What's New
| Presdent Obama Donated $250,000 of Nobel Prize Money to Fisher House |
March 11, 2010, Washington, DC (New York Times) - President Obama made good on his promise to give his $1.4 million Nobel Prize money to charity, releasing the names on Thursday of the organizations that will benefit. |
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| Dr. Haley at UTSW Presents Compelling Brain Images Showing Gulf War Illness |
VCS Asks VA: Since UTSW Research Remains Vital to Understanding Gulf War Illness, Then Why Did a Handful of VA Staff in Washington Impede UTSW Contract and Then End Funding for UTSW? March 9, 2010, Salt Lake City, Utah (Science News) - Nearly two decades after vets began returning from the Middle East complaining of Gulf War Syndrome, the federal government has yet to formally accept that their vague jumble of symptoms constitutes a legitimate illness. Here, at the Society of Toxicology annual meeting, yesterday, researchers rolled out a host of brain images – various types of magnetic-resonance scans and brain-wave measurements – that they say graphically and unambiguously depict Gulf War Syndrome. |
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| March 9 VCS Weekly Update |
This week’s VCS update keeps you in the loop with news on issues you care about. One good change – our weekly news updates won’t ask you for money. Instead, our news updates point you to news articles at our web site. We hope you will read them and share the important facts with your friends. This week's update includes news about VA and suicides, VCS on CNN, our VCS FOIA campaign, VA automating Agent Orange claims, a waterboarding torture video, and Gulf War veterans' benefits. |
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| Federal Court Keeps Torture Lawsuit Against Rumsfeld Alive |
What's Waterboarding? Watch Video of Torture March 5, 2010, Chicago, Illinois (Associated Press) - A federal judge refused Friday to dismiss a civil lawsuit accusing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of responsibility for the alleged torture by U.S. forces of two Americans who worked for an Iraqi contracting firm. [Rumsfeld served at the Pentagon under former President George W. Bush.] |
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| Reducing Suicides: VA Adopts Policy on Emergency Care for Mental Health Patients |
This Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Directive provides policy to ensure the provision of safe and secure mental health services during all hours of operation for Emergency Departments (EDs) and Urgent Care Clinics (UCCs) in VHA |
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Dallas Morning News Editorial: Find the Truth to Gulf War Illnesses
Written by The Dallas Morning News Editorial Board
Thursday, 03 September 2009 08:55
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September 1, 2009 - Just a few weeks ago, congressional influence and a large dose of common sense seemed to have saved UT Southwestern Medical Center's research efforts into why so many veterans of the 1990-91 Gulf War returned home with unexplained illnesses.
But despite the efforts of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, to resolve the dispute, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs last week pulled the research plug. It's critical that this potentially ground-breaking research doesn't wilt on the bureaucratic vine. Unless a new arrangement is reached quickly, the VA's decision would dash the hopes of veterans seeking answers to their illnesses and could leave UT Southwestern holding the bag for millions of dollars in research for which it hasn't been paid. The solution rests with the VA. In the same report in which it urged termination, the VA's inspector general noted that the project could have been funded with a federal grant instead of a contract. Moreover, it was noted that this change would have reduced bureaucratic red tape associated with federal contracts and averted the disputes that led to the contract's cancellation. It is particularly ironic that it was the VA that originally pressed for a contract instead of a grant, which is the more common scientific research agreement. This strikes this newspaper as a relatively simple change that would allow the research to move forward. Research findings could change the lives and treatment options for thousands who bravely served their country and have lived for nearly two decades without answers. Reactions to nerve gas, other chemical weapons, pesticides, depleted uranium munitions or some combination are among the possible causes being investigated. Too many avoidable squabbles have stalled the research since Hutchison earmarked the original $75 million in 2005 to fund the five-year research program. VA officials say the agency will continue its own research into the source of the illnesses and not abandon Gulf War veterans. Perhaps, but given the ongoing battle between Vietnam veterans' organizations and the VA over the effects of Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant used throughout that conflict, we think Gulf War vets deserve the sort of independent research that UT Southwestern can provide.
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