Posted on 10/04/2009 5:25:30 AM PDT by texas booster
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' cancellation of a $75 million contract with UT Southwestern Medical Center could mean the end to the Dallas university's research into treatments and cures for Gulf War illnesses. UT Southwestern epidemiologist Dr. Robert Haley told The Dallas Morning News that he and a team of 200 colleagues from eight universities are five years ahead of anyone else engaged in the painstaking research into why 200,000 healthy soldiers went to the Persian Gulf in 1990-91 and returned to civilian lives of chronic illness.
...
A closer look at the body of research conducted by Haley and his colleagues shows possible ramifications beyond the health of Gulf War veterans. VA funding to support development of diagnostic tests and medical treatments for sick veterans might also have helped civilian homemakers, factory workers or farm workers who get mysterious illnesses after exposure to pesticides, Haley said. "We are looking at unplowed ground," he said. "Nobody has ever looked at pesticide exposure and brain damage and chronic symptoms. People didn't believe this stuff was real, even in the civilian world, and it's never been looked at."
...
Veterans groups, UT Southwestern and their political supporters in Washington are working to restore VA funding. If successful, they hope the money will flow as a grant rather than a government contract, which comes with many more rules and regulations. "You can imagine," Haley said, "if you have to go to the government every time you want to take a step, your job becomes a six- or seven-decade job, and everybody quits. Everybody's dead."
The VA announcement ending the contract came after repeated disputes between UT Southwestern and government contract managers. A scathing report from the VA inspector general in July accused Haley of violating all sorts of VA contract protocols.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
In short, this is exactly why we don't want government bureaucrats anywhere near healthcare.
If they can't even take care of a group of veterans, over which the government has complete control, then what will they do to the rest of us? In spite of any platitudes from the VA, this cancellation came about due to petty jealously and over control of money. "Contract violations" are the excuse, and were crafted into rules as a gotcha.
Bureaucrats do NOT care about anyone outside their own little circle.
An excellent example of genetic research, and a plea to keep those systems running and updated.
More important, consider what happens when the faceless bureaucrats in DC get control over your life.
The government IS the problem, not the solution.
What IS a Gulf War illness?
BTTT
Since the first Gulf War produced these illnesses, but the Second - the invasion of Iraq - did not, what was different? During the First Saddam burned the oil fields throwing up huge clouds of raw petroleum products that covered a good portion of the war area, and second, Saddam may have used chemical weapons.
But that's the mystery. 200,000 cases are not a small sample. Something happened; however, it is likely that any Iraqi who knew the truth is long dead.
Canceling these funds will likely condemn these relatively young vets to a long and painful life with no hope of change. More of the war on vets and the military by Dems.
This latest abandonment of our brave patriots comes a few months after trying to get vets to pay for their own combat injuries (while going to the mat to give gold-plated health care to illegals)! Barry hates the current military and wants to build up his own civilian force - funded as well as the military.
I have long suspected these pills might be the cause of Gulf War Syndrome.
Personally, I didn't take them. I quietly buried mine in the sand when no one was looking.
That’s a shame.
I would have liked to know what the researchers found about squalene, considering it’s been newly approved for pandemic use in the H1N1 vaccine.
That is another possibility - and if so, then they will never find a “cure”.
I agree with your criticism of bureaucracy and petty jealousies. In this case I suspect politics was also involved considering that Texas and DFW are strong conservative/Republican areas.
However, I think emphasis on pesticides more so than the battlefield related agents, more specifically nerve gas (after all, we found 500 artillery shells with serin gas in them), has some political envirowhacko smell to it. I remember the DDT fiasco and the outlawing of almost all pesticides at one time. In fact, that gave rise to the Organic craze.
What was the final decision on Agent Orange in the Vietnam War?
Thank you for your service.
Do you recall a controversy over ammunition coated with depleted uranium that supposedly hardened the ammo enough to penetrate heavy armor such as tanks?
I seem to recall some debate about whether such ammo might cause cancer or other illness, but I don’t remember the specifics or the outcome of the debate and I’m not sure if I’ve stated the details correctly.
Someone else said, putting the Feds in control of our health care will get you the compassion of the IRS, the efficiency of the Veterans Administration, and the costs containment of the Pentagon. Don't let them do it!
Thanks for the link to an interesting, but frustrating, story.
For those interested in the microscopic levels that they are talking about, Harvard put out an interesting 10 minute video called The Inner Life of a Cell that shows the molecular interactions.
We believe that at least one bunker of nerve agents was hit and explodes, but cannot documents where the cloud passed over or its’ toxicity.
And that they military or its’ PR arm declined to publicize the sins of Saddam. Not sure why, but there seemed to be a lot of folks that had secret and not so secret dealings with Iraq that we wanted to forget.
Agent Orange has been implicated in numerous illnesses among Vietnam vets, and I believe that the VA will provide a disability payment for exposure and effects. Perhaps a more knowledgeable FReeper can fill us in.
Hundreds of X42’s political appointees were granted full military pensions after one to four year terms in an appointed position. These are $40,000+ annual pensions.
In the meantime I see that Barry has shortchanged the military again in multiple areas.
It is not a condition of barry alone but the entire Democrat party that hates the military, its honor and its precision.
Russia, France and Germany, or at least some of the leaders, were making a killing from Saddam by violating the oil embargo. It seems we didn't want to admit it because of the difficulty of dealing with it.
Agent Orange has been implicated in numerous illnesses among Vietnam vets, ...
I know it was implicated but I figured that much of that was highlighted and pushed by those against the war anyway. Just wondered if any definitive link between agent orange and the illnesses was ever established.
From 1961 to 1971, Agent Orange was by far the most widely used of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides" employed in the herbicidal warfare program. During the production of Agent Orange (as well as Agents Purple, Pink, and Green) dioxins were produced as a contaminant, which have caused health problems for those exposed during the Vietnam War. Agents Blue and White were part of the same program but did not contain dioxins.
It appears that most of the research was directed towards the contamination of Agent Orange with dioxin, a known bad guy.
I haven't found a direct connection yet between AO and illness, but most links discuss dioxin poisoning.
Considering the laws against commercial herbicide in the US, I would say that the research is out there but may not have been directed towards your exact question.
Your google mileage may vary.
Thanks texas booster.
I learned about it long after the war...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.