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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PTSD Causes Early Death From Heart Disease, Study Suggests
Written by Science Daily
Sunday, 18 October 2009 16:12
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July 8, 2009 (Science Daily) — Vietnam veterans who experienced posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were twice as likely to die from heart disease as veterans without PTSD, a new Geisinger study finds. In a study published in the July issue of Psychosomatic Medicine, Geisinger Senior Investigator Joseph Boscarino, PhD, MPH examined the prevalence of heart disease, PTSD and other problems in more than 4,000 Vietnam veterans. The more severe the PTSD diagnosis, the greater the likelihood of death from heart disease, the study showed. Vietnam veterans with PTSD--like chronic smokers--are at higher risk of early death from heart disease, Dr. Boscarino concluded. Boscarino equated PTSD to smoking two to three packs of cigarettes per day for more than 20 years. PTSD causes the body to release stress hormones, which leads to the inflammation and damage to the arteries and cardiovascular system damage. Stress hormones also tend to reduce the amount of inflammation-reducing cortisol in the body--though researchers aren't sure why. "Increased levels of stress hormones and less cortisol from PTSD are a bad combination," Dr. Boscarino explained. "Basically, PTSD just cooks your arteries in this situation." Dr. Boscarino previously found that people with PTSD had dramatically higher rates of chronic health problems such as psoriasis, arthritis and other inflammatory diseases. "The science is conclusively showing that if you suffer psychological trauma, it's going to take a toll on your physical health," Dr. Boscarino said. "Getting counseling today is critical to avoiding a related problem tomorrow." This study excluded patients with a prior history of heart disease and included a national sample of veterans, which is different from prior studies on the topic, Boscarino said. |