DU Death Toll Tops 11,000

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DU Death Toll Tops 11,000

Nationwide Media Blackout Keeps U.S. Public Ignorant About This Important Story
By James P. Tucker Jr.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/du_death_toll.html

The death toll from the highly toxic weapons component known as depleted uranium (DU) has reached 11,000 soldiers and the growing scandal may be the reason behind Anthony Principi’s departure as secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department.

This view was expressed by Arthur Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, writing in Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter.

“The real reason for Mr. Principi’s departure was really never given,” Bernklau said. “However, a special report published by eminent scientist Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as the definitive cause of ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ has fed a growing scandal about the continued use of uranium munitions by the U.S. military.”

The “malady [from DU] that thousands of our military have suffered and died from has finally been identified as the cause of this sickness, eliminating the guessing. . . . The terrible truth is now being revealed,” Bernklau said.

Of the 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are now dead, he said. By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. More than a decade later, more than half (56 percent) who served in Gulf War I have permanent medical problems. The disability rate for veterans of the world wars of the last century was 5 percent, rising to 10 percent in Vietnam.

“The VA secretary was aware of this fact as far back as 2000,” Bernklau said.

“He and the Bush administration have been hiding these facts, but now, thanks to Moret’s report, it is far too big to hide or to cover up.”

Terry Johnson, public affairs specialist at the VA, recently reported that veterans of both Persian Gulf wars now on disability total 518,739, Bernklau said.

“The long-term effect of DU is a virtual death sentence,” Bernklau said. “Marion Fulk, a nuclear chemist, who retired from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, and was also involved in the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers [from the second war] as ‘spectacular’—and a matter of concern.’ ”

While this important story appeared in a Washington newspaper and the wire services, it did not receive national exposure — a compelling sign that the American public is being kept in the dark about the terrible effects of this toxic weapon. (Veterans for Constitutional Law can be reached at (516) 474-4261.)

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VA's Ban on Recruiting Vets Angers Activists

Local/Regional » News Item

Thursday, January 20, 2005

VA's ban on recruiting vets angers activists
Henry's health fair at hospital blocked
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By Laura Ungar
lungar@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

Former Miss America Heather French Henry's idea seemed simple: Hold a health fair at the VA hospital in Louisville.

But her plan was derailed by a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs ban on any marketing that attempts to recruit veterans into its medical system.

Some veterans say the ban flouts the government's promise to care for those who served and prevents many of them — including older ones with expensive health problems — from getting the medical attention they need.

"They're conniving to keep the old ones and their families out," said John Sterner, a disabled Vietnam vet and activist. "The latest generation is denying the greatest generation."

The issue arose after Henry had posters printed for her event. They included the phrases: "New Resolution? Try the VA Solution," "Enroll for VA Healthcare" and "Learn about other Veterans Benefits."

Henry said that before she could distribute those posters, she was told that the language was problematic.

A directive issued last year for the VA MidSouth Healthcare Network, which includes the Louisville hospital, said "facilities may not aggressively take steps to recruit new enrollees or new workload."

Recruiting blocked

That directive followed a national VA memo issued in July 2002 that said recruiting veterans is "inappropriate" because of a tight budget and growing demand for services.

"We're not allowed to go after them," said Amanda Hedlund, acting public affairs officer for the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Louisville. Henry's health fair "was a great idea. But just because of regulations and policies, we couldn't accommodate her."

National VA officials this week declined to discuss repercussions of the 2002 memo. Jo Schuda, spokeswoman for the VA in Washington, said yesterday that officials were preparing a statement for The Courier-Journal, but it did not arrive.

Henry canceled the health fair at the hospital and instead will hold a symposium Saturday at the UAW Hall on Fern Valley Road from 6 to 9 p.m. It will kick off a tour called Operation Veterans' Health, sponsored by the Heather French Foundation for Veterans.

"It puts the power in my hands and not the government's hands," said Henry, daughter of a disabled Vietnam vet.

All veterans are potentially eligible for VA care, but they must enroll in the program, and the VA says limited funds have forced it to use priority groups.

In the Kentucky and Indiana counties served by the local center, there are 166,609 veterans, but only 48,892 were enrolled at the end of the 2004 fiscal year.

Charles Cordova, a 59-year-old Vietnam veteran, said he and many others don't know what services they have coming and could benefit from VA outreach.

Rick Dickerson, a former truck driver who served in Vietnam, said scores of veterans might not know how to get help.

"It's unfair to the veterans ... not being able to put out the word," Dickerson said from the Robert E. Newman VFW Post last week. "The veterans go and give their lives for this country, and the country should give them something back."

Inadequate resources?

The 2002 memo banning recruitment of new veterans drew sharp criticism when it was issued by Laura J. Miller, a Louisville native who is the U.S. Deputy Undersecretary for Health for Operations and Management.

It prompted Sen. John Kerry to call for Miller's removal and ask President Bush to direct the VA to overturn the policy.

The memo said demand for health services "exceeds our resources" and has resulted in waiting lists at clinics. "Therefore, I am directing each Network Director to ensure that no marketing activities to enroll new veterans occur within your networks," Miller wrote.

David Autry, deputy national director of communications for the Disabled American Veterans, said the memo reflects the VA's "appalling lack of resources." Its health-care budget for fiscal 2004 was $26.9 billion, a 4 percent increase from the previous year.

Henry said the memo is counterproductive. "If you don't increase the enrollment," she said, "you don't increase the budget."

Autry also said his group was assured after the 2002 memo came out that it wouldn't become policy. But there is evidence the ban on marketing to recruit enrollees has taken hold.

Last July, the VA's MidSouth Healthcare Network issued an "outreach activities policy" that elaborated on issues mentioned in the memo.

It noted that veterans may enroll for VA care and that hospitals may hold health fairs and open houses, but the directive said hospitals cannot collect names of veterans who want to enroll; distribute enrollment applications en masse; make public-service announcements about enrollment; or send general mailings to veterans.

Henry said she is not angry with Louisville officials over the issue. "It's really a problem from the top down," she said.

Federal statistics indicate that the marketing restrictions might have slowed enrollment growth.

It rose 13 percent between the end of fiscal 2001 and 2002, but less than 5 percent each of the two following years.

At the end of fiscal 2004 in September, there were 7.4 million veterans enrolled nationwide, but Schuda said it's impossible to tell how many more veterans are eligible.

Federal officials estimate that there are more than 25 million veterans nationwide. Those on the priority list for enrollment into the VA health system include those with disabilities connected to their military service, former prisoners of war and certain low-income veterans.

But without marketing, even those who are eligible might not know which services are available.

"A lot of veterans are shell-shocked. A lot of them lost limbs and what have you. They need all the help they can get," said Jack Hargadon, a 59-year-old Vietnam veteran. "There's a tremendous amount of people who don't know what's available, and they should be informed."

Republicans Ax Veterans' Strongest Supporter

Republicans Ax Veterans' Strongest Supporter

Article & Essay / Articles & Essays
Date: Jan 12, 2005 - 11:46 PM

With the election over and Bush victorious, the Republican leadership sacks the Congressman who has been veteran’s staunchest supporter.
By Stewart Nusbaumer

In the recent presidential campaign, George Bush attacked John Kerry for not supporting our troops in Iraq. Now that the election is over, George Bush has allowed the sacking of Congress’s staunchest supporter of military veterans, Representative Chris Smith from New Jersey.

And Bush called Kerry a flip-flopper?

“What kind of message are we sending to those troops who are now coming back with arms and legs missing?” asks disabled Vietnam veteran Charles Carroll in the Trenton Times. “That’s outrageous, isn’t it? That’s a slap in the face, isn’t it?”

“You go to war with the military you have,” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told America last month, making it clear what is most important to the Bush Administration is the war, not the troops fighting the war. And now that the search for Weapons of Mass Destruction has ended, it is clear to all--except the Fox faithful deep in their armchair foxholes--that the war in Iraq was unnecessary.

When a nation’s leaders are indifferent to the safety of their troops, sending them into battle without proper equipment and in insufficient numbers, and, incredibly, sending them to a war that is unnecessary, something has gone drastically wrong in America. What has gone drastically wrong is we have a president who clearly does not respect and value the lives of America’s soldiers, except during the presidential campaign.

So I was not surprised yesterday when House Republicans, with the full support of the White House, demoted and humiliated the leading advocate for veterans in Congress. As our soldiers die and lose limbs in Iraq, as more disabled veterans seek assistance in Veterans Administration’s facilities, the Republican Party sacked Chris Smith, the chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs committee. In degrading the best friend military veterans had in Washington, the Republicans degraded all military veterans.

“During his four-year tenure,” Ari Berman writes in the Nation, “Chris Smith authored twenty-two bills benefiting veterans: increasing veteran education funding through the GI bill by 46 percent, allocating $1 billion for homeless vets and $1.4 billion for expanded healthcare programs, and providing an extra $100 million in benefits for surviving spouses.”

“The leadership’s problem with Smith,” said conservative Robert Novak in the Chicago Sun-Times, “has been his insatiable desire to make life better for veterans during his 24 years on the Veterans Affairs Committee.”

Smith had angered tax-slashing-during-wartime Republicans because he did not believe stingy VA budgets were fair to those who have paid the cost to defend this nation, or fight in its follies, unlike the Republican Party leadership who are eager to slash the veterans’ budget. Because Representative Smith was defeated yesterday in the political trenches of Washington, former soldiers, and those current soldiers fighting now in Iraq and Afghanistan, will soon be paying the cost in reduced health care and benefits here in America.

According to Ari Berman, a top Republican aide justified his party’s sacking of Smith because they need someone who will tell veterans groups, “Enough is enough.”

In hearing that he lost his chairmanship of the Veterans Committee, Chris Smith told the Trenton Times, “It's almost as if no good deed goes unpunished.”

Stewart Nusbaumer is editor of Intervention Magazine. He served with the U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam on the DMZ. You can email Stewart at Stewart@interventionmag.com

Posted Thursday, January 13, 2005

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This article comes from Intervention Magazine
http://www.interventionmag.com/