What's New
| 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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| Senator Hutchison Supports Gulf War Research at University of Texas Southwestern |
Texas Senator Calls VA Decision ‘Vindication’ for Gulf War Veterans February 28, 2010 - (Press Release) U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison released the following statement concerning the Department of Veterans Affairs decision to reconsider the rejected claims of Gulf War veterans: |
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Army Times Editorial Calls for Improvements at VBA
Written by Army Times
Friday, 30 October 2009 09:00
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VA Needs Bold Change November 2, 2009 (Army Times Editorial Board) – When it comes to the vast and stubborn backlog of veterans benefits claims, Congress seems all too content to make a flyswatter to an elephant. Among a pile of pending veterans-related bills is a proposal to require the Veterans Affairs Department to notify veterans when a claim is received. VA already notifies veterans who file electronic claims; this proposal would only duplicate that for claims filed by mail. It would do nothing to reduce the backlog and, in fact, it could worsen the process y forcing VA staffers to prepare and send out snail-mail noticies for claims that are not received electronically. That’s not helpful. The claims backlog is 453,000 and growing. It takes an average of four to five months for VA to make an initial ruling. Appeals can drag out for years And even though VA has hired more claims processors, new claims among veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are pouring in at a rate of 80,000 per month, a 10 percent jump over last year’s pace. VA can’t keep up. That’s why more expansive ideas for attacking the backlog are needed. One proposal – automatically approving claims from combat veterans and then using spot audits to monitor for fraud – has languished for years. Because most combat veterans’ claims are ultimately approved, the risk of fraud would be relatively low. At a minimum, however, Congress should mandate deadlines for decisions – guaranteeing an initial ruling in, say, 60 days, and a ruling on an appeal within 180 days. Even if VA could not meet those deadlines, the requirement would at least provide hard data on how many more claims processors may be needed to meet the requirement – something VA seems incapable of figuring out today. |