Rep. Shays to Convene Hearing on
Health Surveillance for Deployed Forces

Washington, Jul 14 - Rep. Christopher Shays (CT-4), Chairman of the
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and
International Relations, today announced the Subcommittee will
convene an oversight hearing July 19 to assess DOD efforts to collect
and analyze Occupational and Environmental Health Surveillance (OEHS)
data for deployed forces.

The hearing will focus on the findings of a new Government
Accountability Office (GAO) report requested by the Subcommittee.
Past work by GAO determined DOD efforts to determine the cause of
deployment-related illnesses have been hampered by: incomplete
medical surveillance, limited information on troop location, lack of
data on the extent and duration of specific exposures to
environmental hazards and the accuracy of recordkeeping on health
status before and after deployment.

"Awareness of the occupational hazards of deployment has increased
dramatically since the first Gulf War," Shays said. "But consistently
collecting exposure data and transmitting it to individual medical
records and to clinicians has not yet been accomplished."

The hearing will convene Tuesday, July 19, at 10:30 a.m. in room 2154
of the Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C.

WITNESS LIST

PANEL ONE

Mr. Brian Scott La Morte
Company Sergeant Major
B Company, 3rd Battalion, 20th Special Forces Group (Airborne)
North Carolina Army National Guard

Mr. Raymond Ramos
Retired Staff Sergeant
442nd military police

Dr. Marcia Crosse
Director, Health Care
Government Accountability Office


PANEL TWO

Dr. Michael Kilpatrick
Deputy Director of the Deployment Health Support Directorate
Department of Defense

Dr. Susan Mather
Chief Officer, Public Health & Environmental Hazards
Veterans Health Administration
Department of Veterans Affairs

Accompanied by:

Dr. Mark Brown
Director, Environmental Agents Service
After leaving this hearing my heart was low.
Only 3 members of Oversight committee spoke.
Very few pointed questions were asked.
Rep. Shays, who has worked on GW and military deployment exposures
for at least the last seven years, sounded like today as if it was
his first day addressing the subject.

Rep. Shays did listen to the statements the two OIF veterans made to
the committee and did not rush or pressure them. I appreciate the
time and trouble it took to travel to this hearing on their own dime.
Yet he asked them what the DoD and VA should do to address their
problems.
These troops are not government directors and it was foolish to ask
me for regulation/policy question.

I appreciate the Director, Health Care of GAO presentation. This
office usually does a good job pointing out the defects and failures
of VA and DoD regulations
Which are NOT fully implemented.

The problem is there is no accountability for a job not done. In
military lingo
A job not completed is called "mission failure".

Dr. Susan Mather (VA) presentation to the Committee was broad general
policy statements. She failed to state specific statistics to state
how successful any of these medical care/monitoring programs have
been. Smoke, if you ask me.

Dr. Michael Kilpatrick (DHSD) did the same. Yet the committee,
before the hearing was half over was Rep Shays alone – failed to push
for any details or accountability.

The big 5 NSO/VSO representatives failed to attend. One member of
Operation Truth and Desert Storm Battle Registry and Desert Storm
Justice Foundation attended this day. National Gulf War Resource
Center Executive Director was missing in action again.

Three gulf war veterans, independent of any organization, from
Maryland and Virginia sat silent and disappointed at the end of this
hearing.

Your input is request to my after action.

Venus Hammack
ED of DSJF