Depleted Uranium Munitions And You...

[J.B. Stone]

Denise Nichols' Testimony before the VAC (Sep 25, 2007)

Invited written testimony that I submitted and was available at hearing today....
Hope you all got to see it on the Senate VA Committee Website...or capitol hearings.org
CSpan was there so they should show it...sometime do not know if it has aired yet.
More later Denise
Thank you Senators for having this important hearing today related to Gulf War Illness and Research for the Gulf War Veterans of Operation Desert Storm 1990. It has been since 2000 since your last hearing on this issue. During the intervening 7 years, some small progress has finally been made in getting research moving in the right direction. It has been too long in coming and a major effort is needed starting now to make up for lost time. No progress has been made in improving the health of ill veterans. The majority of us are still waiting for definitive diagnosis and any effective treatment for our exposures. There is an overwhelming desperation that has developed year by year. We veterans feel betrayed and abandoned. We are angry at the lack of truth, accountability, and responsibility from our government. This is a National Security Issue because the way veterans are treated when they return directly has and will reflect on armed services recruitment. Funding for a war and the aftermath of exposures in war should be considered as a total. Needs of veterans of exposures in war are not to be considered as an after thought!



I am not a constitutional lawyer but a citizen, former nurse, and affected gulf war veteran and this is how a majority of gulf war veterans view what has happened: We have seen this pattern through the years both from the Democratic and Republican Party and this has to stop now. Section 8 of the Constitution states clearly one of the duties of congress is to “raise and support Armies and militia”. There are a lot of appropriations and authorizations that occur that are not called for in Section 8 and Veterans that have been exposed to hazardous toxins should not have to beg and fight their own government for years and decades after exposures in war! Our needs should be addressed as the priority not as an afterthought or not to be balanced and compete with items not covered in Section 8 of the Constititution!



As of the May GWVIS report from the VA we have 212,867 claims have been granted out of 696,842 that served in combat in Operation Desert Storm. This figure is getting close to 1/3 of the force. We have more than 175,000 with gulf war illness than the VA study picked up. We also have 13,517 veterans that have died according to the GWVIS data. WE the veterans are concerned if this count is accurate because it does not match the statistics in their own report (GWVIS) of the number that have served and the number of estimated living veterans. These are not just numbers these are human beings that served and put their life on the line. Today I am handing in to you the obituaries we have collected, this three ring notebook containing 800 pages of 1,473 have been researched over the last 6 months and we have thousands more that we are currently working on using a rigorous process of verifying and posting using copyright guidelines. We do not have all of them but what is interesting is to review the age of death and one can see clearly something is definitely wrong and we needed help from the time of exposure.

*************************************************

Read the Rest of Denise Nichols' Testimony at http://gulfwarcouncil.com/denise_nichols.htm

[J.B. Stone]

INTERNATIONAL GULF WAR COUNCIL'S PRESENTATION ON GW CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS, A SVR COALITION BROADCAST BY JERREL COOK, CRYPTOME'S SECRET NUKE MEETING, AND DU VS. THE NUREMBERG CODE.

*******************************************************************************************
*******************************************************************************************

INTERNATIONAL GULF WAR COUNCIL
http://www.gulfwarcouncil.com
Email: admin@gulfwarcouncil.com


IGWC Members, Veterans and Veteran Advocates,

After listening to the different testimonies in this hearing, it was obvious that the Veterans Affairs Committee (Senators Murray, Burr, and Sanders, and Drs Nass, and Steele) were quite keen on the sick Gulf War Veteran’s problems and raked Kilpatrick and Kupersmith over the hot coals, publicly reprimanding them for the lateness in their presentations and for the content (or lack thereof) of anything that supported any efforts by the VA and DoD in effective treatment and research for Gulf War Veterans.

Kilpatrick and Kupersmith squirmed like tardy school boys, passing the buck and giving every excuse under the sun why their testimonies were late (with the exception of their dogs eating their homework); and they couldn’t give a good reason as to why there was very little updating on Gulf War information, treatment and research in recent years. Click on the link near the bottom of this email (highlighted in yellow) to see and listen to the video of this hearing. It’s quite lengthy, so get comfortable and allow yourself at least an hour and a half to listen to it. It seemed like there was about a 20 minute wait/pause in the beginning of the video, so you may want to ‘forward’ the video a little.

Julie Mock’s testimony was professional and compelling on the effects of exposures as it relates to MS and disabilities in children of Gulf War Veterans. Thank you, Julie, for the hard work and efforts you’ve made to these issues and Gulf War Illnesses in general!

Denise Nichols has also submitted written testimony in great detail which can be read here:
http://www.gulfwarvets.com/cgi-bin/ulti ... 000056;p=1 Thanks to all of you who contacted your senators about this hearing and expressed your concerns to them in behalf of all Gulf War Veterans. If anyone else has written testimony they’ve submitted (or comments) and would like for others to see, please email admin@gulfwarcouncil.com with your testimony and we will post it on the bulletin board for you.

Drs Nass and Steele volleyed back answers and information to questions asked by Senators Murray, Burr and Sanders, setting up the scene-- exposing the areas of neglect and concern by the VA and DoD (Kilpatrick and Kupersmith) over the years. Drs Nass and Steele, we thank you for your courage and tireless efforts in taking a strong stand for us!

If you wish to be removed from this email group, please email: admin@gulfwarcouncil.com


http://veterans.senate.gov/public/index ... 6&view=all
Hearing: Research and Treatment for Gulf War Illness
September,25,2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007 9:30-Noon Dirksen 562
Oversight Hearing: Research and Treatment for Gulf War Illnesses

Click Here to View Hearing
Committee Leadership I
Chairman Daniel K. Akaka
Committee Leadership II
Ranking Member Richard Burr
Panel I
James Binns Chairman, Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans Illnesses
Julie Mock President Veterans of Modern Warfare, Inc.
Meryl Nass, MD, Director of Pulmonary Rehabilitation, Mount Desert Island Hospital Bar Harbor, Maine
Lea Steele, Ph.D. Scientific Director, Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veteransí Illnesses Associate Professor, Kansas State University
Roberta F. White, PhD, Member, Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental Health, Boston University School of Public Health
Panel II
MICHAEL E. KILPATRICK, MD DEPUTY DIRECTOR FORCE HEALTH PROTECTION AND READINESS PROGRAMS DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
JOEL KUPERSMITH, MD CHIEF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OFFICER DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Year: [2007], 2006, 2005
Month: [September], August, July, June, May, April, March, February, January
September, 2007
· Hearing published on: September 19, 2007Hearing: Information Technology[September 19, 2007]
· Hearing published on: September 20, 2007Hearing: Legislative Presentation by The American Legion [September 20, 2007]
· Hearing published on: September 25, 2007Hearing: Research and Treatment for Gulf War Illness[September 25, 2007]
· Hearing published on: September 27, 2007Hearing: Nomination of Paul J. Hutter to be General Counsel, Department of Veterans Affairs [September 27, 2007]
Dear IGWC Members, Veterans, and Veteran Advocates,

Please note: Dr Nass would like to share her corrected version of her testimony with you. Her testimony included over 100 footnotes (which are omitted from the committee's website). You may view it here: http://gulfwarcouncil.com/dr_nass.htm

Denise Nichols’ testimony can be seen here: http://gulfwarcouncil.com/denise_nichols.htm

And, veteran/member discussions may be posted here: http://www.gulfwarvets.com/ubb/ultimate ... 2;t=000056

These links are also posted on the IGWC website: http://gulfwarcouncil.com/index.htm

U.S. accused of failing ill '91 Gulf War veterans
16 years after war, 175,000 complain of seriously diseases
Reuters
Updated: 4:35 p.m. CT Sept 25, 2007
WASHINGTON - Medical experts and U.S. senators accused the Pentagon and

Veterans Affairs Department on Tuesday of failing to take seriously
illnesses suffered by U.S. 1991 Gulf War veterans and doing too little
to help them.

Expert witnesses called before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee
testified that Gulf War illnesses are real, serious and widespread
among U.S. troops sent to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. The issue has

been controversial for years.

The Institute of Medicine, which provides advice on medical issues to
U.S. policymakers, concluded in September 2006 that Gulf War veterans
reported far more symptoms of illness than their fellow troops who were

not deployed.

One in four report illness
But its report said studies have failed to establish that these
symptoms constitute a medical syndrome unique to Gulf War veterans.

Some of the harshest criticism of the government came from members of
an advisory committee created by Congress in 1998 to advise the VA on
Gulf War illnesses.

This panel's chairman, James Binns, said 16 years after the war,
175,000 U.S. veterans -- one in four of those who served -- remain
seriously ill, with the sickest among them developing neurodegenerative

diseases and brain cancer.

Binns said Pentagon and VA officials continue to "minimize these
illnesses at every opportunity, misleading Congress and the scientific
community." He faulted a VA fact sheet given to some senators stating,
"Gulf War veterans suffer from a wide range of common illnesses, which
might be expected in any group of veterans their age."

"That," Binns testified, "is garbage."

Lea Steele, scientific director for the advisory panel, said veterans
with Gulf War illness typically experience some combination of severe
headaches, memory and concentration problems, persistent pain, fatigue,

gastrointestinal and respiratory problems and unusual skin lesions and
rashes.

Causes unclear
The causes remain contentious, with some of the possibilities often
cited including: low-dose exposure to chemical weapons, vaccines or
medications given by the military, pesticides or smoke from burning oil

wells.

Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina cited a consensus among
Veterans Affairs committee members that Gulf War illnesses are real.
Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray blasted the Pentagon's
"long and shameful history" of failing to help the ill veterans.

A Pentagon health official said 15 to 20 percent of U.S. troops
deployed to fight the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are coming
home with "ill-defined" medical symptoms that defy standard diagnosis,
as was the case with Gulf War vets.

"I don't want to say we're seeing Gulf War illness in these folks," the

Pentagon's Dr. Michael Kilpatrick said after the hearing, but added
that some symptoms are similar to those seen in the earlier Gulf War
veterans.

'A tragic record of failure'
Binns said the U.S. government has spent more than $300 million on Gulf

War illness research.

"Much of the money was misspent on the false theory that these
illnesses were caused by psychological stress, part of a deliberate
effort to downplay these illnesses as the sort of thing that happens
after every war, rather than the result of toxic exposures," Binns
said.

"Only two treatment studies have ever been conducted, with negligible
results. This is a tragic record of failure, and the time lost can
never be regained," Binns said.

Kilpatrick said the 1991 Gulf War veterans who report health problems
are definitely ill, but do not have a single type of health problem.
"There isn't any constellation of symptoms that's unique to Gulf War
veterans," he added.


*******************************************************************
*******************************************************************
A SVR COALITION BROADCAST BY JERREL COOK ON STARDUST RADIO:
http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/arrestedde ... vr_p4.html



http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/arrestedde ... reely.html |
http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/arrestedde ... lcook.html | http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/arrestedde ... index.html
*******************************************************************
*******************************************************************

JOHN YOUNG'S CRYPTOME WEBSITE, http://cryptome.sabotage.org/, EXPOSED THIS SECRET NUKE MEETING. PLEASE CONTACT MR. DAVID MCDARBY TO VOICE YOUR POSITION TO BAN DEPLETED URANIUM FROM THE U.S. ARSENAL FOR THE SAFETY OF AMERICAN TROOPS AND TO INCLUDE OUR NATION'S TOP EXPERT, DR. DOUG ROKKE, DURING THIS MEETING'S PROCEEDINGS AT david.mcdarby@dtra.mil OR 1-703-767-4364.
THE DOCUMENT CAN BE VIEWED AT http://cryptome.sabotage.org/dsb092407.htm OR BY SCROLLING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SCREEN THANKS TO CIA HUMOR.
[Federal Register: September 24, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 184)]

[Federal Register: September 24, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 184)] [Notices] [Page 54249] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr24se07-26] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE Office of the Secretary Defense Science Board AGENCY: Department of Defense. ACTION: Notice of Advisory Committee meetings.
----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: The Defense Science Board Task Force on Nuclear Weapons Surety will meet in closed session on October 10-11, 2007; at the Institute for Defense Analyses, 4850 Mark Center Drive, Alexandria, VA. The mission of the Defense Science Board is to advise the Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics on scientific and technical matters as they affect the perceived needs of the Department of Defense. At the meeting, the Defense Science Board Task Force will: Assess all aspects of nuclear weapons surety; continue to build on the work of the former Joint Advisory Committee on Nuclear Weapons Surety, the Nuclear C2 System End-to-End Review and the Drell Panel; and review and recommend methods and strategies to maintain a safe, secure and viable nuclear deterrent. The task force's findings and recommendations,
pursuant to 41 CFR 102-3.140 through 102-3.165, will be presented and discussed by the membership of the Defense Science Board prior to being presented to the Government's decision maker. Pursuant to 41 CFR 102-3.120 and 102-3.150, the Designated Federal Officer for the Defense Science Board will determine and announce in the Federal Register when the findings and recommendations of the October 10-11, 2007, meeting are deliberated by the Defense Science Board. Interested persons may submit a written statement for consideration by the Defense Science Board. Individuals submitting a written statement must submit their statement to the Designated Federal Official at the address detailed below; at any point, however, if a written statement is not received at least 10 calendar days prior to the meeting, which is the subject of this notice, then it may not be provided to or considered by the Defense Science Board. The Designated Federal
Official will review all timely submissions with the Defense Science Board Chairperson, and ensure they are provided to members of the Defense Science Board before the meeting that is the subject of this notice. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. David McDarby, HQ DTRA/OP-CSNS, 8725 John J. Kingman Road, Stop 6201, Ft. Belvoir, VA 22060; via e-mail at david.mcdarby@dtra.mil; or via phone at (703) 767-4364. Dated: September 17, 2007. L.M. Bynum, Alternate OSD Federal Register Liaison Officer, Department of Defense. [FR Doc. 07-4707 Filed 9-21-07; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 5001-06-M
********************************************************************
********************************************************************


Rescue and Development of ViequesP.O. Box 1424 Vieques, Puerto Rico 00765787 741-0716 787 375-0525 HYPERLINK"mailto:bieke@prorescatevie ques.org"bieke@prorescatevie ques.orgSpecial ReportVIEQUES UPDATE delivered by Robert Rabin SiegelCitizens Forum/Humacao September 22, 2007On May 1, 2003 the people of Vieques and all Puerto Ricans celebrated anenormous victory for Justice and Peace. Without firing a single shot, wewere able to defeat the greatest and most powerful military force in thehistory of humanity--the United States Navy.For more than half a century, three quarters of the territory of Vieques,was occupied by the navy. The bombing, the testing of new types
of weaponryand the decades of military maneuvers, created environmental destruction ofenormous proportions. The use of millions of pounds of conventionalexplosives; NAPALM and depleted uranium, have left a toxic legacy, whichendanger our environment and the health of our people.In spite of the 2003 victory, the mayor part of the lands, which werecontrolled by the Navy are still in hands of federal authorities. Insteadof an adequate environmental clean up strategy, the Navy has proceeded, forthe past two years, with the open-air detonation of tons of explosives. Thishas added more contaminants to the environment. Vieques already has analarming incidence of cancer and the highest patient mortality rate in allof Puerto Rico, yet it is a community without basic medical facilities forits population.Speculation and the displacement of our families, threatens the veryexistence of the Viequense population. The
government - local and national –speaks of sustainable development, but it provides financial supportprimarily to large foreign interests. The municipal and the Puerto Ricangovernments offer a few thousand dollars to local cooperative projects,while they provide millions to multinational hotel companies, American Eagleand North Americans who already control 90% of the Vieques tourist economy.Without our land in the hands of the people, we cannot speak of justice.Without a clean environment, Vieques cannot live in peace. Vieques stillexperiences military violence through the death of our cancer patients andthe misery of other evils related to military toxins. Without health--thereis no peace. An economy in the hands of foreigners does not allow justiceor peace in Vieques.We propose the immediate implementation of the Guidelines for SustainableDevelopment and the Master Plan for the Sustainable Development of
Vieques.Both of these projects articulate a community vision that came out of thePeace struggle, for the development of a Vieques free of the US Navy. Coopprojects involving cultural, educational and agricultural tourism; “tourismat your home” where every resident can participate in the economic benefitsgenerated by the natural beauty of Vieques; a community land trust inVieques to assure community control of the new geographic patrimony forcoming generations; emergency measures to stop real estate speculation andthe penalization of those who have unduly benefited from the socio-economiccrisis of our people; the establishment of an International Center formilitary decontamination as an environmental clean up project; solidaritywith other communities affected by militarism; as a new project of economicgrowth for Vieques: the creation of Vieques Community Radio-FM (RadioComunitaria Vieques-FM), to educate, mobilize and
offer a voice to thepeople, as we engage in the construction of that other Vieques... and thatother World which we so urgently need, finally, an indemnification of athousand million dollars by the US Navy for the damage it has caused. Theseare some of the demands of the Committee for the Rescue and Development ofVieques.We are ready to work with those in positions of power who may be interestedin developing a Vieques for Viequenses, a land that will some day celebrateto its maximum potential the enormous joy of this victory of David overGoliath.No virus found in this outgoing message.Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.488 / Virus Database: 269.13.32/1032 - Release Date: 9/26/20078:20 PM[Non-text portions of this message have been
removed]
************************************************************************************************************
************************************************************************************************************
Is the testing of Depleted Uranium munitions on American soil against the Nuremberg Code? See the Office of Human Subjects Research website information on Directives for Human Experimentation at http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/nuremberg.html . Servicemembers can protect themselves, their families and the environment by anomously reporting such Nazi-like infractions to the Department of Defense (DoD) "Incidents" Hotline number at 1-800-472-6719.
************************************************************************************************************
************************************************************************************************************





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
starDUst

The Dr. Douglas Rokke Foundation
Laura R. Cuozzo
Advocate for US Military and Veterans
3945 Autumn Palm Drive
Zephyrhills, FL 33541
(813) 715-4001

http://www.myspace.com/More_Bleeping_Truth

[J.B. Stone]

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Oct 3, 2007 6:01:24 EDT

A presidential commission will call Wednesday for an immediate 25 percent increase in veterans’ disability compensation while awaiting a larger overhaul of disability and transition benefits.

The Veterans’ Disability Benefits Commission will say the current compensation system is outdated and fails to consider the complete impact that a service-connected disability has on the life of veterans and their families.

The current system also is unnecessarily cumbersome to the point that it discourages veterans from getting the help they deserve, says the commission report, a copy of which was obtained Tuesday by the Military Times.

The 562-page report will be released Wednesday afternoon, although what happens next is unclear. Most of the recommendations, including the proposed 25 percent benefits boost, would require congressional action before they could take effect.

With the Bush administration already balking at the $4 billion increase in veterans’ health care and benefits programs being pushed by Congress, it is unlikely that administration officials would support further increases.

However, an overhaul of the veterans’ disability rating system, streamlined claims processing and an easier transition from military to veterans programs are all issues under consideration by Congress, and could end up included in the Wounded Warrior Assistance Act that lawmakers expect to pass later this year. An overhaul of the military’s complicated disability retirement and physical evaluation process is expected to be part of that bill.

The report by the 13-member commission, led by retired Army Lt. Gen. James Scott, caps more than two years of work, including several precedent-setting studies of disabled veterans and their compensation that looked at their total income and compared military and veterans’ benefits to those received by disabled workers who never served in the military.

In calling for an overhaul of the military and Department of Veterans Affairs rating systems, the commission said a revised system needs to be fair so that people who have experienced similar losses receive similar compensation. Veterans with mental disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder, are particularly poorly served by the current rating system, the report says.

The VA ratings schedule that sets disability levels has not been changed in 62 years, and needs to be updated, the commission says, with top priority going to revising the ratings for PTSD, traumatic brain injury and other mental health and neurological body systems says. This could be done quickly, in time to help Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, while leaving a review of the rest of the ratings to roll out over five years.

The commission comes down squarely on the side of veterans on several controversial issues. For example, it supports allowing disabled retirees to receive full veterans’ disability compensation and military retired pay when they are eligible for both, and to allow survivors to receive their full veterans’ and military survivors’ benefits.

On both of those issues, the Pentagon has resisted efforts in Congress to allow both payments in full, although in recent years lawmakers have been phasing out the mandatory offsets in one pay or the other that had been on the books for decades.

One recommendation that may not please veterans calls for periodic reviews of case in which disability pay is based, in part, on the fact that a veteran’s disability prohibits him or her from holding a job.

When former VA Secretary R. James Nicholson made a similar recommendation several years ago, veterans went wild about the government trying to cut their payments.

The commission calls for periodical and comprehensive evaluations of disabled veterans’ employability status, and a way to slowly wean veterans off benefits if it is possible for them to return to work at some point.



http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/10/m ... t_071002w/

[J.B. Stone]

Project 112/SHAD Department of Defense contact managers, (800) 497-6261

www1.va.gov/shad

SHADHELPLINE@vba.va.gov :

audio of "Alex Jones - Dr. Doug Rokke interview part 1 - 7":

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzO4kAZLong
www.youtube.com/watch?v=X90o-AhSr4I
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbZdWA3tTJs
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLy2dHGVAiA
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lc7hD0rk4s
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqm9c87a0g8
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeMmnAwf7l4

[J.B. Stone]

The VA's Claim Dodge



Deb Derrick | November 12, 2007



My recent investigation on the VA claims of a Navy waste disposal ship, the USS Calhoun County, provides a cautionary tale about what might be happening and why.

Harvey Ray Lucas served in the late 1950s on the USS Calhoun County, a low-ranking Navy ship whose primary mission was to dump atomic and other military waste into the Atlantic Ocean. Lucas spent four years heaving radioactive materials over the side of the ship. After leaving the military, he suffered from chronic health problems and sired five children with birth defects. Lucas's testimony made my jaw drop. He described one baby whose skin oozed "bloodwater." He described the birth and death of another whom physicians termed an "anencephalic female monster." A couple years after his testimony, Lucas died of a rare cancer associated with radiation exposure.

I came across Lucas's story in 1998, when I worked in a U.S. Congressional office and read the transcript of his Board of Veterans Appeals hearing. Lucas's widow, Barbara, and my boss, Congressman David Skaggs (D-Colo.), both felt that Harvey Lucas and his family's illnesses stemmed from radiation exposure in the Navy. But Barbara Lucas had been pursuing a compensation claim with the VA for 18 years without success. The VA always seemed to need more or different evidence. When our office dug up a key final document and Barbara prevailed, I decided to write a book about the USS Calhoun County and her VA claim.

Deck logs and interviews with the ship's sailors, officers, and scientists suggested that the USS Calhoun County had carried excessively radioactive material and that the ship's decks had been contaminated. When I discovered a number of other sailors had experienced odd health problems, I broadened my inquiry to look at the VA cases of other USS Calhoun County veterans.

I interviewed Deane Horne, whose teeth and hair had fallen out after he left the ship and whose eldest son was born without a femur. I interviewed Richard Tkaczyk, who had also lost his teeth and whose first born son had seizures and brain damage. I interviewed George Albernaz, who was half paralyzed after suffering from an odd brain disease that his physician called radiation necrosis. All had filed claims with the VA. None had made any headway.

In all cases, the VA began the claims process by asserting that there was no proof that the USS Calhoun County had even carried atomic waste -- even though there was ample evidence of the ship's mission in public federal archives. In all cases, the Navy forwarded personnel files to the VA that were missing a key radiation exposure document.

The treatment of these men's claims echoed what had happened with the Lucas claim. It was also entirely consistent with a vastly discouraging history of the VA's handling of hard-to-prove claims, including radiation, asbestos, Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome, and PTSD-based injuries. All such cases were and are handled centrally out of a special office in VA headquarters. All required Congressional or court intervention to force the VA to grant claims.

In the case of radiation-based claims, the military was found omitting incriminating documents from veterans' databases; veterans' documents were destroyed in a huge and mysterious fire at a military personnel records facility; the VA was found hiding and shredding more veterans' evidence; and whistleblowers were subjected to death threats and workplace retaliation.

As I unearthed this information, I was drawn into providing evidence for the claims of several USS Calhoun County veterans. In particular, I began helping George Albernaz, who had served with Lucas on the ship between 1957 and 1958.

To verify his claim, I sent the VA data on the ship's atomic loads, noting that my information came from deck logs in the National Archives. The VA called my information unsubstantiated. I sent Navy documentation on them. The Navy and the VA said that they still had no proof that Albernaz himself had ever been exposed to radiation. I sent information from the Lucas claim that challenged such "zero dose" exposure estimates. It was deemed irrelevant.

Looking for more evidence on Albernaz's behalf, I dug deeper in the ship's administrative archives. I came across a memo to the ship's Commanding Officer from 1956, indicating that the deck of the USS Calhoun County had become radiologically contaminated.

I found another from 1958 stating that all attempts to remove the contamination had failed. But my breath failed me when I read a final memo from 1962, stating that the Navy had never, in its history, been able to render such a ship safe for use and recommending that the USS Calhoun County be sunk.

If I thought that such evidence would help win the Albernaz case, however, I was quite mistaken. Albernaz and I submitted the incriminating documents between 2005 and 2007. Yet the VA omitted the documents from the "evidence of record;" the Navy re-asserted that they had no proof of Albernaz's exposure but that he'd likely only received safe doses; and the VA continued to take the Navy at its word. As of this month, the VA was demanding a long list of additional evidence to support Albernaz's claim -- much of which he and I had already submitted.

The treatment of these sailors exposes a U.S. veterans' claims adjudication system that enshrines military-produced evidence as the only "objective" arbiter of claims, even when there is ample reason to doubt it. Evidence -- even documents from the National Archives -- produced by the likes of Harvey Lucas and George Albernaz is viewed and treated as potentially fraudulent. And far from making any attempt to validate or verify claims through databases, "buddy statements," or consolidated claims reviews, the VA actively dismisses their compatriots' evidence as "irrelevant" to their claims. In sum, the veterans are treated as liars, told to prove their own cases to the government, and subject to having credible evidence dismissed when it contradicts military assertions.



http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?art ... laim_dodge

[J.B. Stone]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/200 ... yers_N.htm

Lawyers step up to help veterans gratis

By Laura Parker, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The scene resembled Hollywood's version of how a multibillion-dollar legal deal might be negotiated. Big-name corporate law firm. Posh conference room, with a conference table so large 70 attorneys fit easily around it. Video technicians, hovering nearby, beam the meeting to other big law firms from Boston to Seattle.
Yet there was no deal to cut. Instead, the high-powered lawyers were getting a tutorial in the arcane vagaries of veterans law.

"This could be the VA's worst nightmare," Bart Stichman, one of the organizers, enthused from the podium. "Hundreds of attorneys from around the country providing legal service to veterans for free."

The recent gathering at Sidley Austin, a firm with 1,700 lawyers around the globe, is part of a growing effort to provide free legal help to thousands of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who are trying to win disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

"There are 100,000 veterans seeking benefits, and too many of them are waiting too long to get them," says Ron Abrams, who, with Stichman, directs the National Veterans Legal Services Program, a non-profit group in Washington spearheading the effort. "These lawyers are going to treat these veterans the way they would treat their corporate clients."

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Va | Lawyers | Department of Veterans Affairs | Vietnam veterans | American Legion | Bart | Veterans of Foreign Wars | Legion | Legal Services
The approach marks the first time since the Civil War that attorneys have been recruited in large numbers to represent veterans. The lawyers hope their legal expertise will speed consideration of claims and result in better benefits for veterans, Stichman says. More than 50 of the largest law firms in the USA and more than 400 attorneys have signed up. Stichman and Abrams hope to start assigning veterans to the attorneys early next month.

Law schools join cause

Amanda Smith, an attorney with the Philadelphia-based firm Morgan Lewis, says many of the participating lawyers are Vietnam veterans and "are appalled at the circumstances that they find veterans in today."

Besides the push by big law firms, law schools in states such as the Carolinas, Virginia, Delaware, Michigan and Illinois also are offering free services to veterans.

Craig Kabatchnick, who worked as a VA appellate attorney from 1990 until 1995, launched a clinic last January for veterans at North Carolina Central University's law school, where he now teaches.

"We had all kinds of veterans who were very disabled, litigating against trained attorneys like myself who were defending the VA," Kabatchnick says. The VA would "win" if the claim was denied, Kabatchnick says. "Did we litigate to win? Absolutely. In cases where the veteran was representing himself, the win ratio was very high."

Paul Hutter, the VA's general counsel, says its attorneys have "an ethical obligation to fairly and justly" review claims and settle "meritorious cases quickly."

"Our job is to ensure that veterans get the benefits allowed them by law," he says in an e-mail.

Disability claims have increased from 578,773 in fiscal 2000 to 838,141 this year, according to VA figures. There are about 407,000 pending. The average processing time is 177 days, the VA says.

Change in law lifted restrictions

Traditionally, veterans have represented themselves or sought assistance from a service organization, such as the American Legion or the Veterans of Foreign Wars. But many of the caseworkers in those groups are overloaded with cases, Stichman says, and sometimes one volunteer oversees 1,000 veterans' claims.

The approach has not led to quick compensation for veterans. Evidence supporting a veteran's claim — medical records or letters from colleagues — is not always submitted with the original claim. When that evidence is added later, it can lead to reversals or requests for reconsideration. That can add more than a year to the appeals process, the VA says.

The Board of Veterans Appeals either reverses or orders reconsideration of decisions made by VA regional offices 56% of the time, according to an analysis of VA figures by Stichman's group. Congress has long kept attorneys at arms-length from the veterans' disability process. Until last June, when federal law changed, paid attorneys could not work on cases until after a final decision by the Board of Veterans' Appeals. The VA is now considering regulations that would require all attorneys to pass a test in order to qualify to handle veterans' claims, according to Phil Budahn, a department spokesman.

Service organizations, including the Disabled American Veterans and Veterans of Foreign Wars, vigorously fought the change in law. They are now pushing to repeal the law and support requiring a test, arguing that lawyers could turn what is supposed to be a non-adversarial process into a litigious one.

"The fear was lawyers will dominate, and they'll ruin everything," says Thomas Reed, a law professor at Widener University in Wilmington, Del., who began offering free legal services to veterans in 1997.

Lawyers not the cure-all

Joe Violante, national legislative director of the Disabled American Veterans, which represents 1.3 million veterans, says trained volunteers from the service organizations are far more experienced at representing veterans' claims than the newly recruited lawyers.

"If the veteran is under the impression that an attorney is going to get their claim through faster, there's no proof of that," he says.

Ron Flagg, a Sidley attorney involved in the pro bono veterans' project, says there are so many claims that the system is overwhelmed.

"Lawyers are not the cure to all ills," he says. "But this is a problem where lawyers can be helpful."

[J.B. Stone]

Peake Takes Over as Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Lt. Gen. James B. Peake (Ret.), M.D. has taken over command as Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, replacing former secretary Jim Nicholson. Nicholson stepped down after acknowledging that the VA had suffered a $1.3 billion budget shortfall that jeopardized veterans health care.

During his nomination hearings, Peake promised to be an advocate for injured veterans, who would fight for the funding needed for their care.

Dr. Peake served in Vietnam as platoon leader with the 101st Airborne Division. Wounded twice in battle, he was awarded the Silver Star, a Bronze Star with 'V' device and oak leaf cluster, and Purple Heart with oak leaf cluster.

From 2000 to 2004, Dr. Peake served as the 40th Surgeon General of the United States Army, a position in which he commanded 50,000 medical personnel and 187 army medical facilities worldwide with an operating budget of almost $5 billion.

"Dr. Jim Peake has the skills and experience to carry out this mission," stated President Bush in a White House press statement. "Throughout his long career, Dr. Peake has worked to improve the way we deliver medical care to our troops. And thanks to his efforts, many who once might have died on the battlefield have returned home to live lives of hope and promise."

VA Official Biography


The Honorable James B. Peake


Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake, M.D., was nominated by President George W. Bush to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs on October 30, 2007, and was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on December 14, 2007. He was sworn into office on December 20, 2007.

Dr. Peake is the principal advocate for veterans in the U.S. government and directs the nation’s second largest Cabinet Department, responsible for a nationwide system of health care services, benefits programs, and national cemeteries for America’s veterans and dependents. VA employs more than 250,000 people at hundreds of medical centers, nursing homes, benefits offices, and national cemeteries throughout the country. VA’s budget for fiscal year 2007 is $77.3 billion.

A St. Louis, Mo., native, Peake received his Bachelor of Science degree from U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1966 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Infantry. Following service in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division where he was awarded the Silver Star, a Bronze Star with “V” device and the Purple Heart with oak leaf cluster, Peake entered medical school at Cornell University in New York. He was awarded a medical doctorate in 1972.

Peake began his Army medical career as a general surgery resident at Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, Texas. He retired from the Army in 2004, following service as a cardiac surgeon and commander in several medical posts culminating in his appointment as U.S. Army Surgeon General from 2000 to 2004. As Army Surgeon General, Peake commanded 50,000 medical personnel and 187 army medical facilities worldwide. Prior to that, he served as Commanding General of the U.S. Army Medical Department Center and School, the largest medical training facility in the world with more than 30,000 students annually.

After retiring as a Lieutenant General, Peake served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Project Hope, a non-profit international health foundation operating in more than 30 countries. Just prior to his nomination as Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Peake served as a member of the Board of Directors for QTC, one of the largest private providers of government-outsourced occupational health and disability examination services in the nation.

Dr. Peake is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, Society of Thoracic Surgeons, and the American College of Cardiology. He has been honored with the Order of Military Merit; the “A” Professional Designator; and the Medallion, Surgeon General of the United States.

December 2007

Tending to our veterans
By The Editorial Board | Sunday, January 6, 2008, 05:59 PM

President Bush has a new cabinet secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs who appears to be eminently qualified for the job.

Secretary James Peake is a retired three-star general and a physician with more than three decades of experience in the Army’s medical system. He is a former surgeon general of the Army and once led the U.S. Army Medical Command at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.

Peake has promised to fix the problems causing so much heartache for America’s veterans, particularly those returning from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He has plenty to do. Care for veterans has been generally dreadful since the war in Iraq began, from the disgrace of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center to the shocking number of veteran suicides. VA care varies by region and by hospital and clinic, but too many veterans aren’t getting proper care.

First, Peake must smooth the transition of veterans from the military to the VA. The backlog of disability claims is shameful, and staffing problems at some centers have caused veterans to wait months for an evaluation.

At the same time, there has been a shortage of mental health care though the suicide rate for veterans is twice that of the general population. One estimate found that more than 125 veterans of all wars kill themselves each week in the United States.

That is an appalling figure that shames us as a nation. Up to 30 percent of those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are believed to suffer from post traumatic stress disorder, often requiring some mental health intervention. The suicide rate for Army veterans is above 17 percent per 100,000 people, the highest percentage in 26 years of record keeping.

Peake says he understands the gravity of the situation. He was wounded while serving as an infantry officer in Vietnam and has said he wrestled with post traumatic stress afterward.

Returning veterans must know they can get quick, effective help from Veterans Affairs when they are troubled. They shouldn’t have to wait for two or three months for an evaluation. This is an issue Peake must address immediately.

Many Americans don’t realize the size and scope of Veterans Affairs. It is the second-largest employer among the president’s cabinet posts, with nearly 250,000 employees and an $82 billion budget.

More than 5.5 million veterans receive care at the system’s 153 hospitals and 900 clinics. It is imperative that the system be able to treat those men and women returning from battle overseas who need help at once. And not just for physical problems but for mental ones, too.

Peake sailed through his confirmation process in Congress, promising to address the problems besetting the Department of Veterans Affairs. He should know that veterans deserve decent treatment when they return from war. They earned it.

Stars & Stripes: January 10, 2008
New VA Rules for Specially Adapted Housing Grants
by Brooklyn Eagle (edit@brooklyneagle.net), published online 01-10-2008


Program Aids Most Seriously Injured

WASHINGTON — A change in the law that allows certain seriously injured veterans and servicemembers to receive multiple grants for constructing or modifying homes has resulted in many new grants, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced recently.

Before the change, eligible veterans and servicemembers could receive special adaptive housing grants of $10,000 or $50,000 from VA only once. Now they may use the benefit up to three times, so long as the total grants stay within specified limits outlined in the law.

“Veterans seriously disabled during their military service have earned this benefit,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dr. James B. Peake. “This change ensures that every eligible veteran and servicemember has the chance to use the maximum amount afforded to them by our grateful nation.”

In order to ensure all previous recipients are aware of this opportunity, VA has mailed more than 16,000 letters to eligible veterans, reaching out to those who used only a portion of their grant or who decided not to use the grant even after initially qualifying.

The response over the past year has been dramatic, with more than 4,600 applications received thus far. Of these, approximately 3,900 veterans have been determined eligible under the new law, and more than 200 grants already awarded.

VA has averaged about 1,000 adaptive housing grant applications per year during the past 10 years. Since the program began in 1948, it has provided more than $650 million in grants to about 34,000 seriously disabled veterans.

To ensure veterans’ and servicemembers’ needs are met and grant money is spent properly, VA works closely throughout the entire process with contractors and architects to design, construct and modify homes that meet the individuals’ housing accessibility needs.

Eligible for the benefit are those with specific service-connected disabilities entitling them to VA compensation for a “permanent and total disability.” They may receive a grant to construct an adapted home or to modify an existing one to meet their special needs.

VA has three types of adapted 3housing grants available. The Specially Adapted Housing grant (SAH), currently limited to $50,000, is generally used to create a wheelchair-accessible home for those who may require such assistance for activities of daily living.

VA’s Home Loan Guaranty program and the Native American Direct Loan program may also be used with the SAH benefit to purchase an adaptive home.

The Special Housing Adaptations (SHA) grant, currently limited to $10,000, is generally used to assist veterans with mobility throughout their homes due to blindness in both eyes, or the anatomical loss or loss of use of both hands or extremities below the elbow.

A third type established by the new law, the Temporary Residence Adaptation (TRA) grant, is available to eligible veterans and seriously injured active duty servicemembers who are temporarily living or intend to temporarily live in a home owned by a family member.

While the SAH and SHA grants require ownership and title to a house, in creating TRA Congress recognized the need to allow veterans and active duty members who may not yet own homes to have access to the adaptive housing grant program.

Under TRA, veterans and servicemembers eligible under the SAH program would be permitted to use up to $14,000, and those eligible under the SHA program would be allowed to use up to $2,000 of the maximum grant amounts. Each grant would count as one of the three grants allowed under the new program.

“The goal of all three grant programs is to provide a barrier-free living environment that offers the country’s most severely injured veterans or servicemembers a level of independent living,” added Peake.

Other VA adaptive housing benefits are currently available through Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Service’s “Independent Living” program, the Insurance Service’s Veterans Mortgage Life Insurance program, and the Veterans Health Administration’s Home Improvement and Structural Alterations grant.

For more information about grants and other adaptive housing programs, contact a local VA regional office at 1-800-827-1000 or local veteran service organization. Additional program information and grant applications (VAF-26-4555) can be found at www.homeloans.va.gov/sah.htm.

[J.B. Stone]

'Atomic human guinea pigs' file suit
http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoe ... 9080884d5d

Gov't deserted soldiers after their exposure to nuclear tests: lawyer

Janet French, The StarPhoenix
Published: Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Former soldiers the Canadian military once sent within a couple kilometres
of nuclear explosions have launched a class action lawsuit against the
Government of Canada.

Regina lawyer Tony Merchant filed the suit in federal court Tuesday on
behalf of an estimated 1,000 "atomic human guinea pigs," who were sent to
the U.S., Australia and islands in the South Pacific between 1946 and 1963.

There, soldiers were exposed to huge doses of radiation that caused
radiation sickness, then later, cancers and untimely deaths, the suit
claims.

The statement of claim also alleges the government knew the harmful effects
of radiation when the military volunteered its soldiers to be the unwitting
test subjects of nuclear blasts.

"I really feel that we have been deserted," says Bob Henderson, a High
Level, Alta., man who is one of the plaintiffs named in the suit.

"We served our country with pride, with dignity -- and most of all with
honour -- and the government has done absolutely nothing for us.
I doubt that they ever will."

Once a member of Lord Strathcona's Horse regiment, Henderson was assigned to
survey for radiation after the bombs exploded. He was present for an
estimated 25 nuclear blasts.

During the tests, he stood in a "safe area" about eight kilometres from the
explosion sites.

"The light is unbelievable," he said. "I could see through my arm. And the
two gentlemen behind me, I could see through their heads."

The soldiers would be decontaminated, then climb right back into dirty
trucks covered in nuclear fallout, he said. Radioactive particles were all
over him and his clothes, and he inhaled the dust, he said. No one did
medical tests to see if the radiation had affected him until years later.

In the 1990s, he developed cancer of the kidney, then the bowel. He had
heart attacks and cataracts, and both of his daughters developed cancers in
their 20s.

Merchant says it's hard to say why the Canadian military would volunteer
soldiers for such tests. However, if U.S. had used nuclear weapons in
Germany or Russia, troops would have had to move in immediately after a
blast to capture anyone who remained alive and claim the area, he said, and
therefore, been exposed to the fallout.

"They had to know the huge damage that would be done, but they still wanted
some knowledge of the effects," Merchant said. "What is particularly
troublesome, is we were doing things with the Canadian troops that the
American troops weren't even doing."

After an uproar by American soldiers also on site for the tests, the U.S.
government in 1990 awarded $75,000 to each exposed soldier.

Merchant said any Canadian involved in the tests should get at least
$150,000 in compensation from the government. The people who got sick from
radiation, or the families of the soldiers who died, are entitled to more,
Merchant said -- how much more depends on the case.

The government had a duty to protect its soldiers from predictable harm,
Merchant argues in the suit. Furthermore, soldiers who had recognized the
danger couldn't refuse the duties without facing repercussions for defying
orders.

Calgary man Jim Huntley said veterans and their widows resorted to the class
action suit when their pleas to government for recognition and compensation
went without response.

Huntley was sent to Nevada in 1957 for top-secret "training" exercises.
Equipped with nothing but his regular military uniform, he watched six
blasts detonate. He was knocked over by shock waves, and one trench he was
hiding inside caved in.

The suit alleges the government sent Huntley to Nevada to test the effects
of radiation on humans.

"Scientific personnel, dressed in white 'space suits,' ran ticking Geiger
counters up and down Huntley's body," it says. While senior officers were
decontaminated, Huntley and his platoon were cleaned off with straw brooms.

Huntley was 18 at the time, and didn't worry about the blasts because
officers told him the radiation "will go away with the wind."

In 1982, a colonel admitted to Huntley he'd been overdosed with radiation
and advised him to be tested regularly for cancer, the suit says. However,
the colonel said if anyone asked him, he'd deny the conversation happened.

"What makes me mad is these politicians today can stand in front of you, and
say, 'You were done wrong. Somebody should have looked after you,' " Huntley
said. "They've admitted it, but they're not doing anything about it."

Jay Paxton, press secretary to Minister of Defence Peter MacKay, said
Tuesday the government is aware members of the military participated in
allied forces' nuclear weapons testing.

"We recognize that this is a serious issue that needs to be dealt with the
utmost care and patience to ensure that it is handled properly," Paxton
wrote in an e-mail. "Our goal is to find an acceptable resolution that
honours those who have given so much for this country.

"All those who serve their country -- past or present -- deserve the
respect, admiration and care of a grateful nation."
In addition to compensation, Henderson said veterans deserve official
recognition that they were used and told never to talk about it.

The government should also compensate the widows and dependents of soldiers
who later died from radiation-related diseases, he said.

Also, the government should ensure that descendants of exposed soldiers are
alerted about the health risks they could face, as the genetic damage from
such doses of radiation can trickle down several generations, he said.
Merchant is looking for more exposed soldiers to include their names, and
their stories, in the class action suit. He's asking them to contact his
firm via its website, at
www.merchantlaw.com

jfrench@sp.canwest.com

© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2008

[J.B. Stone]

IMO, you might try getting Congress to appoint a veterans' Ombudsman who has the power to investigate complaints, issue summonses to appear, the authority to require disclosure and who reports directly to Congress on his or her findings. That could get the veteran's issues as well as their medical recommendations directly to the people who control the $$$.

The VA administration need to be reminded that its function is to provide services to veterans, not to manage the budget.

There ARE several avenues open to Veterans, although most have no clue how to use them:

U.S. Department Of Veterans Affairs
OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL

http://www.va.gov/oig/

The Office of Inspector General is an independent organization with the goal of minimizing fraud, waste, and abuse in the Department of Veterans Affairs' programs, activities and functions. The Office of Healthcare Inspections (54) was created to monitor the health care provided to the veterans.

To carry out its inspections responsibilities, the Office of Healthcare Inspections is legally authorized to gain access to all records, reports, audits, reviews, documents, papers, recommendations, or other pertinent materials.
Mission

The Office of Healthcare Inspections (OHI) is dedicated to ensuring that eligible veterans, and qualified family members, receive high quality medical care and support. The OHI supports the Secretary's vision of "Putting Veterans First", and aspires to provide the highest possible level of innovative and forward-looking clinical consultative support to Office of Inspector General operating elements. OHI will work in a cooperative spirit to provide meaningful oversight and consultation to improve and strengthen VHA health care programs that are essential to the well-being of our veteran patients.

In performing its assigned functions, OHI inspects individual health care issues, performs quality program assistance reviews of medical center operations, evaluates Nationwide health care programs, and provides clinical consultations that are designed to strengthen Veteran's Health Administration's (VHA's) health care, and other missions, in order to help VHA to enhance patient care programs and to prevent and deter fraud, waste, and abuse. The OHI's oversight efforts emphasize National mandates for creating a more efficient, less costly government. Inherent in every OHI effort will be the principles of continuous quality improvement, focus on helping the Department to strengthen day-to-day operations, and emphasis on caring customer service and continually-improved patient outcomes.

The OHI will facilitate the IG's ability to keep the Secretary and the Congress fully and currently informed about problems relating to VA programs and the need for corrective action. In doing so, the OHI staff will strive to lead and be innovators in the performance of their duties, being consistently fair, honest, and objective, and fulfilling their responsibilities with integrity.

http://www.va.gov/oig/organization/insp ... efault.asp

Then, there's ....

GAO.GOV

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is known as "the investigative arm of Congress" and "the congressional watchdog." GAO supports the Congress in meeting its constitutional responsibilities and helps improve the performance and accountability of the federal government for the benefit of the American people.

http://www.gao.gov/

Topic Collection: Military and Veterans Health Care and Disability Benefits

This page lists the most recent reports and testimonies related to military and veterans' health care and disability benefits issued since March 2003.

http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/featured/h ... efits.html

AND, thanks to your great suggestions, I found out about THIS....!!!

House bill creates VA ombudsman's office
By Andy Leonatti CongressDaily June 9, 2008

WASHINGTON - Citing the confusion veterans face when trying to arrange benefits, the House Veterans' Affairs Health Subcommittee passed a bill Thursday creating an ombudsman office within the Veterans Affairs Department (VA).

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Paul Hodes, D-N.H., was adopted by unanimous voice vote, along with the adoption by voice vote of a substitute amendment from Veterans' Affairs Health Subcommittee Chairman Michael Michaud, D-Maine.

The bill instructs the VA secretary to create an office of the ombudsman, and designate the head of the office.

The office would act as a one-stop shop for information on benefits administered by the VA, including medical, housing and education. When testifying in support of his bill before the Health Subcommittee on June 14, 2007, Hodes said the VA has separate hotlines for different benefits, and the process can be confusing to veterans returning from overseas.

Michaud's substitute amendment expanded the duties of the new office. Under the amendment, the VA secretary will designate an ombudsman director in each of the department's three administrations, health, benefits and cemeteries. The ombudsman director in each administration will report to the head ombudsman.

The amendment also defines the official duties of the office of the ombudsman as providing patient advocacy and problem resolution, provide assistance in understanding benefits, provide information on claims submissions and field complaints from veterans.

The VA secretary will also designate six regional ombudsmen throughout the United States for both the health and benefits administrations.

However, the VA does not support the bill. VA Undersecretary for Health Michael Kussman testified at the Health Subcommittee hearing on the bill that it would create an unnecessary level of bureaucracy within the VA. Kussman added the VA already has officers such as patient advocates and benefit counselors, and many state level veterans departments also have counselors.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0608/060908markup1.htm

And, finally....anyone who does NOT employ an authorized VA Service Organization to assist with their Disability Claim or Health Care requests is a FOOL...!!!

Directory of Veterans Service Organizations

Welcome to the online Directory of Veterans Service Organizations. This is published as an informational service by the Office of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs. This up-to-date, database driven website allows you to View VSO information in a variety of ways. You may also Search through the VSO database to find information that suits your needs.

Inclusion of an organization in the directory does not constitute approval or endorsement by VA or the United States Government of the organization or its activities. Some VSOs are "chartered", which means they are federally chartered and/or recognized or approved by the VA Secretary for purposes of preparation, presentation, and prosecution of claims under laws administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Inclusion of non-chartered organizations does not constitute or reflect VA recognition of said organization and its representatives for purposes of representation of VA claimants.

http://www1.va.gov/vso/

* Organizations Chartered by Congress and/or Recognized by VA for Claim Representation
African Amer.Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Assoc.
Air Force Sergeants Association
American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor
American Ex-Prisoners of War
American GI Forum of the United States
American Gold Star Mothers, Inc.
American Legion
American Red Cross
American War Mothers
AMVETS
Armed Forces Services Corporation
Army and Navy Union, USA, Inc.
Blinded Veterans Association
Blue Star Mothers of America, Inc.
Catholic War Veterans, USA, Inc.
Congressional Medal of Honor Society of the United States of America
Disabled American Veterans
Fleet Reserve Association
Gold Star Wives of America, Inc.
Italian American War Veterans of the USA
Jewish War Veterans of the USA
Korean War Veterans Association of the USA, Inc.
Legion of Valor of the USA, Inc.
Marine Corps League
Military Chaplains Association of the United States of America
Military Order of the Purple Heart of the U.S.A., Inc.
Military Order of the World Wars
National Amputation Foundation, Inc.
National Association for Black Veterans, Inc.
National Association of County Veterans Service Officers, Inc.
National Association of State Directors of Veterans Affairs (NASDVA)
National Veterans Legal Services Program
Navy Club of the United States of America
Navy Mutual Aid Association
Non Commissioned Officers Association
Paralyzed Veterans of America
Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, Inc.
Polish Legion of American Veterans, USA
Swords to Plowshares: Veterans Rights Organization
The Retired Enlisted Association
United Spinal Association
US Submarine Veterans of World War II
Veterans Assistance Foundation, Inc.
Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States
Veterans of the Vietnam War, Inc./Vets. Coalition
Veterans of World War I of the USA, Inc.
Vietnam Veterans of America
Women`s Army Corps Veterans Association

http://www1.va.gov/vso/index.cfm?template=view

Some avenues and/or organizations may be more effective/helpful in each case, but the Veteran is doing himself a GREAT disservice by eschewing these options.

I would have NEVER gotten my VA Disability Claim due to PRoject SHAD through without the Vietnam Veterans of America's help and encouragement...!!!

Thank you for your reply and suggestions.

[J.B. Stone]

Depleted Uranium, Diabetes, Cancer And You
Posted by: "Steve Burns" snakecharmer550@yahoo.com snakecharmer550
Wed Aug 20, 2008 4:33 pm (PDT)
Now this is a long read and is for our Gulf 1 boys and girls.
Steve

Depleted Uranium, Diabetes,
Cancer And You
By Alan Cantwell, MD

Recently, I received an intriguing email claiming that the rapidly increasing worldwide epidemic of diabetes was caused by depleted uranium (DU). As a medical doctor I never heard of such an idea. Every physician knows that radiation can lead to cancer, but the DU and diabetes connection seemed ludicrous. Nevertheless, I thought it would be interesting to check it out on the Internet.

The best tool for medical research on the Net is the PubMed Website sponsored by the US National Library of Medicine. I typed in the keywords: depleted uranium and diabetes. No citations to scientific papers in the medical journals appeared on my computer screen, which further assured me there was no scientific connection. Even when I used key words - depleted uranium and human disease - only a mere 16 papers were cited on the subject from 1994 to 2005; and only half these papers addressed the medical problems of soldiers exposed to DU in the Gulf War.

What was revealed is that DU accumulates in lymph nodes, brain, testicles, and other organs, and the short term and long term effects of DU were not known. There was a definite increase of birth defects in the offspring of persons exposed to DU; and Gulf War vets who inhaled DU were still excreting abnormal amounts of uranium in the urine 10 years later.

Why was there so little written about DU and its effects on the human body? Having written extensively on the man-made epidemic of AIDS and its cover-up for two decades, I was not surprised. I strongly suspected research into the health effects of DU on Gulf War veterans was "politically incorrect." On the other hand, a quick Google Internet search of - "side effects" + "depleted uranium" - referred me to 71,000 English pages on the web. When I added the key word "diabetes" there were 22,000 pages.

I also discovered that articles about the health dangers of DU rarely, if ever, appear in the major media. In a January 2001 press release FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) accused the media of "depleted coverage of depleted uranium weapons." Nevertheless, a great deal of information on DU can be found on the Internet.

DU was first used by the US in the 1991 Gulf War, then in the Balkans in the late 1990s, in Kosovo in 2000, in the war against Afghanistan, in Iraq in 2003, and also by the Israelis in the 2006 war with Lebanon. Needless to say, US military and government officials totally deny any health danger from DU. A reassuring New York Times article of 9 January 2001 entitled "1999 U.S. Document warned of depleted uranium in Kosovo" by Marlise Simons, noted "while acknowledging the hazards, both the Pentagon and NATO, pointing to medical experts, have denied any links could exist between exposure to depleted uranium and the illness and deaths of veterans."

DU weapons were developed by the US Navy in 1968, and were first given to Israel by the US in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Since then, the US has tested, manufactured and sold DU weapons systems to 29 countries. Vieques Island, a testing site in Puerto Rico, was repeatedly bombarded with DU in 1999 prior to its use in Kosovo.

DU is a byproduct of the enriching of natural uranium for use in nuclear reactors. As nuclear waste, DU is costly to keep but relatively inexpensive to obtain. Due to their tank Armour-piercing capabilities, DU weapons are extremely effective and the reason why the military is so enthralled with them.

Depleted Uranium Whistleblowers

Major Doug Rokke is a leading DU expert who has become a whistleblower against its use. He claims each tank round is composed of 10 pounds of solid uranium-238 contaminated with plutonium, neptunium, and americium. The round is pyrophoric, meaning it generates intense heat on impact, easily penetrating a tank because of the heavy weight of the metal. When DU munitions hit, they produce a firestorm inside any vehicle or structure, resulting in devastating burns and injuries to those who escape immediate death and incineration.

On impact, DU produces uranium oxide dust and pieces of uranium explode all over the place. Once inside the body the tiny nanoparticles enter the lungs and blood stream and are carried throughout the body. When Rokke and his team were assigned to "clean up" the DU after the first Gulf War, all his men got ill within 72 hours with respiratory problems, rashes, bleeding, and open sores. In an Australian interview with Gay Alcorn in 2003, Rokke admitted: "After everything I've seen, everything I've done, it became very clear to me that you can't take radioactive wastes from one nation and just throw it into another nation. It's wrong. It's simply wrong."

According to Asaf Durakovic MD of the Uranium Medical Research Centre in Washington DC, the term "depleted uranium" is a misnomer. Both "depleted" and "natural" uranium are over 99% composed of uranium 238. DU is almost as highly concentrated as pure uranium and may contain plutonium (a deadly element) in trace amounts.

Leuren Moret is an independent American scientist who works on radiation and health issues with communities around the world. At age 61, she is the leading activist against the use of DU, having worked in two nuclear weapons labs, including the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, run by the US Department of Energy. She is the ultimate antigovernment whistleblower on DU, along with Rokke and Durakovic, and all three have personally suffered (including death threats) for their anti-DU views.

In her article "Depleted uranium: The Trojan Horse of nuclear war," which appeared in the June 2004 World Affairs Journal, Moret claims: "The use of DU weaponry by the US, defying all international treaties, will slowly annihilate all species on Earth including the human species, and yet this country continues to do so with full knowledge of its destructive potential."

DU travels. DU radioactive particles are picked up by the atmosphere and are transferred by wind storms and air currents. They permanently contaminate vast regions and slowly destroy the genetic future of populations living in those areas. As the Trojan Horse of nuclear war, Moret calls DU "the weapon that keeps on killing." There is no way to turn it off - and no way to clean it up. It meets the US government's own definition of "weapons of mass destruction. "

Depleted Uranium over the United Kingdom

DU has a very high affinity for cellular DNA and permanently damages it. DU is the "fourth generation" of nuclear weapons. First came the atomic bomb, then the hydrogen bomb, then neutron bombs, and now DU. Moret claims the contaminated DU-dust from the Middle East gets absorbed into the atmosphere. Via dust storms and air currents it ends up in Europe and Britain. Eventually it spreads and get absorbed into the atmosphere globally. There is no safe place; no possible way to escape it.

Moret's concerns are confirmed by a 2006 report from England by Chris Busby and Saoirse Morgan, appearing in European Biology and Bioelectromagnetics and titled "Did the use of Uranium weapons in Gulf War 2 result in contamination of Europe?" Data (obtained with the help of the Freedom of Information Act) from the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, Berkshire, UK, revealed that after nine days of the "shock and awe" start of the Iraq war on 19 March 2003, much higher levels of uranium were picked up on five sites in Berkshire. On two occasions, levels exceeded the threshold at which the Environment Agency must be informed, though still within safety limits. These levels were the highest levels of depleted uranium ever measured in the atmosphere in Britain. The report also confirmed weather conditions over this war period, which showed a consistent flow of air from Iraq northwards.

Not surprisingly this research was vigorously denied as "uranium of natural origin" by various government officials. However, Busby and Morgan insist the findings are the first evidence that DU particles were able to travel thousands of miles from Baghdad to England. Their report can be found on the Internet.

Gulf War Syndrome

About 300 tons of DU were dispersed over Iraq in 1991. Yet the US Department of Defense (DoD) has found little health risk to soldiers who inhaled DU and continues to claim exposure to DU is safe. Nearly 580,000 soldiers were deployed in the war. 294 soldiers died and 400 were wounded or became ill. As of year 2000, there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability, and over 11,000 have died. Obviously something serious happened to the health of these men and women who served in the Gulf.

DU is known to be neurotoxic. Gulf War vets are twice as likely to come down with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) than vets who did not serve in Iraq. ALS, a fatal neuromuscular disease, is now considered a "service-connected" disease and vets can get disability. Gulf War vets have nearly twice the prevalence of "chronic multi-system disease" than soldiers who served elsewhere at the same time. But so called "Gulf War Syndrome" continues to be denied as a specific illness. The Department of Defense's evaluation does not consider GWS as a unique syndrome, unique illness, or unique symptom complex in deployed Gulf War vets.
The Worldwide Diabetes Epidemic

A half century ago, during the early years of the Cold War when I went to medical school, diabetes was not a common disease. Now in the 21st century it is common to hear of diabetes as an impending epidemic. Certainly the statistics bear this out.

Currently, 7% of Americans have diabetes (17 million). In addition, a Los Angeles Times front-page report on 16 September 2006, claims that there are more than 41 million Americans with abnormal blood glucose abnormalities, "that indicate they may soon develop diabetes." In Puerto Rico (where DU was tested) 10% of the population has diabetes.

The Centres of Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta declares that "unless Americans change their ways," 33% of the babies born this year will be diabetic by the year 2050. Also by 2050 there are expected to be 45 million diabetics in the US. A vet support group, Veterans with Diabetes International, says there are 143 million people worldwide with the disease, and 300 million people are expected to have diabetes in 2025.

Type 1 diabetes, most often seen in children and young adults, comprises 5-10% of the cases. Type 2, a metabolic disorder resulting from the body's inability to make enough or properly use insulin, frequently strikes adults, especially obese adults. This group comprises 90% or more of diabetics. The CDC predicts that Type 2 diabetes will increase 165% by 2050. People with Type 2 diabetes are also twice as likely to get pancreatic cancer.

Thirty-four years after the Vietnam war ended, the DoD finally presented the "strongest evidence" that Type 2 diabetes can be connected to Agent Orange. Eighteen million gallons of this plant defoliant and poison was sprayed over Vietnam by the US military. It is now known to cause cancer and birth defects. Starting in the year 2002 diabetes is now recognised as a "service-connected" disease for all Vietnam vets. At present, diabetes is not service-connected for Gulf War vets.

Nine percent of Vietnam vets have Type 2 diabetes. There is no current evidence that Gulf War vets have a heightened incidence of diabetes, but I could find no solid research to confirm or deny this. Perhaps in one or two more decades government scientists will discover a connection to DU.

The common causes of diabetes are thought to be obesity, poor diet and lack of exercise. Leuren Moret believes the cause of the new epidemic is more sinister: namely the increasing levels worldwide of depleted uranium in the atmosphere, combined with emissions from the proliferation of nuclear power plants.

Unlike government scientists, Moret says DU is very, very, very nasty stuff; and that diabetes is an immediate response to DU, in contrast to the decades it can take for uranium to produce radiation-induced cancer. Although she cannot prove it, she is the first scientist to strongly suggest a connection between the new worldwide diabetes epidemic and DU.

Moret insists the medical profession has been active in the cover-up of low level radiation from atmospheric testing and nuclear power plants. I have been unable to verify this, but it is consistent with the passive role the health profession took during the Cold War nuclear testing in the US (more later). She has also spoken about medical professionals in hospitals who were threatened by government officials with $10,000 fines and jail time if they talked openly about the returning Iraq war soldiers and their medical problems. This could explain the paucity of reports in the scientific literature regarding vets exposed to DU and their war-associated illnesses.

Moret also says reporters have been prevented access to more than 14,000 medically evacuated soldiers from the current Iraq War, brought back to Walter Reed Hospital near Washington, DC. To learn more about Leuren Moret and her research, Google: Leuren Moret + videos. In addition, she appears in the recent documentary film Beyond Treason, detailing the horrific effects of depleted uranium exposure on American troops and Iraqi civilians in the Gulf region in 1991.
Is Depleted Uranium Safe?

Ronald L. Kathren is Professor Emeritus at Washington State University and a leading authority vouching for the safety of DU. Unlike Major Rokke, he does not appear to have ever served in the military or to have come in contact with DU on a battlefield. Nevertheless, his opinions carry a lot of weight in the scientific world.

Kathren does not dispute the fact that military personnel who may have had contact with DU are suffering from various illnesses, but he believes that exposure to uranium is very unlikely to be the cause.

Writing for the Portland Independent Media Centre on 3 July 2005, he declares: "Health physicists are deeply concerned with the public health and welfare, and as experts in radiation and its effects on people and the environment, are quite aware that something other than exposure to uranium is the cause of the illnesses suffered by those who have had contact with depleted uranium from munitions. A truly enormous body of scientific data shows that it is virtually impossible for uranium to be the cause of their illnesses. Despite this body of scientific data to the contrary, misguided or unknowing people continue to allege that the depleted uranium, and specifically the radioactivity associated with the depleted uranium is the cause of these illness. This is indeed unfortunate, for health physicists and other scientists and physicians already know that depleted uranium is not the cause of these illnesses and thus any investigations into the cause of these
illnesses should focus on other possible causes. If we are to offer any measure of relief or solace to these suffering people, and to gain some important additional knowledge of the cause of their illness, we should not waste our valuable and limited energies, resources and time attempting to point the finger at depleted uranium as the culprit, when it is already known that uranium is almost certainly not the cause of the problem." (http://portland. indymedia. org/en/2005/ 07/320739. shtml)
"No Level of Radiation is Safe for Humans"

As a physician it is inconceivable to me that government-approved experts like Kathren can so quickly dismiss DU as safe and harmless, particularly when on 29 June 2005, a National Academy of Sciences panel in Washington DC has found that no level of radiation is safe for humans.

The panel concluded that "any dose of radiation, no matter how small, can induce cancer. Exposure to radiation is becoming more and more likely for most people because of the growing use of radiation in medicine. The new findings could lead to changes in medical practices and the levels of radiation allowed at former nuclear sites." The panel also contradicted the often heard dictum of some government pro-nuclear scientists that "a little radiation is good for you."

The idea that low doses of radiation are safe is the myth that allowed extensive nuclear testing during the Cold War without a huge protest from every member of the human race. It is this myth that still allows DU weapons to be used on battlefields against "terrorists. "

Historically, the proof of the danger of nuclear warfare was provided a decade ago by the publication of a US Congressional committee report authorised by President Bill Clinton and entitled, The Human Radiation Experiments. The report showed clearly that government scientists and physicians could not be trusted in their pronouncements regarding the safety of nuclear weapons. Even worse was the documentation of countless covert and secret radiation experiments conducted on unsuspecting citizens during the Cold War "in the name of science." Unfortunately, this horrific 1996 report did not deter Clinton from allowing DU weapons in Kosovo in 1999, nor did it deter President George W. Bush, who authorised their use again in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Anyone with Internet access can simply Google "the human radiation experiments" for details of the shameful science surrounding nuclear testing and the disastrous health effects on unsuspecting American citizens.

In 2001, a half century after extensive nuclear weapons testing in the American West, the US National Cancer Institute was finally forced to reveal its finding that bomb testing in Nevada, which spread radioactive fallout across every state of the Union, has caused at least 15,000 cancer deaths and up to 212,000 non-fatal thyroid cancers. John LaForge of Nukewatch.com reminds us that "the 67 bomb tests blown off between 1946 and 1958 were said at the time to be safe."
Money, Power and Depleted Uranium

Who is profiting from this global uranium nightmare? In The Enemy Within (1996) Jay Gould reveals that the British Royal family privately owns investments in uranium holdings worth over $6 billion through Rio Tinto Mines, an Anglo-Australian company, which is the world's largest mining company with more than 60 operations in 40 countries. Africa and Australia are two of the main sources of uranium in the world; and the Rothschilds control uranium supplies and prices globally.

Gould notes that nuclear radiation has brought dramatic increases in breast cancer mortality, especially in communities 50 to 100 miles downwind from nuclear reactors. Book reviewer Donna Lee writes: "The Enemy Within has enough scientific data to address those bureaucrats who deny that living near a nuclear reactor is a hazard to one's health. It also includes enough direct, clear prose to convince me, a breast cancer survivor, that I grew up during the Cold War as an unknowing guinea pig, further victimised by the politics of suppression and denial."

Lee continues: "After reading the book, however, I am bothered by one persistent question. I was born and raised and continue to live in San Francisco, California, which has the highest incidence of breast cancer in the world. The Enemy Within concerns itself with breast cancer mortality rates, which are highest in the communities around New York City. San Francisco isn't within 100 miles of a nuclear reactor and it isn't even mentioned in the book. If low level radiation explains clusters of breast cancer throughout the US, what explains us?"

Actually there was a nuclear power plant located in Sacramento, less than 100 miles from San Francisco, which became active in 1975. Gould probably did not include this in his 1996 book because the Rancho Seco Nuclear Power Plant was forced to shut down its operations in 1989, due to a public outcry and a referendum.

David Bradbury says child cancer rates on Vieques Island have soared 250% above the Puerto Rican national average in the last thirty years. In his 2005 documentary film, Blowin' in the Wind, the provocative Australian filmmaker and two-time Academy Award nominee also provides some answers regarding the huge financial interests involved in uranium production and DU weapons. Australia provides one-third of the world's uranium supply, and Bradbury reveals a secret treaty that allows the US military to train and test its DU weaponry on Australian soil. He exposes plans to extract over $36 billion from uranium mines over the next six years, and shows the finished construction of a 1,000 mile railway from the mining area to a port on the north coast of Australia to transport the ore.

The railway project was built by Texas-based Halliburton Company. In 1995 US Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO of that company. The film maker says, "The Queen's favourite American buccaneers, Cheney, Halliburton, and the Bush family, are tied to her through uranium mining and the shared use of illegal depleted uranium munitions in the Middle East, Central Asia and Kosovo/Bosnia. The major roles that such diverse individuals and groups as the Carlyle Group, George Herbert Walker Bush, former Carlyle CEO Frank Calucci, the University of California managed nuclear weapons labs at Los Alamos and Livermore, and US and international pension fund investments have played in proliferating depleted uranium weapons is not well known or in most instances even recognised, inside or outside Australia. God Save The Queen from the guilt of her complicity in turning Planet Earth into a 'Death Star'."

Depleted Uranium and the War on Terror

There is nothing more terrifying than the thought of exposing all life forms on the planet to DNA-altering radiation in order to provide us with "safety" and "democracy." It is truly diabolic to think that the destruction of the planet is now occurring with so few people comprehending what is going on - and still fewer people taking an active stand against this tragedy. It is apparent that most of the world's political and spiritual leaders, as well as scientists, physicians, lawyers, and health professionals do not care about the dangers of DU weapons and other forms of nuclear energy. If they cared we would certainly be hearing and reading about it on television and in the major media.

As a researcher and writer over the part few decades, I have focused on the man-made origin of AIDS and the little-known bacterial cause of cancer, paying little attention to nuclear radiation. However, in 2001 I wrote an article entitled "The Human Radiation Experiments: How Scientists Secretly Used US Citizens as Guinea Pigs During the Cold War", which was published in the September-October 2001 issue of New Dawn, and is posted on several websites. But I must admit I was unaware of the serious planetary problems posed by DU. I simply assumed that no civilised and peace-loving country would ever be reckless and heartless enough to use these radioactive weapons. How wrong I was!

What I find most pathetic and inconceivable is that we have learned nothing from the detrimental health effects unleashed by the atomic bombing of Japan - and nothing from the nuclear testing horrors of the last half of the 20th century. Instead we continue to contaminate vast areas of the world with radiation we don't know how to get rid of.
I remember as an eleven year-old boy how jubilant everyone was by the atomic attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, which brought the war to a rapid end. A half century later my Caucasian niece married a Japanese-American man. Shortly after the wedding she noticed a lump in his neck, which proved to be thyroid cancer. His mother was a child when she lived 50 miles outside of Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped. Decades later, in her forties, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, undoubtedly due to the radiation fallout. The doctors considered the possibility that my niece's husband might have developed thyroid cancer because of radiation-altered and thyroid cancer-causing genes passed on to him by his mother. Of course the family wonders if their two young children will eventually also get thyroid cancer. Who would have thought that the atomic bombing of Japan in 1945 would have a cancerous effect five decades later on my family living in
California?

A few years ago I developed a thyroid nodule, which was biopsied and proved non-cancerous. As a teenager in the 1950s I received "superficial" radiation treatments for acne at the recommendation of a well-known New York dermatologist, a treatment that was later banned because of its potential to cause thyroid cancer.

It is almost a clich to remind people that "all of us are connected." The fallout from DU and nuclear energy now binds us all together in an increasingly radioactive planet. No one is immune from the deleterious effects of radiation, and no one knows how to clean it up.

What can we do about it? The only thing we can do is to stop the madness immediately. However, power and greed and politics and religion make that highly unlikely.

We have met the perpetrators of the new radiation-induced "war on terror." And, sadly, it is us.

Dr. Alan Cantwell is a retired dermatologist and the author of five books on the man-made origin of AIDS and the infectious origin of cancer, all published by Aries Rising Press, PO Box 29532, Los Angeles, CA 90029, USA (www.ariesrisingpre ss.com). His book, Queer Blood: The Secret AIDS Genocide Plot, is available in Australia through New Dawn Book Service for $24.95 plus $8 p&h. Many of his personal writings can be found on www.google.com by typing in key words "alan cantwell" + articles. His latest book is Four Women Against Cancer: Bacteria, Cancer and the Origin of Life. His books are also available on www.amazon.com and in the US through Book Clearing House @ 1-800-431-1579. Email: alancantwell@ sbcglobal. net.

Alan Cantwell M.D.

alancantwell@ sbcglobal. net
http://www.ariesris ingpress. com
FOUR WOMEN AGAINST CANCER:
Bacteria, Cancer and the Origin of Life

http://veteransinfo .org

http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/veteransin fo/
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/PrayerWarr iorsoftheUSA/
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/ChristianV eteransandWives/
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/Veterans_ Wives-Families/
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/AO- Awareness- and-Info/
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/Veteransve nt/
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/ptsdandtbi /

Regards,
The unifiedveteranscoalition Team.

http://xsorbit27.com/users5/unifiedvete ... /index.php

[J.B. Stone]

Depleted Uranium, Diabetes, Cancer And You
Posted by: "Steve Burns" snakecharmer550@yahoo.com snakecharmer550
Wed Aug 20, 2008 4:33 pm (PDT)

Now this is a long read and is for our Gulf 1 boys and girls.
Steve

Depleted Uranium, Diabetes,
Cancer And You
By Alan Cantwell, MD

Recently, I received an intriguing email claiming that the rapidly increasing worldwide epidemic of diabetes was caused by depleted uranium (DU). As a medical doctor I never heard of such an idea. Every physician knows that radiation can lead to cancer, but the DU and diabetes connection seemed ludicrous. Nevertheless, I thought it would be interesting to check it out on the Internet.

The best tool for medical research on the Net is the PubMed Website sponsored by the US National Library of Medicine. I typed in the keywords: depleted uranium and diabetes. No citations to scientific papers in the medical journals appeared on my computer screen, which further assured me there was no scientific connection. Even when I used key words - depleted uranium and human disease - only a mere 16 papers were cited on the subject from 1994 to 2005; and only half these papers addressed the medical problems of soldiers exposed to DU in the Gulf War.

What was revealed is that DU accumulates in lymph nodes, brain, testicles, and other organs, and the short term and long term effects of DU were not known. There was a definite increase of birth defects in the offspring of persons exposed to DU; and Gulf War vets who inhaled DU were still excreting abnormal amounts of uranium in the urine 10 years later.

Why was there so little written about DU and its effects on the human body? Having written extensively on the man-made epidemic of AIDS and its cover-up for two decades, I was not surprised. I strongly suspected research into the health effects of DU on Gulf War veterans was "politically incorrect." On the other hand, a quick Google Internet search of - "side effects" + "depleted uranium" - referred me to 71,000 English pages on the web. When I added the key word "diabetes" there were 22,000 pages.

I also discovered that articles about the health dangers of DU rarely, if ever, appear in the major media. In a January 2001 press release FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) accused the media of "depleted coverage of depleted uranium weapons." Nevertheless, a great deal of information on DU can be found on the Internet.

DU was first used by the US in the 1991 Gulf War, then in the Balkans in the late 1990s, in Kosovo in 2000, in the war against Afghanistan, in Iraq in 2003, and also by the Israelis in the 2006 war with Lebanon. Needless to say, US military and government officials totally deny any health danger from DU. A reassuring New York Times article of 9 January 2001 entitled "1999 U.S. Document warned of depleted uranium in Kosovo" by Marlise Simons, noted "while acknowledging the hazards, both the Pentagon and NATO, pointing to medical experts, have denied any links could exist between exposure to depleted uranium and the illness and deaths of veterans."

DU weapons were developed by the US Navy in 1968, and were first given to Israel by the US in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Since then, the US has tested, manufactured and sold DU weapons systems to 29 countries. Vieques Island, a testing site in Puerto Rico, was repeatedly bombarded with DU in 1999 prior to its use in Kosovo.

DU is a byproduct of the enriching of natural uranium for use in nuclear reactors. As nuclear waste, DU is costly to keep but relatively inexpensive to obtain. Due to their tank Armour-piercing capabilities, DU weapons are extremely effective and the reason why the military is so enthralled with them.

Depleted Uranium Whistleblowers

Major Doug Rokke is a leading DU expert who has become a whistleblower against its use. He claims each tank round is composed of 10 pounds of solid uranium-238 contaminated with plutonium, neptunium, and americium. The round is pyrophoric, meaning it generates intense heat on impact, easily penetrating a tank because of the heavy weight of the metal. When DU munitions hit, they produce a firestorm inside any vehicle or structure, resulting in devastating burns and injuries to those who escape immediate death and incineration.

On impact, DU produces uranium oxide dust and pieces of uranium explode all over the place. Once inside the body the tiny nanoparticles enter the lungs and blood stream and are carried throughout the body. When Rokke and his team were assigned to "clean up" the DU after the first Gulf War, all his men got ill within 72 hours with respiratory problems, rashes, bleeding, and open sores. In an Australian interview with Gay Alcorn in 2003, Rokke admitted: "After everything I've seen, everything I've done, it became very clear to me that you can't take radioactive wastes from one nation and just throw it into another nation. It's wrong. It's simply wrong."

According to Asaf Durakovic MD of the Uranium Medical Research Centre in Washington DC, the term "depleted uranium" is a misnomer. Both "depleted" and "natural" uranium are over 99% composed of uranium 238. DU is almost as highly concentrated as pure uranium and may contain plutonium (a deadly element) in trace amounts.

Leuren Moret is an independent American scientist who works on radiation and health issues with communities around the world. At age 61, she is the leading activist against the use of DU, having worked in two nuclear weapons labs, including the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, run by the US Department of Energy. She is the ultimate antigovernment whistleblower on DU, along with Rokke and Durakovic, and all three have personally suffered (including death threats) for their anti-DU views.

In her article "Depleted uranium: The Trojan Horse of nuclear war," which appeared in the June 2004 World Affairs Journal, Moret claims: "The use of DU weaponry by the US, defying all international treaties, will slowly annihilate all species on Earth including the human species, and yet this country continues to do so with full knowledge of its destructive potential."

DU travels. DU radioactive particles are picked up by the atmosphere and are transferred by wind storms and air currents. They permanently contaminate vast regions and slowly destroy the genetic future of populations living in those areas. As the Trojan Horse of nuclear war, Moret calls DU "the weapon that keeps on killing." There is no way to turn it off - and no way to clean it up. It meets the US government's own definition of "weapons of mass destruction. "

Depleted Uranium over the United Kingdom

DU has a very high affinity for cellular DNA and permanently damages it. DU is the "fourth generation" of nuclear weapons. First came the atomic bomb, then the hydrogen bomb, then neutron bombs, and now DU. Moret claims the contaminated DU-dust from the Middle East gets absorbed into the atmosphere. Via dust storms and air currents it ends up in Europe and Britain. Eventually it spreads and get absorbed into the atmosphere globally. There is no safe place; no possible way to escape it.

Moret's concerns are confirmed by a 2006 report from England by Chris Busby and Saoirse Morgan, appearing in European Biology and Bioelectromagnetics and titled "Did the use of Uranium weapons in Gulf War 2 result in contamination of Europe?" Data (obtained with the help of the Freedom of Information Act) from the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, Berkshire, UK, revealed that after nine days of the "shock and awe" start of the Iraq war on 19 March 2003, much higher levels of uranium were picked up on five sites in Berkshire. On two occasions, levels exceeded the threshold at which the Environment Agency must be informed, though still within safety limits. These levels were the highest levels of depleted uranium ever measured in the atmosphere in Britain. The report also confirmed weather conditions over this war period, which showed a consistent flow of air from Iraq northwards.

Not surprisingly this research was vigorously denied as "uranium of natural origin" by various government officials. However, Busby and Morgan insist the findings are the first evidence that DU particles were able to travel thousands of miles from Baghdad to England. Their report can be found on the Internet.

Gulf War Syndrome

About 300 tons of DU were dispersed over Iraq in 1991. Yet the US Department of Defense (DoD) has found little health risk to soldiers who inhaled DU and continues to claim exposure to DU is safe. Nearly 580,000 soldiers were deployed in the war. 294 soldiers died and 400 were wounded or became ill. As of year 2000, there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability, and over 11,000 have died. Obviously something serious happened to the health of these men and women who served in the Gulf.

DU is known to be neurotoxic. Gulf War vets are twice as likely to come down with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) than vets who did not serve in Iraq. ALS, a fatal neuromuscular disease, is now considered a "service-connected" disease and vets can get disability. Gulf War vets have nearly twice the prevalence of "chronic multi-system disease" than soldiers who served elsewhere at the same time. But so called "Gulf War Syndrome" continues to be denied as a specific illness. The Department of Defense's evaluation does not consider GWS as a unique syndrome, unique illness, or unique symptom complex in deployed Gulf War vets.
The Worldwide Diabetes Epidemic

A half century ago, during the early years of the Cold War when I went to medical school, diabetes was not a common disease. Now in the 21st century it is common to hear of diabetes as an impending epidemic. Certainly the statistics bear this out.

Currently, 7% of Americans have diabetes (17 million). In addition, a Los Angeles Times front-page report on 16 September 2006, claims that there are more than 41 million Americans with abnormal blood glucose abnormalities, "that indicate they may soon develop diabetes." In Puerto Rico (where DU was tested) 10% of the population has diabetes.

The Centres of Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta declares that "unless Americans change their ways," 33% of the babies born this year will be diabetic by the year 2050. Also by 2050 there are expected to be 45 million diabetics in the US. A vet support group, Veterans with Diabetes International, says there are 143 million people worldwide with the disease, and 300 million people are expected to have diabetes in 2025.

Type 1 diabetes, most often seen in children and young adults, comprises 5-10% of the cases. Type 2, a metabolic disorder resulting from the body's inability to make enough or properly use insulin, frequently strikes adults, especially obese adults. This group comprises 90% or more of diabetics. The CDC predicts that Type 2 diabetes will increase 165% by 2050. People with Type 2 diabetes are also twice as likely to get pancreatic cancer.

Thirty-four years after the Vietnam war ended, the DoD finally presented the "strongest evidence" that Type 2 diabetes can be connected to Agent Orange. Eighteen million gallons of this plant defoliant and poison was sprayed over Vietnam by the US military. It is now known to cause cancer and birth defects. Starting in the year 2002 diabetes is now recognised as a "service-connected" disease for all Vietnam vets. At present, diabetes is not service-connected for Gulf War vets.

Nine percent of Vietnam vets have Type 2 diabetes. There is no current evidence that Gulf War vets have a heightened incidence of diabetes, but I could find no solid research to confirm or deny this. Perhaps in one or two more decades government scientists will discover a connection to DU.

The common causes of diabetes are thought to be obesity, poor diet and lack of exercise. Leuren Moret believes the cause of the new epidemic is more sinister: namely the increasing levels worldwide of depleted uranium in the atmosphere, combined with emissions from the proliferation of nuclear power plants.

Unlike government scientists, Moret says DU is very, very, very nasty stuff; and that diabetes is an immediate response to DU, in contrast to the decades it can take for uranium to produce radiation-induced cancer. Although she cannot prove it, she is the first scientist to strongly suggest a connection between the new worldwide diabetes epidemic and DU.

Moret insists the medical profession has been active in the cover-up of low level radiation from atmospheric testing and nuclear power plants. I have been unable to verify this, but it is consistent with the passive role the health profession took during the Cold War nuclear testing in the US (more later). She has also spoken about medical professionals in hospitals who were threatened by government officials with $10,000 fines and jail time if they talked openly about the returning Iraq war soldiers and their medical problems. This could explain the paucity of reports in the scientific literature regarding vets exposed to DU and their war-associated illnesses.

Moret also says reporters have been prevented access to more than 14,000 medically evacuated soldiers from the current Iraq War, brought back to Walter Reed Hospital near Washington, DC. To learn more about Leuren Moret and her research, Google: Leuren Moret + videos. In addition, she appears in the recent documentary film Beyond Treason, detailing the horrific effects of depleted uranium exposure on American troops and Iraqi civilians in the Gulf region in 1991.
Is Depleted Uranium Safe?

Ronald L. Kathren is Professor Emeritus at Washington State University and a leading authority vouching for the safety of DU. Unlike Major Rokke, he does not appear to have ever served in the military or to have come in contact with DU on a battlefield. Nevertheless, his opinions carry a lot of weight in the scientific world.

Kathren does not dispute the fact that military personnel who may have had contact with DU are suffering from various illnesses, but he believes that exposure to uranium is very unlikely to be the cause.

Writing for the Portland Independent Media Centre on 3 July 2005, he declares: "Health physicists are deeply concerned with the public health and welfare, and as experts in radiation and its effects on people and the environment, are quite aware that something other than exposure to uranium is the cause of the illnesses suffered by those who have had contact with depleted uranium from munitions. A truly enormous body of scientific data shows that it is virtually impossible for uranium to be the cause of their illnesses. Despite this body of scientific data to the contrary, misguided or unknowing people continue to allege that the depleted uranium, and specifically the radioactivity associated with the depleted uranium is the cause of these illness. This is indeed unfortunate, for health physicists and other scientists and physicians already know that depleted uranium is not the cause of these illnesses and thus any investigations into the cause of these
illnesses should focus on other possible causes. If we are to offer any measure of relief or solace to these suffering people, and to gain some important additional knowledge of the cause of their illness, we should not waste our valuable and limited energies, resources and time attempting to point the finger at depleted uranium as the culprit, when it is already known that uranium is almost certainly not the cause of the problem." (http://portland. indymedia. org/en/2005/ 07/320739. shtml)
"No Level of Radiation is Safe for Humans"

As a physician it is inconceivable to me that government-approved experts like Kathren can so quickly dismiss DU as safe and harmless, particularly when on 29 June 2005, a National Academy of Sciences panel in Washington DC has found that no level of radiation is safe for humans.

The panel concluded that "any dose of radiation, no matter how small, can induce cancer. Exposure to radiation is becoming more and more likely for most people because of the growing use of radiation in medicine. The new findings could lead to changes in medical practices and the levels of radiation allowed at former nuclear sites." The panel also contradicted the often heard dictum of some government pro-nuclear scientists that "a little radiation is good for you."

The idea that low doses of radiation are safe is the myth that allowed extensive nuclear testing during the Cold War without a huge protest from every member of the human race. It is this myth that still allows DU weapons to be used on battlefields against "terrorists. "

Historically, the proof of the danger of nuclear warfare was provided a decade ago by the publication of a US Congressional committee report authorised by President Bill Clinton and entitled, The Human Radiation Experiments. The report showed clearly that government scientists and physicians could not be trusted in their pronouncements regarding the safety of nuclear weapons. Even worse was the documentation of countless covert and secret radiation experiments conducted on unsuspecting citizens during the Cold War "in the name of science." Unfortunately, this horrific 1996 report did not deter Clinton from allowing DU weapons in Kosovo in 1999, nor did it deter President George W. Bush, who authorised their use again in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Anyone with Internet access can simply Google "the human radiation experiments" for details of the shameful science surrounding nuclear testing and the disastrous health effects on unsuspecting American citizens.

In 2001, a half century after extensive nuclear weapons testing in the American West, the US National Cancer Institute was finally forced to reveal its finding that bomb testing in Nevada, which spread radioactive fallout across every state of the Union, has caused at least 15,000 cancer deaths and up to 212,000 non-fatal thyroid cancers. John LaForge of Nukewatch.com reminds us that "the 67 bomb tests blown off between 1946 and 1958 were said at the time to be safe."
Money, Power and Depleted Uranium

Who is profiting from this global uranium nightmare? In The Enemy Within (1996) Jay Gould reveals that the British Royal family privately owns investments in uranium holdings worth over $6 billion through Rio Tinto Mines, an Anglo-Australian company, which is the world's largest mining company with more than 60 operations in 40 countries. Africa and Australia are two of the main sources of uranium in the world; and the Rothschilds control uranium supplies and prices globally.

Gould notes that nuclear radiation has brought dramatic increases in breast cancer mortality, especially in communities 50 to 100 miles downwind from nuclear reactors. Book reviewer Donna Lee writes: "The Enemy Within has enough scientific data to address those bureaucrats who deny that living near a nuclear reactor is a hazard to one's health. It also includes enough direct, clear prose to convince me, a breast cancer survivor, that I grew up during the Cold War as an unknowing guinea pig, further victimised by the politics of suppression and denial."

Lee continues: "After reading the book, however, I am bothered by one persistent question. I was born and raised and continue to live in San Francisco, California, which has the highest incidence of breast cancer in the world. The Enemy Within concerns itself with breast cancer mortality rates, which are highest in the communities around New York City. San Francisco isn't within 100 miles of a nuclear reactor and it isn't even mentioned in the book. If low level radiation explains clusters of breast cancer throughout the US, what explains us?"

Actually there was a nuclear power plant located in Sacramento, less than 100 miles from San Francisco, which became active in 1975. Gould probably did not include this in his 1996 book because the Rancho Seco Nuclear Power Plant was forced to shut down its operations in 1989, due to a public outcry and a referendum.

David Bradbury says child cancer rates on Vieques Island have soared 250% above the Puerto Rican national average in the last thirty years. In his 2005 documentary film, Blowin' in the Wind, the provocative Australian filmmaker and two-time Academy Award nominee also provides some answers regarding the huge financial interests involved in uranium production and DU weapons. Australia provides one-third of the world's uranium supply, and Bradbury reveals a secret treaty that allows the US military to train and test its DU weaponry on Australian soil. He exposes plans to extract over $36 billion from uranium mines over the next six years, and shows the finished construction of a 1,000 mile railway from the mining area to a port on the north coast of Australia to transport the ore.

The railway project was built by Texas-based Halliburton Company. In 1995 US Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO of that company. The film maker says, "The Queen's favourite American buccaneers, Cheney, Halliburton, and the Bush family, are tied to her through uranium mining and the shared use of illegal depleted uranium munitions in the Middle East, Central Asia and Kosovo/Bosnia. The major roles that such diverse individuals and groups as the Carlyle Group, George Herbert Walker Bush, former Carlyle CEO Frank Calucci, the University of California managed nuclear weapons labs at Los Alamos and Livermore, and US and international pension fund investments have played in proliferating depleted uranium weapons is not well known or in most instances even recognised, inside or outside Australia. God Save The Queen from the guilt of her complicity in turning Planet Earth into a 'Death Star'."

Depleted Uranium and the War on Terror

There is nothing more terrifying than the thought of exposing all life forms on the planet to DNA-altering radiation in order to provide us with "safety" and "democracy." It is truly diabolic to think that the destruction of the planet is now occurring with so few people comprehending what is going on - and still fewer people taking an active stand against this tragedy. It is apparent that most of the world's political and spiritual leaders, as well as scientists, physicians, lawyers, and health professionals do not care about the dangers of DU weapons and other forms of nuclear energy. If they cared we would certainly be hearing and reading about it on television and in the major media.

As a researcher and writer over the part few decades, I have focused on the man-made origin of AIDS and the little-known bacterial cause of cancer, paying little attention to nuclear radiation. However, in 2001 I wrote an article entitled "The Human Radiation Experiments: How Scientists Secretly Used US Citizens as Guinea Pigs During the Cold War", which was published in the September-October 2001 issue of New Dawn, and is posted on several websites. But I must admit I was unaware of the serious planetary problems posed by DU. I simply assumed that no civilised and peace-loving country would ever be reckless and heartless enough to use these radioactive weapons. How wrong I was!

What I find most pathetic and inconceivable is that we have learned nothing from the detrimental health effects unleashed by the atomic bombing of Japan - and nothing from the nuclear testing horrors of the last half of the 20th century. Instead we continue to contaminate vast areas of the world with radiation we don't know how to get rid of.
I remember as an eleven year-old boy how jubilant everyone was by the atomic attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, which brought the war to a rapid end. A half century later my Caucasian niece married a Japanese-American man. Shortly after the wedding she noticed a lump in his neck, which proved to be thyroid cancer. His mother was a child when she lived 50 miles outside of Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped. Decades later, in her forties, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, undoubtedly due to the radiation fallout. The doctors considered the possibility that my niece's husband might have developed thyroid cancer because of radiation-altered and thyroid cancer-causing genes passed on to him by his mother. Of course the family wonders if their two young children will eventually also get thyroid cancer. Who would have thought that the atomic bombing of Japan in 1945 would have a cancerous effect five decades later on my family living in
California?

A few years ago I developed a thyroid nodule, which was biopsied and proved non-cancerous. As a teenager in the 1950s I received "superficial" radiation treatments for acne at the recommendation of a well-known New York dermatologist, a treatment that was later banned because of its potential to cause thyroid cancer.

It is almost a clich to remind people that "all of us are connected." The fallout from DU and nuclear energy now binds us all together in an increasingly radioactive planet. No one is immune from the deleterious effects of radiation, and no one knows how to clean it up.

What can we do about it? The only thing we can do is to stop the madness immediately. However, power and greed and politics and religion make that highly unlikely.

We have met the perpetrators of the new radiation-induced "war on terror." And, sadly, it is us.

Dr. Alan Cantwell is a retired dermatologist and the author of five books on the man-made origin of AIDS and the infectious origin of cancer, all published by Aries Rising Press, PO Box 29532, Los Angeles, CA 90029, USA (www.ariesrisingpre ss.com). His book, Queer Blood: The Secret AIDS Genocide Plot, is available in Australia through New Dawn Book Service for $24.95 plus $8 p&h. Many of his personal writings can be found on www.google.com by typing in key words "alan cantwell" + articles. His latest book is Four Women Against Cancer: Bacteria, Cancer and the Origin of Life. His books are also available on www.amazon.com and in the US through Book Clearing House @ 1-800-431-1579. Email: alancantwell@ sbcglobal. net.

Alan Cantwell M.D.

alancantwell@ sbcglobal. net
http://www.ariesris ingpress. com
FOUR WOMEN AGAINST CANCER:
Bacteria, Cancer and the Origin of Life

http://veteransinfo .org

http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/veteransin fo/
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/PrayerWarr iorsoftheUSA/
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/ChristianV eteransandWives/
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/Veterans_ Wives-Families/
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/AO- Awareness- and-Info/
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/Veteransve nt/
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/ptsdandtbi /

Regards,
The unifiedveteranscoalition Team.

http://xsorbit27.com/users5/unifiedvete ... /index.php

http://projectshad.com/modules.php?name ... pic&t=1288

[J.B. Stone]

http://www.truthout.org/1120097
Depleted Uranium and the Medical Mismanagement of Gulf War Veterans

Friday 20 November 2009
by: Paul Zimmerman, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

The United States insists that weapons containing depleted uranium (DU) pose no health hazards to exposed populations. This charade persists because an artful propaganda matrix has infiltrated and corrupted certain aspects of the radiation and biological sciences. The facts which follow will introduce how our debilitated veterans are being misinformed of the possible role played by uranium in their illnesses.

1. Within the medical system of the Veterans Administration (VA), veterans are misled into believing that no medical test exists that can determine DU contamination. This stance was echoed in a 2006 study by the Institute of Medicine, lauded as "... the authoritative word on Gulf War Illness."(1) In the preface of the IOM's definitive study, this quote appears: "Although there is a blood test that can provide an indication of exposure to Agent Orange and dioxin that occurred many years ago, there is not (sic) biological measure that can be employed today to assess exposures during the Gulf War."(2)

This statement is a lie. A protocol does exist which can determine DU contamination years after the exposure event. The methodology was published in 2002 by Durakovic, Horan and Dietz.(3) Essentially, it involves collecting a 24-hour urine sample and analyzing the uranium content by means of multicollector inductively coupled plasma ionization mass spectrometry. By this means, the relative concentration of the different uranium isotopes can be measured. This information can then be used to determine whether or not the test subject was contaminated with DU. This test has been reproduced by a number of research groups around the world and has been confirmed as the state-of-the-art means of accurately determining DU exposure. The VA ignores this scientific breakthrough and does not offer it to veterans attempting to come to terms with the cause of their illnesses.

2. The US government ardently wishes to convince the public that the only battlefield hazard posed by DU munitions is shrapnel injuries. Again, the Institute of Medicine study succinctly states this position: "... it is now understood that retention of DU-containing embedded shrapnel is the major source of increased DU exposure in military personnel."

This, too, is a lie. Its purpose is to draw attention away from the inhalation pathway. In the study by Durakovic et al., mentioned above, 27 veterans were studied. All presented complex, nonspecific symptoms of Gulf War Illness. None of them had suffered shrapnel injury. Among this cohort, 14 were found to have been contaminated with DU. It is important to note that this test was conducted nine years after the Gulf War, demonstrating the long residency time of inhaled uranium and the ability to identify such contamination years after the exposure event.

3. According to conventional wisdom, there are two vectors to uranium's toxicity: It is radioactive and it is a heavy metal capable of producing adverse chemical effects. These two phenomenon are usually treated separately despite the fact that abundant research has proven that the two work synergistically, each enhancing the deleterious effects of the other. Uranium's radioactivity is rejected out of hand as hazardous because the "dose" of radiation likely to be absorbed on the contaminated battlefield is too low to produce cancer.

Cancer? Why does cancer enter the discussion of the unexplained illness of Gulf War veterans? Unbeknownst to most people, the current science of radiation safety confines itself to cancer causation. This is a sophisticated ruse that has held sway over radiation protection for half a century. There exists a large body of research on noncancerous effects of radiation that is ignored by the international radiation protection community and the VA. (A complete explanation can be found in (4) in the bibliography.)

As for uranium's chemical toxicity, typical acute exposure events prior to the first Gulf War, such as with uranium miners, led to the determination that the kidney was the organ most susceptible to damage. However, battlefield exposure has no corollary to any other type of uranium exposure and, as a consequence, may produce unique physiological effects. In no other circumstances do humans inhale aerosolized micro- and nano-sized particles of highly insoluble, ceramic, uranium-bearing material. Innovative research is urgently needed to confirm if other types of injury may be initiated in the contaminated individual that bypasses observable damage to the kidney. (See discussion below).

4. The first Gulf War ignited a renewed interest in the toxicology of uranium. Numerous laboratory studies have documented that uranium is genotoxic (capable of damaging DNA), cytotoxic (poisonous to cells), mutagenic (capable of inducing mutations), teratogenic (capable of interfering with normal embryonic development) and neurotoxic (capable of harming nerve tissue). This research has yet to dislodge the stale mantra that uranium is only capable of causing cancer or kidney damage. (For an extensive review of recent research on the toxicology of uranium, see (4).)

5. Here's an example of blatant medical fraud. A veteran suffering from the undiagnosed illness commonly referred to as Gulf War Syndrome goes to his doctor concerned that uranium exposure may have been a factor in his deteriorating condition. In response, the physician orders a test to measure the total concentration of uranium in a 24-hour urine sample. (This is an entirely different test from the one described earlier.) When the test results return from the lab, the GI is informed that the amount of uranium in his urine is within the normal range. Uranium contamination is not a problem. What he is not told is that this was a foregone conclusion. Why? Because he was given the wrong diagnostic test!

In accidents where people absorb into their bodies an abnormal amount of uranium, the soluble portion relatively rapidly enters the blood, is transported to the kidneys and is then excreted. During this period, measured in days to weeks, the uranium concentration in the urine will be elevated while the body efficiently goes about ridding itself of excess uranium. Measurement of total uranium in urine during this time will demonstrate abnormally high levels, which can be used to determine if kidney damage is a possible concern. Similarly, a veteran injured by shrapnel will show an elevated concentration of uranium in his urine for years as uranium slowly dissolves from the metal fragments in his body. In the case of inhalation exposure, measurement of total uranium would be elevated only if measured on the battlefield soon after exposure while the soluble fraction of uranium is being eliminated from the body. But conducted years after exposure, the test would provide no useful information because uranium levels would have returned to within the normal range. What's not being addressed is the fate of the insoluble portion of the absorbed uranium. This uranium dissolves very slowly, over a period of years. While this is taking place, the total concentration of uranium in the urine may never rise above the normal range. If a veteran wants to know whether he is carrying DU in his body years after exposure, he requires the proper diagnostic test, the one mentioned in number 1 above.

5. The war is Bosnia was fought between March 1992 and November 1995. In its aftermath, soldiers serving in the former Yugoslavian army, staffers of humanitarian missions and Yugoslavian residents began manifesting symptoms of some unidentified illness similar to that suffered by US soldiers who served in the Gulf. Belatedly, NATO announced in 2000 that munitions containing DU had been fired on the Bosnian battlefields. This revelation was groundbreaking. The Bosnian theater contained none of the risk factors for Gulf War Illness that veterans were exposed to who served in Iraq and Kuwait, such as oil well fires, vaccines for anthrax or botulinum toxins, Iraqi chemical and biological warfare agents etc. The only factor that linked the two theaters together were DU munitions.

Using an innovative technique of electronic microscopy, Antonietta Gatti and Stephano Montanari analyzed tissue samples taken from those suffering so-called Balkan War Syndrome.(5) Every tissue sample and lymph node that was examined contained spherical, combustion-derived, metal-alloyed microparticles and nanoparticles. To confirm an environmental origin of this debris, the researchers noted that particles found in the tissues of diseased soldiers and civilians were "mutually compatible" with those found on the ground in the territories where battles had been fought and where the pathologies were contracted.

This avenue of investigation reveals a third vector of DU's toxicity which acts synergistically with DU's radiation and chemical effects. Nanoparticles have recently received a great deal of attention due the numerous proposed applications of nanotechnology, the use of materials smaller than 100 nanometers (0.1 microns). Nanoparticles have been shown to exhibit many unusual properties. They possess the ability to pass directly through certain tissue types, travel along neurons, escape filtration from the blood by the spleen and the liver and avoid immune system detection by macrophages. These unusual characteristics give nanoparticles ready access to all tissues of the body. While circulating through the body, their surface chemistry provides a platform for ongoing heavy metal interactions with the body's molecular makeup. Thus, insoluble uranium nanoparticles represent point sources for chronic chemical and radiological poisoning to the body's interior. In addition, nanoparticles of many different compositions have been implicated in initiating inflammation, oxidative stress and gene activation.

With over 100,000 Gulf War veterans ill with an undiagnosed illness, one would think that the work of Gatti and Montanari would have stimulated medical follow-up among researchers sincerely interested in exploring the origins of Gulf War Illness. However, their work has so far remained ignored by the VA.

6. On August 20, 2007, the Discovery Channel aired an episode in its series "Conspiracy Test" entitled "Gulf War Illness." During the program, the results of research undertaken at the Molecular Medicine and Genetics Lab at Wayne State University were presented. In a preliminary study supervised by Dr. Henry Heng, blood samples were collected from five veterans of the 1991 Gulf War who were suffering symptoms of the undiagnosed illness they had contracted while in military service. All had previously tested positive for the presence of DU in their urine and none had served in any area of Iraq where possible exposure to chemical warfare agents might have occurred as a result of the destruction of weapon caches at Khamisiyah. Using spectral karyotyping (SKY), Heng and his graduate students imaged and analyzed the chromosome structure of blood cells in each of the veterans. What Heng and his colleagues found using this technique was startling. The karyotype of each of the veterans clearly displayed significant levels of chromosome damage. According to Heng, the damage widely exceeded that observed in cancer patients. Translocations, broken chromosomes, centromere displacements and aneuploidy (a gain or loss in the number of chromosomes) were observed. According to Heng, the chromosome aberrations observed were typical of the type of damage produced by radiation. This is another avenue of investigation ignored by the VA.

7. In 2003, Heike Schröder and her research associates published a study of 16 British Gulf War and Balkan War veterans who suspected that they had been exposed to DU. When compared to suitable controls, the study group demonstrated a statistically significant increase in the frequency of dicentric chromosomes and centric-ring chromosomes in peripheral lymphocytes.(6) (These aberrantly shaped chromosomes are created when two double-strand breaks in DNA are improperly repaired, either between the DNA from two separate chromosomes or within the DNA of a single chromosome. The elevated occurrence of these in individuals serves as a biological indicator of exposure to ionizing radiation.)

The findings of Schröder and her colleagues are extremely significant. The observed chromosome aberration frequency they observed should not have been occurring at the "dose" delivered by battlefield DU. According to the authors, "However, as dicentric chromosomes are reliable indicators of ionizing radiation, our findings contradict official releases from the IAEA, the WHO, the MOD and the DOE, stating that the radiotoxicity of DU would be negligible."(7) A further bewildering discovery was that the observed chromosome aberrations should not have been so prevalent ten years after exposure, which was when the veterans in this study were tested. Schröder offered the observation that soluble DU would have been flushed from the bodies of test subjects relatively soon after exposure. Further, the biological half-life of dicentric chromosomes is 3.5 years. As a consequence, the observed chromosome aberrations could not have been produced at the time of the exposure event. So, how were they produced? Schröder proposed that the chromosome aberrations were a manifestation of ongoing damage to the body's interior produced by the radiation emitted from insoluble particles that were lodged in the body since the moment they were absorbed on the contaminated battlefield.

The scientific research mentioned above clearly suggests that DU is a factor in the undiagnosed illness suffered by veterans. Yet, numerous publications from the world's guardian institutions continue to proclaim that this is impossible. The VA has aligned itself with this political propaganda and, in the process, makes a mockery of science.

To conclude, the VA is being lackadaisical at best, criminally negligent at worst, in its treatment of veterans suffering from symptoms of so-called Gulf War Illness. Valuable avenues of research are being intentionally ignored because they raise disturbing questions of the impact to health from radioactive material released into the environment. Rather than throw a disparaging light on cherished weapon systems, our cherished veterans are being abused by an uncaring medical system.

Bibliography:

(1) Sartin J.S. "Gulf War Syndrome: The Final Chapter?" Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 2006, 81(11):1425-1426.
(2) Institute of Medicine. Committee on Gulf War and Health. "A Review of the Medical Literature Relative to the Gulf War Veterans' Health." "Gulf War and Health. Volume 4: Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War." Washington, DC, National Academies Press, 2006.
(3) Durakovic A., Horan P., Dietz L. "The Quantitative Analysis of Depleted Uranium Isotopes in British, Canadian, and U.S. Gulf War Veterans," Military Medicine, 2002, 167(8):620-627.
(4) Zimmerman P. "A Primer in the Art of Deception: The Cult of Nuclearists, Uranium Weapons and Fraudulent Science," August, 2009.
(5) Gatti A.M., Montanari S. "So-called Balkan Syndrome: A Bioengineering Approach," Emilia, Italy, Laboratory of Biomaterials of the University of Modena and Reggio, February 2004.
(6) Schröder H., presentation at the World Uranium Weapons Conference, October 16-19, 2003. University of Hamburg, Germany.
(7) Schröder H., Heimers A., Frentzel-Beyme R., Schott A., Hoffmann W. "Chromosome Aberration Analysis in Peripheral Lymphocytes of Gulf War and Balkans War Veterans. Radiation Protection Dosimetry," 2003, 103(3):211-219.


»

Paul Zimmerman is the author of "A Primer in the Art of Deception: The Cult of Nuclearists, Uranium Weapons and Fraudulent Science." Excerpts, free to download, are available at www.du-deceptions.com

[J.B. Stone]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Lt ... 9&ie=UTF-8



[quotehttp://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/23935143/Theyve-sent-Helbig-after-me

]Ecologist, February 2007 by Felicity Arbuthnot
Summary:

This article comments on an unsolicited e-mail in response to an article on depleted uranium waste from the nuclear fuel cycle. This waste is used in munitions and bullets. Depleted uranium from shells fired by British and U.S. forces during the Balkan wars has found its way into the food chain and has been detected among the civilian populations of Kosovo and Bosnia. A study of the local population in Balkan regions found highly radioactive particles in the urine of all those tested.
Excerpt from Article:

Roger Helbig, a man with an unhealthy obsession: he believes that depleted uranium (DU) waste from the nuclear fuel cycle, which is used in munitions and bullets -- is safe.

I received an unsolicited email from him, entitled 'The Real Doug Rokke' in response to an article I had written for The Brussels Tribunal.

It read: 'I see that you have been taken in by Doug Rokke, who really does not know much about anything, let alone depleted uranium. It is sad that a Phd has so little real knowledge. I also see you claim to be a journalist. What newspapers, radio stations or TV stations have you actually worked for, or are you like Bob Nichols, a self-described journalist with no actual journalistic experience?'

His tirade continued: 'Rokke's military records and part of his PhD thesis are attached. You will note he has no real expertise in depleted uranium and his claims about the Middle East are pure fantasy, yet you inflame the Arab street with them. You ought to learn more about what is before telling the world all about it.'

Lieutenant Colonel Roger Helbig, USAF, Rtd (it appears) is one of a small Pentagon-inspired group devoted to denigrating and undermining the efforts of those drawing attention to the dangers of DU, which three UN Sub-Committees have designated a weapon of mass destruction.

Rokke is just the latest in a long line of Helbig targets. Journalist Bob Nichols, Project Censored award winner for his DU coverage, writes, 'Individuals on web sites throughout the United States have complained about the abusive and aggressive actions of an Air Force Lieut. Colonel named Roger Helbig'.

Lt. Col. Helbig has riled enough people to invite web comment from DU activists. The headline on one website, Axis of Logic (google), reads: “LTC Roger Helbig, United States Air Force: A Bully Pushing Around Civilians -- Air Force Colonel Abuses American Citizens over Uranium Weapons Coverup.”

The comment above by "Rhotel1" is none other than Lt. Col. Roger Helbig, a retired U.S. Air Force officer, who also worked at the Vallejo (California) Naval shipyard until the U.S. Navy fired him for his continual harrassment of the Navy. He is now acting under the direction of Dr. Michael Kilpatrick in the Pentagon depleted uranium office, and is being used to globally harrass any person opposed to the use of depleted uranium by the military. Lt. Col. Roger Helbig is a disinformation agent and a terrorist. He and his friends threatened to disrupt and do physical harm to international depleted uranium whistleblower, retired Major Doug Rokke, and attendees at a depleted uranium conference in Tennessee several years ago which required notification of law enforcement that a terrorist event had been possibly planned by Lt. Col. Roger Helbig.

http://kyotoobserver.vox.com/library/po ... moret.html

" Dr. Michael Kilpatrick in the Pentagon depleted uranium office"

Roger Helbig said...

Bob Nichols is not a journalist and I am really sorry to hear that a long respected organization like the American Friends Field Service Committee has been taken in by Nichols. Nichols is a propagandist; he is the mouthpiece for two pseudo scientist con artists who make their living off of depleted uranium. Nichols apparently does too. If any of you want to know about the real Bob Nichols, write to me, DUStory-owner@yahoogroups.com -


http://kauaieclectic.blogspot.com/2009/ ... adows.html

Feedback from DailyKos and VFP 109 in Olympia have made me aware that the individual who generated my response-turned-article is a known internet troll who has made it his mission to propagate anti-anti-DU information.

He is LTC. Roger Helbig, USAF (ret). and is not and has not been an on-going member of our Washington Veteran's Google group. Rather, Helbig seems to have made it his practice to insert himself into every anti-DU rally, debate, symposium and forum including and primarily those on line.

For those interested in the use of Depleted Uranium in military weapons, I make no apology for this lengthy update.

In the spirit of Fair Use, I'm posting the entirety of the following piece from the Axis of Logic Site

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Col. Helbig has consistently misrepresented himself and his participation, voluntarily or on a paid basis, as a "minder" or enforcer for the DOD lie about Uranium Munitions in direct contravention of US Army Regulations and Orders," Nichols stated.

"Col. Helbig apparently is fervently following the Secret Los Alamos Memo about Uranium Weapons (UW), aka so-called "Depleted Uranium," instructing personnel to lie about Uranium Weapons to maintain the political viability of continued use of the Genocidal Weapons: "weaponized radioactive and poisonous ceramic uranium oxide gas and dust" in Iraq and throughout Central Asia," added Nichols.


[Ed Note: They are not kidding. A copy of the actual memo encouraging lies and misinformation is online. AR]

Nichols stated "Dr. Doug Rokke, Ph.D., is the former Army Officer in charge of the Pentagon's Depleted Uranium Project. Dr Rokke is a career officer, loyal to the Constitution of the United States of America, not to any political party. He is the man the people of the United States can turn to for "on the level information" about the true nature of Uranium Weapons (UW.)

http://www.washblog.com/story/2007/10/20/122153/10

http://www.paltelegraph.com/index.php

Roger Helbig - More Misleading Information |69.19.185.xxx |2009-06-15 04:52:39
Peter Eyre,

You are the misleader. I presume that Nigel Lamb actually is a scientist. This
article, which does not bear your name, bears your stamp of misinformation. The Camp Doha fire and
explosions was not mainly about DU; yes; DU 120mm tank rounds cooked off; some also were recovered
fully intact. The dangerous material was the cluster bomblets that showered the area with high
explosive and caused new fires. The Camp Doha fire and explosions started with a defective heater
in a fully loaded ammunition carrier loaded with the cluster bomblet rounds for 155mm howitzers.
These rounds did not contain DU. The DU rounds did not spread extensively; they mainly cooked off
in place and were often found inside the tanks that were carrying them the conex containers that
contained the ammunition in storage. Men were killed in the cleanup; not because of DU, but because
of unstable cluster bomblets that blew up when they were being mad...

http://www.paltelegraph.com/hot-topic/1 ... -its-usage

Helbig had highlighted the excerpt, commenting: ‘This is pure bullshit and you know it. Where are the actual test results? I presume you don’t choose to read the United Nations Environmental Programme report – it is only about 300 pages, well documented instead of scientific myth!’

http://elections.thinkaboutit.eu/2009/0 ... -bombings/

There’s a huge difference between doing science and doing journalism. I don’t have the media savvy of Moret or Nichols, however I do have more biology and physics savvy than they or Helbig do. I’ve done much other rsearch that he chooses to ignore. [note this is also a blog response to 2 recent articles in Big Island Weekly]. DU and other radioisotopes/heavy metals are bad news to living beings what ever their source. "I'm quaking in my genes knowing the mayhem men manufacture" Elaine Hunter, D.Sc. "

http://www.envirosagainstwar.org/know/r ... temid=5736

http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.ph ... e&sid=8248

By Roger Helbig on 2009-08-11 07:19:23
I do not see the word "depleted uranium" in this article. I see now that this rag has been taken over by an idiot who has joined the anti-depleted uranium crusade. That's too bad because this site used to have some value to veterans. Every dollar that gets wasted on chasing some phony DU claim is one that is not used to treat real veteran problems. Remember that. Also remember that every false claim made here quickly reaches the streets of the Mid East and one of these days they are going to pay us back for poisoning their lands forever. Unfortunately, though, we never poisoned anything, not our troops, not the Iraqis, not anyone else. Why is there such a sudden surge of anti-DU lies? DU was last used in April 2003. No one has fought a tank since and DU is only used in kinetic energy penetrator anti-tank rounds. It is not used in bombs or missiles and it is not shot at buildings or civilians and it never was an anti-personnel weapon. I knew David Hackworth, used to regularly correspond with him and I don't see him jumping to claim DU did anything without the facts to support the claim. Hack was for the troops, but he also was a damned good investigative journalist.

By Veterans Advocacy Editor on 2009-08-11 08:02:46
I see you not only took the research we did on Lieutenant Colonel Helbig's anti-anti-DU crusade, but used it to fire for effect Brother Duff.

"I do not see the word "depleted uranium" in this article."

Colonel, sir you need to READ the fifth paragraph down. If you were not so blinded by your crusade against anyone even mentioning Depleted Uranium.

After scores of studies costing more than $150 million, a definitive cause for Gulf War Illness has yet to be announced. Investigators and researchers have targeted a number of things, including: the unproven vaccines and drugs our troops were forced to take; the U.S. depleted uranium munitions used against Iraqi armor that exposed our soldiers to radiation; pollution from the oil-well fires; local diseases; even the clouds that blew over our troops when captured Iraqi chemical-warfare weaponry was destroyed by Army engineers.

These were Colonel Hackworth's own words Sir. What now are you going to try discrediting Colonel Hackworth when the man is down?

Let's put your triade in context that really bothers most Veterans even IF you happen to be right instead of a mouth piece for the armaments industry.

"I see now that this rag has been taken over by an idiot who has joined the Agent Orange /PTSD crusade. That's too bad because this site used to have some value to veterans.

[We are and will remain so as long as we do not allow bullies like you to pass our editorial or writers criteria, which is frankly none of your damn business, suffice it to say what we've researched about you does not rate, but I digress].

"Every dollar that gets wasted on chasing some Agent Orange or PTSD claim is one that is not used to treat real veteran problems" [like the Flag Amendment, in fact that doesn't cost us anything but Ego and mocking the fact that our troops already paid a heavy price and still do to protect our flag from desecration].

Remember that. Also remember that every false claim made here [or anywhere else that doesn't agree with Roger Helbig] quickly reaches the streets of the Mid East and one of these days they are going to pay us back for poisoning their lands forever.

[You must be referring to the Vietnamese who have yet to demand repirations for posioining their land with Agent Orange, but let's not give them any ideas].

Unfortunately, though, we never poisoned anything, not our troops, not the Iraqis, not anyone else. Why is there such a sudden surge of Agent Orange and PTSD lies?"

Hope you get the picture Colonel Heilbig, and frankly I'm not an expert nor passionate DU activists one way or another, because as the real Colonel Hackworth (not your imaginary one) really said, "a definitive cause for Gulf War Illness has yet to be announced. Investigators and researchers have targeted a number of things, including: the unproven vaccines and drugs our troops were forced to take; the U.S. depleted uranium munitions used against Iraqi armor that exposed our soldiers to radiation; pollution from the oil-well fires; local diseases; even the clouds that blew over our troops when captured Iraqi chemical-warfare weaponry was destroyed by Army engineers."

Thus, Sir using logic and common sense, even if YOU can rule out DU without bullying, you still have to rule out the other potential causes Colonel Hackworth talked about.

http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.ph ... e&sid=8248

IN regard to Hackworth....who I've met PERSONALLY.....

http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/v ... hp?t=38786

In addition to the evidence provided so far, lets finally pay a visit to the US Governments own website and this extremely interesting PubMed Journal. I have no doubt that our so called science correspondent (agents) that attack such press releases will again repeat those eternally boring quotes "Provide Scientific Evidence;" "If you want the truth look to the scientific literature;" "Check peer-reviewed abstracts;" and, "ignore peer-reviewed science" etc. I am sure that all readers will agree that the evidence provided so far is extremely accurate and convincing. Character Assassination by such people as Helbig and Lamb is like water of a ducks back, both of whom show no compassion towards the many thousands war vets or innocent civilians that have fallen victim to uranium based weapons. These badly informed "Imbeciles" have no place in this world and have truly lost their direction in life.

http://www.paltelegraph.com/diaries/art ... net-part-5

I'm beginning to wonder what is the greater "problem".....

Depleted Uranium Munitions.....or a Depleted Uranium Moron.....???

[J.B. Stone]

http://tinyurl.com/y9z5l8c

Blogger Rhotel1 said...

Dr Know, it is pretty obvious that the name does not really signify that you know anything. The photos, while often pushed on the world by the anti-depleted uranium crusade started by Saddam Hussein in 1993 when his regime was tiring of the UN Sanctions that ended the Gulf War and wanted to bully the world into dropping them, have nothing to do with DU - they are of the Harlequin Fetal Syndrome (Harlequin_type_ichthyosis) a rare genetic condition that according to Wikipedia has been known since the 1750's. Before you go ranting about the horrors of DU again, go read something other than anti-depleted uranium crusade propaganda; start with some of the material at these links http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/DUStory/message/76 or perhaps go to the excellent video of dinner served on the bright orange Art Deco Fiesta Ware plate glazed with depleted uranium complete with Geiger counter exhibition at the end.

Blogger Dr. Know said...

Well, Mr. Lt. Col. Roger Helbig, USAF, Rtd,

Pretty big of you to visit with your pseudo-anonymous Option One dial-up connection from Richmond, CA and start shilling for the Pentagon and its Nuclear Waste cronies; and further, for adopting an insulting attitude right off the bat.

F**k You for that. If you had bothered to read the original story in which I explained the rational supporting my conclusion that DU is an unacceptable, dangerous munition -- particularly when dumped, en masse, on civilian populations -- you might have adopted a less confrontational attitude.

And I would beseech you to do so again, but it would obviously be a waste of time since you seem to spend an unhealthy portion of your time searching the Internet for occurrences of the phrase "Depleted Uranium". I hope you are being paid commensurate to your degree of obsession since being canned as a contractor by the Navy - Not.

As most of your arguments have been debunked already, including the fact that the Alpha/Beta radiation can be blocked by imbedding in other materials as insignificant as paper (thus addressing your Magical Plate agitprop), I will not bother to address them again.

http://gonelikethewind.blogspot.com/200 ... anium.html

DEPLETED URANIUM....

[J.B. Stone]

http://www.newswithviews.com/Roth/laurie216.htm



LET’S MAKE THE VETS WAIT FOR CARE UNTIL THEY ALL DIE



By Dr. Laurie Roth
May 28, 2010
NewsWithViews.com

This seems to be the philosophy of the Veterans Services (VA) administration. Just recently I interviewed Dick Phenneger www.vstnow.org, a leading, whistle blower, former vet and business man, who has investigated health care abuse to our veterans for many years at the hands of the VA. He shared enough violations and horrors with the VA against our troops that I couldn’t help thinking about the dreaded IRS. In my view, both should be gutted and started again with an emphasis in common sense, real service and ethics. Oh…..but back to the bigger than life problem.

Let me cut to the chase and give you a few bottom line facts regarding the VA.

First problem:

Records have been and are being destroyed. Back in 2009, a VA office in Detroit turned in 16,000 unprocessed mail and 717 unprocessed documents that were stuck in storage and hadn’t even been looked at. Many other documents were found in shredding bins, not just in one office but in several regional offices. Phenneger stated during our visit on my national radio show www.therothshow.com (listen to archive, dated May 25th, 1st hour www.therothshow.com) that almost 100% of the time that the typical response of the VA to inquiring and needy Vets seeking care is that ‘we do not have your records.’ Naturally, the responsibility and problem falls again and again on the needy vet, not the out of control, disorganized and corrupt VA that has actually lost, burned, shredded or misplaced the forms!

This is a CLEAR betrayal to our troops. I thought it was bad enough for our troops to face the politically correct crowd in our media and attitude of progressive leftists about this war, but now I find that they come home, needy and maimed from serving their country to face lost forms, hideous service and treatment way too late.

Second problem:

Vets have to complete a 23 page application with absurd amounts of detail, even if their injuries or disabilities are clear and simple. Not only is the form intimidating and TOO LONG, but Phenneger found that there there is a literal quagmire of legal documents and forms (80) to figure out. Many troops reported to Phenneger in his investigation that when asking for help to figure out which form to use, they were constantly told ‘that is your problem and responsibility, not ours.’

What often happens is the needy VET accidentally fills out the wrong form and 6 months later gets the standard refusal for care. They are told that they have to start again with a different form. Typically, another rejection comes 6 months after that and so on. One example Phenniger shared was of Leroy Comer, a Vietnam veteran who had spent over 21 years processing applications with nothing but denials and appeals.

Third problem:

VA policy is to reward denial of claims

Yes, the VA actually has a policy to give bonuses for denied claims. That must explain why 70% of the claims are refused or sent back to be redone. It is an absurd daisy chain which ends of betraying and abusing our troops even more than they already may have been!

Fourth problem:

The VA senior staff and management defend the employee bonus program which honors and rewards turn downs! They talk about their employee accountability, on and on. They seem to certainly be accountable alright….TO THE BROKEN, OUT OF CONTROL AND MISREPRESENTATIVE BUREAUCRACY, NOT THE VETS IN NEED OF CARE.

The VA is an out of control bureaucracy that seems to now exist mostly for itself, not for our vets and their needs. Just recently I had a caller on my radio show talking about his friend not able to get the extra benefits he needed because his file had been mysteriously burned in a fire, thus the VA couldn’t help him. He is told that is his problem not the VA. Naturally, the VET is suffering in the hospital and in need NOW, not years later.

It appears that 1000s of vets are in this situation, where they are filling out the wrong forms and getting turned down again and again. It appears that most of them are in endless wait mode trying to stay alive until they get some care.

Regardless of what the series of problems with the VA are, there is no excuse, especially in a time of war that our troops have to have any kind of delay or problem getting care.
They shouldn’t have to wait anymore than 2-3 weeks for care, not 6 months to 5 years!!! The sign up form (s) should be simplified and dramatically shortened and guidance and help offered before a VET fills out a form so they don’t make a costly mistake which denies them care!

If lack of money is the big problem according to the high up VA leaders then they should be marching into congress and demanding more! Our Government has wasted and spent hundreds of billions of dollars on rubbish. Certainly if they knew there was a budgeting need and revamping need for the VA to function right, they would respond. If they refuse to respond and fix this WE SHOULD ALL MARCH ON WASHINGTON, YELL, SUE, FAX, SCREAM AND DEMAND UNTIL THEY DO SOMETHING REAL ABOUT THIS. It is not just money or lack there of. It is an out of control, disorganized bureaucracy that has betrayed its real mission of health care to Vets, in a timely, affordable and clear manner.

I could care less what the high up leadership of the VA bureaucracy says about how proud they are of accountability, bonus structures and service. The facts are numerous and spreading far and wide, just like the BP oil spill, so their words are nothing but bull rot and lies!

IT IS TIME FOR THE TALK TO STOP AND A TOTAL OVERHAUL, FINANCIAL INTERVENTION AND MANAGERIAL CHANGE TO OCCUR WITH THE VA.

No longer is it acceptable to hear our leaders in congress, the White House, military and media ignore the ongoing treatment of our Vets at the hands of the VA.

© 2010 Dr. Laurie Roth - All Rights Reserved


Dr. Laurie Roth earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. In the late 90's, Laurie hosted and produced a successful PBS television show called "CD Highway" that aired nationally on 130 TV stations.

Tune in to The Roth Show, Weeknights from 7:00 to 10:00 pm PAC and find out for yourself! You can listen live on cable radio network (live on the internet) channel 6 or visit The Roth Show web site and click on "where to listen" www.therothshow.com Call the Roth Show at: 1-866-388-9093

E-Mail: Drljroth@aol.com