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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VCS Submits Additional Comments on VA's Proposed PTSD Regulations
Written by VCS
Tuesday, 27 October 2009 09:23
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Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) offers VA regulators two recent scientific studies showing the enormous adverse impact on veterans' physical health due to post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The two new studies highlight the significant and urgent need to issue final regulations: the sooner the Veterans Benefits Administration grants service connection to veterans with PTSD, then the better positioned our veterans are to access VA medical care and thus receive potentially life-saving treatments. View our our original VCS comments Study 1: “Vietnam veterans who experienced [PTSD] were twice as likely to die from heart disease as veterans without PTSD. 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” (“PTSD Causes Early Death From Heart Disease, Study Suggests,” Science Daily, July 8, 2008). Study 2: “Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder face an increased risk for dying after surgery, even if the surgery is performed years after they have completed their service, according to a U.S. study. After the researchers adjusted for age and preexisting medical conditions – including heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking and depression -- they found that veterans with PTSD were 2.2 times more likely to die within a year of surgery than those without PTSD” (Post-Traumatic Stress May Raise Death Risks: Veterans with disorder more likely to die within a year of major surgery, study finds,” Health Day / U.S. News and World Report, October 17, 2009). Submitted on October 23, 2009, at www.regulations.gov. |