proven that the company intentionally harmed its employees or committed outright fraud.
KBR is citing the law, called the Defense Base Act, as grounds to reject the workers' request for damages.
But the company's own actions have undermined its case: To avoid payroll taxes for its American employees, KBR hired the workers through two subsidiaries registered in the Cayman Islands, part of a strategy that has allowed KBR to dodge hundreds of millions of dollars in Social Security and Medicare taxes.
That gives the workers' lawyer, Mike Doyle of Houston, a chance to argue to an arbitration board that KBR is not an employer protected by federal law, but a third-party that can be sued.
KBR's lawyers argued in a legal brief that the workers should be considered employees of KBR because they were part of a corporate subsidiary that was working on a KBR team. The company's spokeswoman, Heather Browne, pointed out that the company's projects in Iraq take place in a "dangerous, unpredictable environment," but said the firm maintains an "unwavering commitment to safety."
Like domestic workers' compensation plans, the Defense Base Act entitles employees in Iraq to medical care, disability, and death benefits, regardless of who is at fault for the injury. In exchange, it generally prohibits employees from seeking any further compensation, even if the employer is at For this reason, fewer than 10 high-profile lawsuits have been filed against contractors in Iraq. So far, none has been decided in favor of the employees, lawyers say, although some cases are ongoing.
Edward Blacke, a safety representative on the project, said he tried to raise safety concerns but was told not to get involved.
SOUNDING ALARM
more stories like thisBut the law - approved in 1941, a year when few defense contractors were engaged on the front lines - is coming under increasing criticism from Iraq war workers.
"In Iraq, there is so much more at stake," said Marc Miles, a lawyer for the relatives of four men working for the security company Blackwater USA, who were killed by a mob in 2004. "If the employer is negligent, the employee doesn't just slip and fall and hurt his back. The employee could be killed or dismembered."
Yet in almost all cases, if an employer puts profit over safety in Iraq, an injured employee has no right to collect anything beyond medical care and a portion of his or her salary while out of work, Miles said.
"If [companies] are looking at their bottom line, and looking at profit, they would tend to cut the services and equipment that might be necessary to protect the employees' lives, because there would be no recourse for doing so," he said.
The workers at the Qarmat Ali plant now say KBR's managers discouraged them from raising safety concerns about the chemical and were slow to take action to mitigate health risks because they didn't want to miss their deadline for finishing the work.
"What was done to us, I believe, it's criminal," said Danny Langford , a motor specialist from Texas who worked in the most contaminated room in the facility. "I think it was deliberate. They wanted this six month job - get you in, get you out, and send you on your way, and 10 years later you start dying of cancer."
The job at Qarmat Ali began shortly after the US-led invasion of Iraq. In the run-up to the war, KBR signed a secret, no-bid contract to revive Iraq's oil fields after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The Qarmat Ali plant was a crucial part of that project, responsible for pumping water through the desert and into the oil fields to provide the pressure necessary to pump oil from the ground. Sodium dichromate was mixed into the water to prevent the oil pipes from rusting. The chemical contains the most toxic form of chromium, the substance responsible for poisoning people in Hinkley, Calif., in a case highlighted by the movie "Erin Brockovich."
Max Costa, an expert witness in the Hinkley case who is chairman of the Department of Environmental Medicine at New York University Medical Center, said the chemical is damaging, even in very small doses.
"You cannot be exposed," he said. "It gets into your cells, damages your DNA, depresses your immune system, and down the road, it causes cancer."
KBR managers knew as early as June 22 that the chemical was sodium dichromate, according to a KBR safety log from Qarmat Ali submitted to the arbitration board in Doyle's case.
Edward Blacke, a safety representative on the project, said he tried to raise safety concerns but was told not to get involved.
SOUNDING ALARM
more stories like thisBut little was done to mitigate the harm, according to interviews with four former workers. One worker, who decided not to join Langford's complaint for fear of retaliation, said a supervisor and a chemical engineer assured him the chemical was harmless. "They said, 'No, it's safe, everything's fine,' so we continued to work," he recalled. "We had it all over us."
Then Edward Blacke, a health and safety representative on the project employed by one of KBR's Cayman Island subsidiaries, began to do his own Web research.
"I discovered that it was a real bad actor," Blacke said in a telephone interview from his home in Arizona. "It was fatal to swallow. Very harmful on contact with skin, respiratory tract burns, anything that dealt with a mucus membrane." He also learned that it attacks the liver and kidneys and increases the risk of cancer.
Blacke said he tried to raise safety concerns about it to his supervisors, but "the response was, 'Don't get involved. This is not your area,' " he said. "They said that I was blowing this thing out of proportion."
At the end of July, after a chemical specialist based in Kuwait who had just visited the plant wrote an e-mail to KBR project managers urging that they warn workers of the health hazards, the managers authorized warning signs to be displayed, according to copies of e-mails written by KBR staff.
But Blacke, who resigned from the project that August, felt more needed to be done. Workers were complaining of nosebleeds, eye problems, and inexplicable shortness of breath.
"We didn't know what it was," Langford said. "I kept going to the [Human Resources] department when we went back to Kuwait. They kept giving me pills. They said that maybe we were allergic to the sand. I said, 'I have been around sand all my life, and I have never been allergic to it.' "
After a series of worker complaints, two KBR staff members visited the site Aug. 9 and took air and soil samples. A memo about their trip described "piles of dark orange crystalline material" around the plant, noting that it was "most likely pure sodium dichromate."
The memo also said Iraqi workers with the state-owned Southern Oil Co. were observed eating their lunches on the floor next to the chemical tanks, and that one worker who had been shoveling contaminated sludge into a wheelbarrow without protection showed them ulcers on his chest and abdomen.
At the end of August, KBR managers announced that the air samples showed just negligible amounts of sodium dichromate in the air. But technicians at A & B Environmental Services, the Houston lab that tested the air samples, told the Globe that the method used to collect the air samples was not suitable for detecting the toxic substance. Around the same time, KBR workers persuaded their managers to test their blood for contamination The results showed "elevated chromium levels" in the men's blood, according to Michael Kilpatrick, the military's deputy director of Force Health Protection and Readiness, who was briefed on the situation at Qarmat Ali because some US soldiers had contact with the plant.
Edward Blacke, a safety representative on the project, said he tried to raise safety concerns but was told not to get involved.
SOUNDING ALARM
more stories like thisAlthough the blood tests were not sophisticated enough to conclusively prove that the chromium in their blood came from the toxic form present at Qarmat Ali, a senior KBR project manager in the Middle East called workers together and announced that he planned to clean up the site.
"They got up in front of us and said, 'We got the blood samples back, and y'all do have some exposure to chromium in your blood,' " Langford said, adding that the most senior manager told the workers they would be wasting their time to file a lawsuit. "He said, 'It's a war zone. Things happen like this.' "
KBR managers mandated that personal protective gear be used at the site, but when the crew arrived in September to help clean up the contamination, there was not enough gear to go around, according to a memo to KBR managers from a safety representative.
Kilpatrick confirmed that the impetus for mitigating the risk of the chemical "came from the workers themselves." He said he had no information about why KBR waited until mid-August to take action. "There may have been issues of not understanding what perhaps people were at risk from," he said.
Now Langford and his former co-workers face uncertain medical futures. When Langford returned to the United States, he underwent a time-consuming blood-filtering treatment, which KBR's insurance company paid for. But none of the other men interviewed by the Globe had taken such a step, and it is unclear whether the treatment mitigates the risk of cancer.
Bobby Boycher, 43, an electrician from Leesville, La., who installed electrical equipment at Qarmat Ali, has no health insurance now. "It's totally terrified me," Boycher said. "It's changed my life."
If any of the men do develop cancer, they can present evidence of the link to their time at Qarmat Ali and attempt to get their medical treatment paid for by Defense Base Act insurance, according to Chris Winans, a spokesman for AIG, KBR's provider of Defense Base Act insurance. But Winans acknowledged that the more time that passes, the harder it will be to prove a link.
Blacke said that the firm should do more to ensure that the workers do not have to fight for medical treatment if they get sick, and that KBR should pay damages for putting workers' health at risk. "I'm hoping that KBR will step up and say, 'We made a mistake,' " Blacke said.
So far, that looks unlikely. But Doyle hopes the arbitration board will be persuaded that his clients were not KBR employees - because they were hired through the company's Cayman Islands subsidiaries - and therefore allow him to hold KBR accountable for putting the workers' lives at risk.
"I wouldn't be doing this if at the end of the day I didn't think I could do something for the people I'm representing," said Doyle. "But the reality is, so far, they have pretty much been able to escape scot-free."
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
How VP Cheney really feels about "volunteers"
How VP Cheney really feels about "volunteers"
In the past few days our surly Vice President who is normally in an "undisclosed location" surfaced to be interviewed by ABC's Martha Radditz in a now famous exchange, something to the effect that two thirds of Americans want us out of Iraq and his one word reply was "SO".
Then in this interview Cheney on ABC, on milestone of 4,000 dead
"The president carries the biggest burden, obviously," Cheney said. "He's the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans, but we are fortunate to have a group of men and women, the all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm's way for the rest of us."
If President Bush has the biggest burden, I wonder how the families of the 4,000 dead "volunteers" feel and the over 30,000 severely wounded, I am sure it bothers them that the President has this huge "burden" on him.
I have no sympathy for the Bush Administration they took this nation, by lies and manipulation into the first preemptive war this nation has ever jumped into, all based on desires of the neocons.
In the meantime they were actively working to deny Cold War veterans used in human experiments, veterans benefits that may be entitled to them for long term medical problems that could have been caused by the exposures.
These involved chemical weapons such as Sarin and Mustard Agents, drugs known as LSD, PCP, Ecstacy and Scopolomine, in all 254 substances were used at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland. The experiments violated the Nuremberg Codes of 1947. There were 7120 enlisted men used in this program.
There were other programs known by names as SHAD/112 between 1960 and 1973 total men used is unknown, and Operation White Coat at Fort Detrick that used biological weapons on 2100 volunteers, from 1953 thru 1972.
There have been attempts by many Congressmen to force the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Veterans Administration (VA) to find and help these men since the early 90's.
On April 28, 2005 Congressmen Lane Evans and Ted Strickland (now Governor of Ohio) sent this letter to VA Secretary James Nicholson
April 28, 2005
Honorable R. James Nicholson
Secretary
Department of Veterans Affairs
810 Vermont Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20420
Dear Mr. Secretary:
In the past, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has sent letters to veterans identified as being previously exposed to hazardous chemical, biological or radiological environments while on active duty and who have the potential for presumptive or related, service-connected conditions. We have previously expressed our interest in VA providing veterans with notice of such exposure and of the potential service-connection of conditions related to that exposure. VA has sometimes been unable to provide veterans with individual notice because of difficulties collecting lists of participants exposed to the hazardous condition. We understand that VA is generally dependent on the Department of Defense (DoD) for providing such lists.
Enclosed are sealed sets of lists of names of individuals who were exposed to potentially hazardous materials while participating in tests or programs at Fort Detrick, Maryland, or Edgewood, Maryland, for the period 1954 through the present. In many cases, the lists provide specifics regarding the exposure associated with the individual's name and service number. We ask VA to provide written notice to the living veterans named on these lists who may have an illness or injury related to their participation in the programs or tests managed at the two DoD facilities listed above.
Mr. Secretary, the limiting factor in VA's due diligence in this arena has been its ability to secure lists of participants from the DoD. Our proactive approach to this issue quickly yielded the enclosed lists, which we understand contain approximately 10,000 names. We expect that you should be able to
determine address information on the living veterans through VA health and insurance records and by using VA's authority to cross match data with the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration.
We ask that you provide us with a timetable for sending notice, as appropriate, to the listed individuals who you are able to determine are still alive. I am requesting this be done no later than May, 27, 2005, and to complete the mailing of all notices no later than 120 days after that date. Democratic Committee staff point of contact is Mr. Len Sistek, 202-225-9756.
Sincerely,
LANE EVANS TED STRICKLAND
Ranking Democratic Member Ranking Democratic Member
Subcommittee on Oversight
and Investigations
Enclosures as stated
On October 5, 2005 then Secretary Nicholson finally responded to their letter with this reply:
Secretary Nicholsons reply you will need to click on the link to read his response, it is posted as a photo image and I am not capable of transferring it to print.
To Summarize it though, he states their lists of 10,000 names from April, is not useful to help find these men, so he was sending it to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld where he could have DOD work on it.
Then there is this new Government Accountability Report (GAO) http://www.gao.gov/new.item s/d08366.pdf
What GAO Found
United States Government Accountability Office
Why GAO Did This Study
Highlights
Accountability IntegrityReliability
February 2008
CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE
DOD and VA Need to Improve Efforts to Identify and Notify Individuals Potentially Exposed during Chemical and Biological Tests
Highlights of GAO-08-366, a report to congressional requesters
Tens of thousands of military personnel and civilians were potentially exposed to chemical or biological substances through Department of Defense (DOD) tests since World War II. DOD conducted some of these tests as part of its Project 112 test program, while others were conducted as separate efforts. GAO was asked to (1) assess DOD's efforts to identify individuals who were potentially exposed during Project 112 tests, (2) evaluate DOD's current effort to identify individuals who were potentially exposed during tests conducted outside of Project 112, and (3) determine the extent to which DOD and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have taken action to notify individuals who might have been exposed during chemical and biological tests. GAO analyzed documents and interviewed officials from DOD, VA, the Department of Labor, and a veterans service organization.
What GAO Recommends
GAO suggests that Congress direct DOD to develop guidance to notify potentially exposed civilians. GAO also recommends that DOD and VA take steps to improve their efforts to obtain, share, and use available information to more effectively identify and notify individuals. DOD and VA generally agreed with most of the recommendations. However, DOD did not agree with the recommendation to conduct a cost-benefit analysis regarding additional Project 112 research. As a result, GAO suggests that Congress direct DOD to conduct such an analysis.
Since 2003, DOD has stopped actively searching for individuals who were potentially exposed to chemical or biological substances during Project 112 tests, but did not provide a sound and documented basis for that decision. In 2003, DOD reported it had identified 5,842 servicemembers and estimated 350 civilians as having been potentially exposed during Project 112, and indicated that DOD would cease actively searching for additional individuals. However, in 2004, GAO reported that DOD did not exhaust all possible sources of information and recommended that DOD determine the feasibility of identifying additional individuals. In response to GAO's recommendation, DOD determined continuing an active search for individuals had reached the point of diminishing returns, and reaffirmed its decision to cease active searches. This decision was not supported by an objective analysis of the potential costs and benefits of continuing the effort, nor could DOD provide any documented criteria from which it made its determination. Since June 2003, however, non-DOD sources--including the Institute of Medicine--have identified approximately 600 additional names of individuals who were potentially exposed during Project 112. Until DOD provides a more objective analysis of the costs and benefits of actively searching for Project 112 participants, DOD's efforts may continue to be questioned.
DOD has taken action to identify individuals who were potentially exposed during tests outside of Project 112, but GAO identified four shortcomings in DOD's current effort. First, DOD's effort lacks clear and consistent objectives, scope of work, and information needs that would set the parameters for its effort. Second, DOD has not provided adequate oversight to guide this effort. Third, DOD has not fully leveraged information obtained from previous research efforts that identified exposed individuals. Fourth, DOD's effort lacks transparency since it has not kept Congress and veterans service organizations fully informed of the progress and results of its effort. Until DOD addresses these limitations, Congress, veterans, and the American public cannot be assured that DOD's current effort is reasonable and effective.
DOD and VA have had limited success in notifying individuals potentially exposed during tests both within and outside Project 112. DOD has a process to share the names of identified servicemembers with VA; however, DOD has delayed regular updates to VA because of a number of factors, such as competing priorities. Furthermore, although VA has a process for notifying potentially exposed veterans, it was not using certain available resources to obtain contact information to notify veterans or to help determine whether they were deceased. Moreover, DOD had not taken any action to notify identified civilians, focusing instead on veterans since the primary impetus for the research has been requests from VA. DOD has refrained from taking action on notifying civilians in part because it lacks specific guidance that defines the requirements to notify civilians. Until these issues are addressed, some identified veterans and civilians will remain unaware of their potential exposure.
To view the full product, including the scope
and methodology, click on GAO-08-366.
For more information, contact Davi M. D'Agostino at (202) 512-5431 or dagostinod@gao.gov.
There are previous GAO reports on the human experimentation going back to 1994, so this problem was not exactly a new secret.
September28.1994
Human Experimentation
An Overview on Co1d.Wa.r
Era Programs
Then there is this other GAO report May 2004
CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE
DOD Needs to Continue to Collect and Provide Information on Tests and Potentially Exposed Personnel
Then there is this April 3, 2006 newspaper article from Lisa Friedman of the Los Angeles Press Telegram VA: Foot-dragging seen
In the notification letters, Pamperin said, veterans will be told the chemical they were exposed to and the dosage, and be encouraged to seek hospital tests to determine if they suffered related injuries.
"If and, hopefully, none of them have been harmed they will receive the kind of compensation they're entitled to," Pamperin said.
Rick Weidman of the Vietnam Veterans of America accused the VA of dragging its feet.
"The VA is incredibly slow," he said. "They don't really want to do it. They will screw around with that list for a year or longer, and then they'll say they cannot find a lot of the veterans. If you wait long enough, we'll all be dead."
Notices coming
Pamperin strongly disputed the criticisms.
"I understand that some frustrated veterans believe that to be true," he said. "Our responsibility is to implement (veterans' benefits) to the full extent Congress has authorized it, without regard to how much is spent," he said.
Due to this overwhelming evidence of disregard for the veterans and their families caused by human experimentation from the mid 50s thru 1975, when then Chief of Staff Dick Cheney to President Ford and Sec of Defense Donald Rumsfeld agreed to allowing the human experiments to continue when they inherited them from the Nixon administration, the disregard they have for the lost lives in the Iraq War is not surprising to me. This shows they are as bad as Saddam Hussein was, he used chemical weapons on the Kurds, a group of people he was at war with, they were trying to kill him and he did kill them.
On the other hand Rumsfeld and Cheney allowed military enlisted members to be used as human guinea pigs and now are actively working to deny them benfits at least until they leave office in January 2009, why? Because of the questions that might be put to President Bush and VP Cheney and the embarassment it would cause them? It's obvious they don't care about the soldiers.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
please go to the link and read the links available to see the entire evidence
