Ex-Chair of Federal Gulf War Panel Says Concerns Remain | Veterans for Common Sense

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Team VCS

The recently “rotated out” chairman of the federal panel charged with overseeing health research related to veterans of the 1991 Gulf War was quoted extensively today in an Arizona Republic news article, expressing reasoned concerns regarding the approach of VA staff to Gulf War health research.

Legislation to transfer most of the oversight of the committee from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to Congress passed the U.S. House by unanimous consent earlier this year.  The bill, H.R. 4261, the Gulf War Health Research Reform Act, has stagnated in the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

Led by Chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee has yet to schedule a hearing on the bill despite having had the bill since June 2, 2014.

From the article:

[ex-Chairman James H.] Binns detailed his apprehension about the committee’s revolving membership in a four-page memo to members of Congress and veterans associations on his final day as chairman, Sept. 30.

“I leave the committee gravely concerned about the future of Gulf War illness research,” he wrote.

“From here on, neither the Secretary, nor Congress, veterans service organizations, veterans themselves or the public will know the whole truth behind VA Gulf War research. In the absence of an independent, knowledgeable body, staff will operate unchecked, and its campaign to revive 1990s fictions that Gulf War veterans have no special health problem will likely prevail.”

….

Binns’ final memo has been circulated widely among veterans associations, said Rick Weidman, executive director of policy and government affairs for the Vietnam Veterans of America.

Veterans organizations are lobbying Congress to pass legislation that would have the Gulf War committee report directly to Congress rather than to the VA.

Weidman said it may seem like an extreme step, but VA administrators’ actions were out of line during the Gulf War committee’s last two-day meeting in Washington.

“It really was bizarre because you had the staff of the VA from the environmental-hazards and public-health section trying to drive their agenda. And their agenda is that there is no such thing as Gulf War illness; that it’s all psychosomatic,” he said.

The move to replace the Gulf War committee members came despite a request to McDonald by House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., and four other members, including Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz., to retain the Gulf War committee members. The lawmakers sent their request Aug. 20.

Read the full Arizona Republic article here:

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/investigations/2014/10/09/va-seeks-new-voices-concerning-gulf-war-illness/16955417/

Posted in Gulf War Updates, Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged | Comments Off on Ex-Chair of Federal Gulf War Panel Says Concerns Remain | Veterans for Common Sense

VCS in the News: Guarded Optimism on New VA Secretary, Need to Reach Deeper | Veterans for Common Sense

Posted on October 5, 2014 by Team VCS

As new U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Bob MacDonald passes his two-month mark in office, the news media have begun trying to determine whether or not he is likely to be effective in redirecting VA to a more accountable course.

The Belleville, Illinois News-Democrat published a Sep. 28, 2014 article authored by veteran reporter Mike Fitzgerald, entitled: “Are VA reforms working? Metro-east veterans weigh in“.  The article said, in part:

MAKING A DIFFERENCE?

Nationally, longtime critics of the VA say it’s too early to tell if the reforms that Obama signed into law are making a difference.

After all, the VA, with 731 medical facilities nationwide, is so big and serves so many patients, and handles so many claims, it could take years to assess if the reforms are making a difference.

That’s especially true when it comes to changing the system’s inbred management culture, according to experts.

The VA’s management culture lay at the heart of the latest scandal plaguing the VA. It exploded in late April, when the news media began reporting, based on a whistleblower’s disclosures, that at least 40 veterans had died while waiting for appointments at the Phoenix VA Hospital.

Congress soon jumped into the fray when it was revealed that many of the veterans who died had been placed on secret waiting lists that prevented them from obtaining needed medical care.

The covert list was part of an elaborate scheme which VA managers had devised to hide the fact that up to 1,600 sick veterans had to wait months to see physicians. By hiding these patient lists, the managers reaped millions of dollars in bonuses awarded on the basis of their supposed success in cutting patient wait times.

The scandal over the secret waiting list led to the forced resignation of former Army General Eric Shinseki as the VA secretary and the appointment of Robert McDonald as his replacement.

BIG CHALLENGES

Earlier this month McDonald announced a 90-day plan for fixing the VA’s recent woes.

Anthony Hardie, a board member of Veterans for Common Sense, of Washington, D.C., said he’s hopeful the reform law and McDonald’s 90-day initiative represent a start in the right direction.

But in view of the huge, entrenched problems afflicting the VA — including a culture of deception and a long history of “cooking the books” regarding patient care and research — there is still a long, long way to go, according to Hardie.

“I think a year or two from now we’ll be able to say, ‘Yeah, we’re beginning to see some change,” Hardie said. “And maybe five years from now we’ll be able to look back and say, ‘That was the beginning of major change.’ I hope that’s what we can say.”

A report released by the VA inspector general in August stated that no deaths at the Phoenix VA could be “conclusively” linked to long wait times.

But the main whistleblower in the VA scandal two weeks ago denounced the IG report, calling it a “whitewash.”

A similar article by Claire McNeill in the Oct. 1, 2014 edition of the Tampa Bay Times, “VA secretary announces progress, promises more change“, came on the heels of a local Florida visits by MacDonald, who made stops to the Haley VA medical center in Tampa and the much maligned Bay Pines VA Regional Office in St. Petersburg.  

According to the article:

McDonald has appeared at Washington meetings that his predecessor never attended, said Anthony Hardie, a Bradenton resident on the board of directors of Veterans for Common Sense, a nonprofit advocacy group. And McDonald’s presence in the Tampa Bay area is significant, he said.

“He’s clearly making sure that he is hearing what the concerns of veterans are,” Hardie said. “I believe what the secretary is doing are very important first steps. At the same time, I’m still very guarded in my optimism.”

The secretary acknowledged the department’s deep issues.

“Too many of our employees have felt disenfranchised,” he said. “They have not been included. Too many of our veterans have been disenfranchised.”

He said the nearly 9 million veterans under VA care are the top priority, and leaders must work to ensure that veterans and employees are provided for. He called on every employee to be a whistle-blower.

“I want people to feel free to tell me what’s going wrong, and I feel the formality that may have been existing may have gotten in the way of that,” said McDonald, who freely distributes his cellphone number and said he fields calls from veterans at all hours.

Hardie said McDonald must consult all stakeholders to create real change in the department.

“It’s like turning around a battleship, and it will be a long time before we know if the captain of the battleship is successful,” Hardie said. “It feels like he’s doing the right thing in terms of listening, but he needs to reach deeper.”

That “deeper” included reaching out to former VA employees-turned-whistleblowers, many of whom were forced out of VA employment.  One of them would be former top VA epidemiologist Dr. Stephen Coughlin, whose testimony at a March 2013 Congressional hearing rocked Capitol Hill with his insider revelations of VA cooking the books on post-deployment health research to cover-up or otherwise minimize acknowledgement of post-deployment health issues.  Those allegations were later substantiated in a very quiet internal VA investigation.

Coughlin was honored last week at an evening affair in Washington, DC hosted by the Sgt. Sullivan Center, which focuses on complex post-deployment health issues like that suffered by the center’s namesake before his untimely death.  Veterans for Common Sense was represented at the event by Anthony Hardie, VCS Board Member and one of the event’s featured speakers.

If MacDonald were to consult whistleblowers like — and including — Coughlin, collectively they could provide a great deal of insight to MacDonald in righting and reforming the VA ship.

***

Read the full cited articles here:

http://www.bnd.com/2014/09/27/3424662/metro-east-veterans-report-mixed.html?sp=/99/166/

http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/veterans/new-va-secretary-says-he-is-trying-to-put-veterans-at-the-center/2200336

 

Belleville News Democrat-Sep 28, 2014

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged | Comments Off on VCS in the News: Guarded Optimism on New VA Secretary, Need to Reach Deeper | Veterans for Common Sense

Gulf War Advisory Committee Letter Expresses Grave Concerns to New VA Secretary | Veterans for Common Sense

Posted on September 27, 2014 by Team VCS

The following is reposted from 91outcomes.com with permission.

***

“I ask you to please post … this letter RAC members sent to Secretary McDonald after the RAC meeting this week.  VA staff now controls what is posted to the RAC website, so this may never see the light of day otherwise.  The new Secretary should be cleaning house with the staff, not the committee.   So much for promises to fix VA’s lack of integrity.  — Joel Graves, Gulf War veteran member of the Research Advisory Committee, being replaced.”

****

SOURCE:  Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses (RAC), September 23, 2014http://www.scribd.com/doc/241187447/RAC-Recommendation-Letter-Sep-23-2014

LETTER TEXT:

Continue reading →

Posted in Gulf War Updates, Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Gulf War Advisory Committee Letter Expresses Grave Concerns to New VA Secretary | Veterans for Common Sense

MEDIA REPORTS: The Beginning of Finally Some Truth about the VA | Veterans for Common Sense

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Team VCS

After a great deal of covering up, retaliation against and intimidation of whistleblowers, media reporting, Congressional hearing and inquiries, and VA delays, denial, and more covering up, finally this week it appears as though the first elements of truth are creeping out in the healthcare access scandal that has consumed VA.

A great deal more needs to be done in holding VA healthcare officials accountable.  A great deal more needs to be done to hold VA benefits officials accountable, including for inappropriate VA denial of service-disabled veterans’ disability claims, efforts to roll back the clock on Gulf War veterans’ and possibly other “presumptive” access to disability benefits, inappropriate VA benefits official’s meddling in healthcare and medical research matters, and shifting the claims wait lines from one excessively long waiting line (initial claims) to another even longer waiting line (appeals).

And, a great deal more needs to be done in holding VA’s research officials to account for confirmed whistleblower accounts that VA research officials routinely cover-up research finding that might show links between deployment health exposures and negative health consequences of those exposures, inappropriately shape VA research projects so as not to uncover links between deployment and negative health outcomes, misappropriation of funds, lying to Congress and top VA officials, and an utter inability to focus research efforts on tangible research outcomes such as improved prosthetic limbs or to develop effective treatments for post-deployment health conditions.

However, the following articles represent a new breakthrough in the armor in which VA bureaucrats have surrounded themselves.  As one Arizona Republic editorial notes below, it is the beginning of finally some truth about the VA.

Read on… and help hold VA managers and executives accountable for VA’s failures and cooking the books in nearly every aspect of VA operations.

-Team VCS

***

Associated Press: Ex-VA Doctor: Phoenix Report a ‘Whitewash’

Arizona Republic: Auditor ties VA waits to deaths

Arizona Republic Editorial: Finally, some truth about the VA.  Our View: Lengthy delays didn’t do veterans any good. Why didn’t the inspector general recognize that?

CNN:  VA inspector general admits wait times contributed to vets’ deaths

New York Times:  V.A. Official Acknowledges Link Between Delays and Patient Deaths

Washington Examiner:  Veterans Affairs IG couldn’t see records that didn’t exist for dead vets

Washington Examiner:  Delays contributed to patient deaths at veterans’ hospital, IG concedes

Washington Times:  VA official admits not every wait-list death reviewed by investigators

 

Posted in Gulf War Updates, Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged , | Comments Off on MEDIA REPORTS: The Beginning of Finally Some Truth about the VA | Veterans for Common Sense

The Top 10 Reasons to Hire a Quality Personal Injury Lawyer

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Charles Miles

If you’re injured in some sort of accident, you likely have tons of questions – and really few answers. do you have to take action against anyone as a results of your injuries? How would you set about that process? Without the proper guidance, it’ll be difficult to form good decisions, and you’ll simply finish up taking no action in the least . For this reason, it’s important to figure with a top quality personal injury lawyer.

You don’t got to be committed to taking action just to speak to a private injury lawyer. Whether you finish up filing a suit or not, speaking with an experienced Munley Law Allentown attorney may be a smart thanks to determine your best course of action.

Personal Injury Attorneys Broward County know what rights you have under the law and can simply explain them to you. But in the case of personal injury, time is not always on your side. Even the best case imaginable has a time limit attached to it and even easy cases need documentation from the start. If you have suffered an injury because of the negligence of another person, you need to consult with a personal injury attorney as he is the only one who can help you in this regard. But, finding a right personal injury attorney is not an easy thing to do especially when there are several firms offering their services to help you deal with your case.

A personal injury lawyers Lipcon & Lipcon, P.A. serving clients in Miami, FL may help you right away after an accident has taken place on an emergency basis. Generally, the attorney may charge almost 40{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} of what is recovered from the claim or you can pay the attorney a fee that is been decided between the two of you, beforehand. There is a situation where you can seek for the professional help of an attorney but as a public service which is not meant to be charged at all but still the attorney charges, a much lesser amount from the people who come for help.

In the event you or a family member has been severely injured in a vehicle accident or some other accident that was not your fault, it is important to think about choosing a Gould Injury Law to handle your case. In case you are hurting and maybe even still in the hospital, which really can be a difficult task. An automobile accident victim may attempt to put the burden of proof on the insurance carrier; however, the expenses will pile up while the dispute stays on. In case an accident victim will give the insurance company the proof they need to pay the bills, he should. In the event the issue leads to litigation, the evidence will be required and often the evidence alone will influence an insurance company to negotiate the claim. You can check Official site for more information about the personal injury attorney.

Like every profession, the law has its less-than-perfect members, and you might also think of a injury attorney normally as “ambulance-chasers.” But you will find outstanding personal injury attorneys who will help you enormously if you’re hurt through no fault of your own. There are lots of ways to start picking a personal injury attorney to help you get the payment and justice you are worthy of. click site if you want to know more about the Hamilton Personal Injury Lawyer.

Ask your friends, neighbors, and relatives. They might know of a good injury lawyer and be able to tell how they happen to be helpful and just how they behaved through the entire claim process. Look online and check for a personal injury lawyer. You will get many pages of final results and may check around at the internet sites. Read the lawyers’ biography pages to determine what qualifications and practical experience they have. Look at the site pages that relate to your particular injury.

The following are the highest ten reasons you ought to consider retaining the services of a private injury lawyer.

#1 – No Risk

Generally speaking, personal injury lawyers will only get paid once you win your case. As long as that’s the case, you do not need to worry about mounting legal bills only to lose your case within the end. before signing on with a selected attorney, confirm they’re willing to figure on a fee basis.

#2 – Experience

If you are not a lawyer, you merely can’t have the experience that’s possessed by a private injury lawyer. it’s tempting to represent yourself in an injury case so as to save lots of money, but that method is never effective. Utilize the experience of knowledgeable to greatly improve your odds of success.

#3 – an outdoor View

It is basically impossible for you to require an impartial check out your own case. you’ll still be in pain, and you would possibly be holding some negative feelings toward the people whom you are feeling are responsible. A lawyer won’t be constrained by these emotions, so you’ll calculate them to offer you an objective opinion on the case.

#4 – just in case of Trial

Should your case finish up during a trial, you’ll need a good lawyer on your side. The courtroom is not any place for the inexperienced, so confirm a top quality personal injury lawyer is on your team as you walk into court.

#5 – Settlement Options

Injury lawyers are wont to negotiating settlements, and that they are going to be happy to try to to so in your case (if a settlement may be a possibility). Everyone involved will likely want to avoid an attempt , so your lawyer could also be ready to negotiate a settlement that’s satisfactory to all or any parties.

#6 – Support Staff

Lawyers don’t work alone – generally, they need a team of staff behind them to try to to research, conduct interviews, and more. If you would like to offer your suit the simplest possible chance at success, having a lawyer with a talented support team fighting for you may be a great advantage.

#7 – Legal Speak

Reading a legal instrument are often highly confusing to those without an education in law. Your personal injury lawyer are going to be ready to add up of the court documents.

#8 – Experience within the System

Determining whether or not a lawsuit is warranted is that the initiative within the process, and your lawyer are going to be ready to provide you with a professional opinion supported their experience within the field. there’s no sense taking over a lawsuit that has no chance of success, so invite an honest opinion before proceeding.

#9 – handling Insurance Companies

Do you want to possess to affect insurance companies as they settle claims in your case? Probably not. Turn that job over to your personal injury lawyer, who will have experience therein area.

#10 – Peace of Mind

A serious injury may be a life-changing event, and your head has probably been spinning since the instant it happened . Working with a top quality personal injury lawyer will help to settle your nerves as you’ll know you’re in good hands.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on The Top 10 Reasons to Hire a Quality Personal Injury Lawyer

VCS to Participate in Sgt. Sullivan Center’s Event: Rebuilding Trust, Renewing Our Dedication to Transparency in Deployment Health Science | Veterans for Common Sense

Posted on September 13, 2014 by Team VCS

Having trouble viewing this?  Click here

Sergeant Sullivan Center Reception: Honoring Excellence in Post-Deployment Health

Rebuilding Trust, Renewing Our Dedication to Transparency in Deployment Health Science: Awards Ceremony 2014

“If you blow the whistle on higher ups because you have identified a legitimate problem, you should not be punished. You should be protected … problems [at the VA] require us to regain the trust of our veterans and live up to our vision of a VA that is more effective and more efficient.”   President Barack Obama, August 2014

The event will be held on Tuesday, September 23rd 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM

Presenters Include:

Continue reading →

Posted in Gulf War Updates, Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged , , | Comments Off on VCS to Participate in Sgt. Sullivan Center’s Event: Rebuilding Trust, Renewing Our Dedication to Transparency in Deployment Health Science | Veterans for Common Sense

VA Officials Spun Inspector General Report to Make VA Appear Not at Fault for 40+ Veteran Deaths in Phoenix | Veterans for Common Sense

Posted on September 10, 2014 by Team VCS

A new investigative report by the Arizona Republic newspaper has found that officials in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) whitewashed a report by the VA’s Inspector General regarding the depth, breadth, and scope of the healthcare access scandal that resulted in the deaths of at least 40 veterans in Phoenix alone.

According to the news article:

During a Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs hearing Tuesday, Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., challenged the language in the OIG report, suggesting it downplayed the effects of long-standing VA delays in delivering care to ailing veterans.

“I don’t want to give the VA a pass on this, and that’s exactly what this line does,” Heller said to Dr. John Daigh, assistant inspector general for health-care inspections. “It exonerates the VA of any responsibility in past manipulation of these … wait times.”

….

Based on the OIG’s cause-of-death conclusion, many media outlets cast the investigative report as vindication for the VA and as refutation of Arizona whistle-blower claims.

A Washington Post article was headlined, “Overblown claims of death and waiting times at the VA.” The Associated Press report, which appeared in publications nationwide, was titled, “IG: Shoddy care by VA didn’t cause Phoenix deaths.”

That spin on the story first circulated a day earlier when a copy of the VA’s response to the OIG investigation was leaked before release of the report. The key talking point: “It is important to note that OIG was unable to conclusively assert that the absence of timely quality care caused the death of these veterans.”

Inspector general reports are typically circulated to agency bosses prior to publication, providing an opportunity to correct errors and suggest changes.

More than a week before the Phoenix investigation was released, TheRepublic learned that a dispute had arisen over standard-of-proof language that was being pushed by VA administrators to downplay deaths in Phoenix.

….

OIG investigators corroborated virtually every major allegation of wrongdoing submitted by the two whistle-blowers. Nevertheless, the report and congressional briefing papers contain passages that appear to criticize Foote and his credibility, emphasizing that “the whistle-blower did not provide us with a list of 40 patient names.” The passage referred to VA patients Foote said died while awaiting care in Phoenix.

….

In interviews and a written rebuttal, Foote said the portion of the report about him is “false and misleading” because he and other whistle-blowers provided 24 names to inspectors and explained where in VA records to identify 16 more.

Another part of the VA report acknowledged that Foote had supplied at least 17 names and that others could not be traced because documentation had been destroyed by VA employees.

Read the full Arizona Republic news report here:

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/investigations/2014/09/10/report-phoenix-va-deaths-raises-questions/15375005/

Posted in VA Healthcare Crisis Updates, Veterans for Common Sense News | 1 Comment

VA’s Medical Research Failures Continue to Grow | Veterans for Common Sense

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Team VCS

A new example of VA’s failures on medical research — an often overlooked area where VA remains badly broken — has emerged near Fort Hood.

An Austin, Texas newspaper reports that a $3.8 million mobile MRI machine, widely touted by VA at the time of its 2008 inauguration, has been sitting empty and unused.  While VA announced in 2008 in detail the life changing brain research it was going to conduct using the equipment, VA never conducted that research and the equipment sits empty.   (“Lost Opportunity: With wars winding down, VA’s brain research failed to launch,” Austin Austin American Statesman-Staff, Sep. 7, 2014, Jeremy Schwartz reporting).

Among VA’s known, systemic medical research failures:

  • Cooking the books on medical research.  In March 2013, top VA epidemiologist-turned-whistleblower Dr. Stephen Coughlin testified to Congress about concerted efforts in the VA’s Office of Public Health to deliberately cover-up research findings that might show connections between military deployment and health risks.  Just like there were real consequences of VA’s cooking the books in the healthcare access scandal rippling outwards nationwide from the Phoenix VA medical center, veterans who were found by VA during some VA medical research to be suicidal were never aided and ultimately did commit suicide.  Coughlin’s array of assertions were found to be valid.
  • Denying scientific truth.  Over the past decade, the mainstream media has covered a myriad of stories on how VA research and benefits officials have downplayed, fought against, and outright denied the consensus findings by the penultimate National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine and the VA’s own Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses that Gulf War Illness is a real,  debilitating, and enduring medical condition, that it is not psychiatric or psychological in nature, that it was likely caused by environmental exposures, that it afflicts roughly one-third of the veterans of the 1991 Gulf War, and that treatments can likely be found.
  • No Confidence.  After more than two decades and hundreds of millions of dollars expended, the VA’s own Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses blasted VA research officials with a unanimous finding of “no confidence in the ability or demonstrated intention of VA staff to formulate and execute an effective VA Gulf War illness research program,” and a, “failure to acknowledge that the central health problem of this war even exists.”  
  • Retaliation.  True to form in retaliation against VA whistleblowers and those who speak up and out about problems in VA, VA’s leaders swiftly moved against the Gulf War Illness panel, gutting its leadership, membership, charter, and independence.
  • Making medical decisions for budgetary reasons.  In April 2014, widely reviled VA Undersecretary of Benefits Allison Hickey was revealed in a Military Times expose to have secretly weighed in with the Institute of Medicine in an effort to quash the IOM’s broad recommendation to the world’s medical community of calling “Gulf War Illness” by that name.  Her apparent goal was to prevent VA from being burdened with more disability claims from veterans suffering from Gulf War Illness, a covert roll-back of existing federal benefits law.
  • “Lost” database.  VA acknowledged that a critical research registry database containing medical data on hundreds of spouses and children of 1991 Gulf War veterans has been irretreivably “lost”.
  • Footdragging.  VA officials dragged their feet for years in implementing a registry of veterans with potential lung and other effects resulting from exposure to massive overseas burn pits.  There is no announced research related to veterans on the registry that might help provide a pathway to treatments and improving ill veterans’ health and lives.
  • Inability to Lead Research to Targeted Outcomes.  An array of important veteran-related medical research aimed at targeted outcomes has had to be directed by Congress to be conducted more effectively outside VA, from prosthetic limbs development by the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to research on traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in DoD’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program.

From foot-dragging to outright attempting to roll back the clock on Gulf War Illness research, VA’s systemic medical research issues remain largely on the back burner of Congressional, media, and public attention — if they are being addressed at all.

Read the full Austin article here:

http://projects.statesman.com/news/va-center-of-excellence/

Posted in Gulf War Updates, Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on VA’s Medical Research Failures Continue to Grow | Veterans for Common Sense

Chairman Miller Responds to OIG Report, What’s Still Needed | Veterans for Common Sense

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Team VCS

The following statements were released by the office of Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL-01), Chairman of the U.S House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

On August 7, a statement by Rep. Miller on the signing into law of the VA Reform Bill included this sage insight and advice:

“VA’s problems festered because administration officials ignored or denied the department’s challenges at every turn. In order to prevent history from repeating itself, President Obama must become personally involved in solving VA’s many problems.”

*****

Miller Statement on VA OIG Review of Phoenix VA Health Care System

Continue reading →

Posted in Legislative News, Veterans for Common Sense News | Comments Off on Chairman Miller Responds to OIG Report, What’s Still Needed | Veterans for Common Sense

VA Cooking the Books on Suicide Data, too | Veterans for Common Sense

Posted on August 25, 2014 by Team VCS

Over the course of this year, systemic failures at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have become known to the public, including VA cooking the books on veterans’ healthcare, disability claims, and medical research.

A new investigative report by USA Today sheds light on VA cooking the books on yet another area under its vast military veteran purview — veteran suicides.  [“VA touts progress on suicides; data tell another story,” Aug. 25, 2014, Dennis Wagner reporting]

A widely touted statistic related to veteran suicides — that there are an average of 22 a day — now appears to be not only horrific, but vastly underestimated, according to the USA Today investigation.

“Craig Northacker of Vets-Help.org said death records do not capture the real tally of veterans’ suicides, which he estimates at 30 to 35 daily.

[VA deputy director for suicide prevention Caitlin] Thompson acknowledged the data dilemma: “Numbers of suicides are just very, very difficult to get, period.” ”

USA Today also showed how slow real change is to come to VA.  Seven years ago, VA’s top mental health officer, Dr. Ira Katz, was exposed in a media scandal of covering up the true impact of the veteran suicide crisis.  According to USA Today, Katz sought to minimize the crisis in secret internal emails marked so they would not be released to the media, which they were eventually anyways:

” “Shh!” Katz wrote in one message. “Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among veterans we see in our medical facilities.” “

This renewed public exposure revives a longstanding issue:  Why is Ira Katz still at VA in the same position of responsibility over veteran suicides?

The USA Today story includes a bulleted list of veteran suicides following VA failure — statistics and anecdotes not reported by VA anywhere.

These tragic statistics and anecdotes mirror the findings in a 2007 Veterans for Common Sense lawsuit filed against VA that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and definitively showed that veterans were committing suicide awaiting VA care and benefits decisions.  [Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth and Justice v. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs].

Veterans and the public await justice and the long-overdue removal of Ira Katz and others like him from the federal agency entrusted with the care of our nation’s veterans, their widows, and their orphans.  in the meantime, the public’s recognition continues to grow regarding how wide the extent is of VA officials cooking the books over many years:  veterans’ VA healthcare, veterans’ VA benefits claims, veteran-related VA medical research, and the latest…  VA’s monitoring, tracking, reporting, and preventing veteran suicides.

*** Read the full USA Today story here:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/25/vets-suicides-data/14554371/

Posted in VA Claims Updates, Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged | Comments Off on VA Cooking the Books on Suicide Data, too | Veterans for Common Sense