From: DSNurse@...

Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2007 12:47 AM

Subject: Feeling miserable tonight

 

The man to evaluate all appeals was the fund’s special master, Kenneth R. Feinberg. He was appointed by then Attorney General John Ashcroft on Nov. 26, 2001. In his final report of fund activities, Feinberg said with no due modesty, “In my view, the fund was an unqualified success: 97 percent of the families of deceased victims who might otherwise have pursued lawsuits for years have received compensation. . . . In total, the fund distributed over $7.049 billion to survivors of 2,880 persons killed in the September 11 attacks and to 2,680 individuals who were injured in the attacks or in the rescue efforts conducted thereafter. The average award for families of victims killed in the attacks exceeded $2 million. The average award for injured victims was nearly $400,000. . .” 

 

Soldiers from Gulf War I and their families still suffer grave illnesses, with no appropriate testing or effective treatment.  The same is true for veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom who suffer the effects of Post Traumatic Stress.  Let us not forget the now more than 3,500 soldiers who died as a result of combat related injuries in the on-going occupation of Iraq.  How much do their families receive in compensation for the loss of their son, father, brother, sister?  What value does our nation place on the life of an American Soldier who volunteered to go to war to defend his nation?  

 

We valued the lives of the innocent victims of the WTC attack at about $2 million per person.  I do not mean to denigrate the losses suffered by their families, but we must not lose sight of the fact that the people who were lost in the WTC attack (with the notable exception of the police officers, firefighters, and other rescuers who made a conscious and courageous choice to act when action was necessary) did not volunteer to serve their nation.  They were either tourists, out for an enjoyable day of sightseeing, or business people going to work in a clean, air-conditioned office, to earn a salary or commission, or support personnel who job is was to keep the WTC and environs functioning properly and efficiently.  None of these folks, nor their families, expected that they might be killed or injured in the pursuit of their daily activities.  But we as a nation valued their losses at roughly $2,000,000.00 each.  In February, 2005 MSNBC reported that the families of soldiers who were sent to war knowing they could die,  under proposed legislation, would receive $100,000.00. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6891515/  According to CBS on the same date, the family of a soldier who was killed in combat would receive the $100,000, plus another $150,000 to his or her next of kin as a result of enrolling in the Servicemen's Group Life Insurance Plan (SGLI).  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/01/iraq/main670675.shtml

 

Does the American Public know that a group of doctors approached the Veterans Administration in 1990-91 and offered their assistance in diagnosing and treating those that are chemically poisoned?  They offered to train physicians at the VA their method of treatment for chemically effected individuals so that our troops of Operation Gulf War would have every chance at getting some medical answers and some treatment that would help them.  At least a demonstration project in the VA hospitals throughout the country could look at an alternative and give our veterans a chance to maintain some quality of life.  But no this group of doctors, some of which were former military or VA doctors were turned away.

I ask you is that the right spirit or approach to be taken?

 

Gulf war veterans from 1990-91 wanted answers and medical help in order for them to be able to continue in life.  Sadly the medical diagnosing and treatment stands as it did in 1990-91.

Doctors that tried to stand up and help were pushed away and ordered to not see Gulf War Veterans.  One of these was Dr Bill Baumzweiger of the West LA VA center.

 

Another Doctor who served with us in the theater Colonel and Dr Asaf Durakovic was released from the VA doctor pool because he was investigating those that were exposed to depleted uranium.

 

Another doctor with heavy credentials in leischmanasis and was seeing gulf war veterans in PA VA hospital was released from service at the VA.  Her name was Dr Kathleen Leisure Murray.

 

How many other doctors were stopped from truly answering the needs of their patients and the total population of poisoned Gulf War Veterans?   What action and leadership did the DOD, VA, or elected officials in government resulted?  Hearings after hearings.  Yes efforts to compensate were made but what about medical care and treatment?  Well lots of money pumped into research in the wrong direction. And so we as a nation let at least 700,000 to a million gulf war veterans or gulf war era veterans so wanting for medical answers and potential treatment!

 

When a pathologist in Houston ruled the death of a gulf war veteran was gulf war illness related, what happened?  The family and a fellow gulf war veteran pushed it to the media and yes it got out in the paper but then interestingly enough the pathologist/coroner was let go.

 

As a gulf war veteran and nurse officer of Operation Desert Storm 90-91 I just want to find the diagnostic tests and treatment for gulf war illness!!!!! And I want that available to all gulf war veterans.  After 16 years you would think we could get treatment and some answers...........

 

 

And then this article:

 

VETERAN'S COURT VICTORY OFFERS HOPE TO FAMILIES
EXPOSED TO DISEASE -- U.S. District Court Judge denied
the Government's Motion which claimed that the Government
owed no duty to the family of a Veteran. Concluded that
VA doctors do owe family members a duty to warn of
risk when patients have symptoms of a disease
that is well-known to be contagious.

Arvid Brown holds a 1999 family portrait. His wife,
Janyce, died last year, and children Asa and Helen
are disabled. Brown links their health woes to a
disease he contracted in the Mideast.
I originally posted this story in August of 2006.
Now, we have had some action in the Court.
I received the following statement from attorney Michael Viterna of the law
firm Fausone Bohn, LLP.
Mr. Viterna's statement fully explains the good news for veterans and their
families as this case goes forward.
And, be sure to read the original story following Mr. Viterna's statement.
----------
IMMEDIATE RELEASE

VA OWES A DUTY TO VETERAN’S FAMILY

Army veteran Arvid Brown, while serving in Saudi Arabia during the Persian
Gulf War in 1991, was bitten by “sand flies” and contracted the parasitic
disease Leishmaniasis. Sand fly bites are the most common vector by which this
infectious disease is transmitted to humans.

Upon discharge from active duty, Mr. Brown of Flint was treated at Michigan
VA hospitals for service related symptoms on over 50 visits. The VA never
looked for Leishmaniasis as a cause of his symptoms, ignoring his service and
medical history. Mr. Brown was finally diagnosed by a private physician in
Michigan with Leishmaniasis in 1998. Mr. Brown’s wife was infected with
Leishmaniasis because no one ever diagnosed Mr. Brown and
told him of the infectious nature of this disease and its ability to be
transmitted by sexual activity. Mrs. Brown gave birth to two children – both of
whom were infected with Leishmaniasis in the
womb.

His wife and children sued the VA under the Federal Torts Claim Act in
September 2004 because they were infected with Leishmaniasis. The Government
sought to have the case dismissed claiming that the VA owed no duty to the Veteran’
s family. The family claimed that VA doctors committed malpractice in not
diagnosing Leishmaniasis and failing to warn the wife that the disease could be
transmitted to her and the children.

Judge John Corbett O’Meara of the United States District Court, Eastern
District of Michigan, denied the Government’s Motion for Judgment on the
Pleadings which claimed that the Government owed no duty to the family of a Veteran
in an Order dated June 18, 2007.

The Court, relying on Michigan law, concluded that VA doctors do owe family
members a duty to warn of risk when patients present with symptoms of a
disease that is well known to be contagious. A duty of reasonable care may arise
on the part of the Government.

The case against the VA will continue and the parties have agreed to try the
issues of liability in the fall of 2007.

Michael Viterna
Fausone Bohn, LLP
_www.fb-firm.com_ (http://www.fb-firm.com/)
Northville, Michigan
(248) 380-0000
_www.legalhelpforveterans.com_ (http://www.legalhelpforveterans.com/)
----------
Original story here... _http://www.detnews.com/_
(http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060807/LIFESTYLE03/608070331/1003/METRO)
_apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060807/LIF_
(http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060807/LIFESTYLE03/608070331/1003/METRO)
_ESTYLE03/608070331/1003/METRO_
(http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060807/LIFESTYLE03/608070331/1003/METRO)
Story below:
-------------------------
Is family a Gulf War casualty?

Ruling lets ill widower propel lawsuit

Paul Egan / The Detroit News

SWARTZ CREEK -- Nobody can say U.S. Army veteran Arvid Brown's Gulf War
illness is all in his head.

Brown's late wife, Janyce, caught leishmaniasis -- a sometimes deadly
parasitic disease borne by sand flies that can attack the body's cells and internal
organs -- a malady he brought home from Operation Desert Storm. So did the
Swartz Creek couple's two young children.

Now, the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled the federal government and the
Department of Veterans Affairs can be sued for alleged failure to diagnose
Brown's illness and for any injuries he and his family suffered.

Veterans' groups are hailing the decision as a victory for families of tens
of thousands of veterans of not only the first Gulf War, in which Brown
served, but subsequent Mideast conflicts.


When Brown, now 48, returned from the Gulf War in 1991, he couldn't
understand why his once-vigorous health was deteriorating. His head, muscles and
bones ached, his strength was sapped; he was constantly exhausted but could not
sleep.

Doctors with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs could not pinpoint an
ailment. They denied him disability benefits in 1995, and Brown said they
prescribed painkillers and mood-altering drugs that made things worse.

It was Brown's wife, Janyce, who had the research skills and persistence
eventually to find a doctor who in 1998 diagnosed Brown with leishmaniasis.

By then, Janyce, too, had contracted the disease and both the couple's
children had been born with it and other ailments, according to medical reports
filed in the case from Dr. Gregory Forstall, then-director of infectious
diseases at McLaren Regional Medical Center in Flint, now in private practice.

The government has not disputed the medical reports.

Janyce Brown developed a series of ailments and last year died at age 43 of
a rare and inoperable form of liver cancer. Though no definite link was
established between her leishmaniasis and other diseases, Arvid Brown said his
wife was healthy before they met.

Janyce Brown in 2004 brought a $125 million lawsuit against the government,
but a federal judge in Detroit ruled the family couldn't sue for injuries a
soldier suffered while on active duty.

U.S. District Judge John Corbett O'Meara's decision was based on the Feres
doctrine, after the soldier involved in a precedent-setting 1950 U.S. Supreme
Court decision. Army Lt. Rudolph J. Feres died in a 1947 fire caused by a
defective heater in a military barracks at Pine Camp, N.Y. The court ruled his
widow could not sue because Feres was on active duty.

Late last month, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati
partially overturned O'Meara's decision, saying the government is not liable for
injuries suffered while Brown was on active duty but it can be sued for what
happened once he returned to Michigan. The government may appeal, officials said.

"They should not be allowed to just use us up and throw us away," said
Brown, now alone and raising two disabled children, ages 9 and 10, on his
disability income. "Somebody has got to be accountable."

Many look toward lawsuit

Mark Zeller, 42, a Gulf War veteran in Dahlonega, Ga., said he is about to
bring a lawsuit against the government and believes the decision in Brown's
case will strengthen his legal position.

"I can't do anything and I have to sleep all the time," said Zeller, who has
been diagnosed by Veterans Affairs doctors with chronic fatigue syndrome but
says his wife and five children also constantly suffer from flulike symptoms.

The Feres doctrine "safeguards the government, but what safeguard do we
have?" asked Zeller.

Leishmaniasis is little-known in North America but common in southwest Asia
and many other parts of the world. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, about 12 million people in the tropics and subtropics
have the disease. One form produces skin lesions. The more severe and deadly
form, which Brown has, attacks blood cells and the body's internal organs.
Like malaria, it is a chronic disease that can be controlled but not cured.

Dr. Katherine Murray Leisure is a former Department of Veterans Affairs
doctor now in private practice in Lebanon, Pa., specializing in infectious
diseases. She said leishmaniasis if often difficult to diagnose and could be an
underlying factor in half or more of the thousands of cases of veterans commonly
referred to as suffering from "Gulf War syndrome."

Bedouins and others who live in the desert clothe their entire bodies for
good reasons, Murray Leisure said. But, when U.S. forces go to the desert to
fight, "we try to pretend we're at the Jersey shore."

Situation likened to Titanic

Terry Jemison, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, said
he could not comment on the Brown case because of the ongoing court case.
But he said the department is aggressively researching the ailments of Gulf War
veterans and plans to spend $15 million a year on research for the next five
years.

No reliable numbers are available on how many family members believe they
have been infected. But Riley, a registered nurse and former U.S. Air Force
captain, said she believes tens of thousands of veterans' relatives have
suffered.

"I think this is the Titanic," said Robert P. Walsh, Brown's Battle Creek
attorney. "All these guys saw was the tip of the iceberg."

Arvid Brown, who grew up in southwest Detroit, spent about six months
overseas during Desert Storm, helping to build, maintain and operate a prisoner of
war camp near Hafr Al-Batin in northeastern Saudi Arabia, about 25 miles from
the Iraqi border.

Brown remembers the sand flies, the camel spiders and the bug repellent. He
remembers meeting soldiers in the desert who wore dogs' flea collars around
their necks, wrists and ankles and thinking how unhealthy that seemed.

The muscle aches, bone pains, headaches and rashes began while he was in
Saudi Arabia, but "it was easy to attribute it to heat and everything I was
doing," Brown recalled.

Long-delayed diagnosis

Solving the mystery would take seven years as Brown's condition worsened
through periods of disorientation, blackouts, extreme light sensitivity and
almost unbearable pain. By 1998, when he was finally diagnosed, Brown had lost
his job, been forced to give up driving and said he awoke early most mornings
from a fitful sleep, vomiting blood.

Veterans Affairs doctors, who according to court records examined Brown on
Sept. 13, 1994, but did not detect the disease, said he was suffering anxiety
attacks and prescribed pills, Brown said. The department did not grant him
benefits until 1998 and only this year recognized his diagnosis of
leishmaniasis.

Jemison, the VA spokesman, said the department "remains committed to
ensuring all veterans receive high-quality care."

In its answer to the lawsuit, the VA denied failing to diagnose Brown and
denied committing malpractice in the medical care it gave Brown.

Somehow, amid the pain and fatigue, Brown, who was divorced from his first
wife soon after returning from the Gulf, was able to meet and marry the woman
he credits with saving his life.

Brown wed Janyce Surface in September 1994 as his health continued to spiral
downward. He lost his job and they struggled to pay bills. Children arrived:
Asa, now 10, in 1995, and his sister, Helen, now 9, in 1997. Both were born
with severe handicaps and later tested positive for leishmaniasis. Helen is
still unable to speak.

It was Janyce Brown who got her husband an appointment with Forstall, who
diagnosed Arvid Brown with leishmaniasis in October 1998. Chemotherapy put the
disease into remission, though Brown continues to struggle with his health
today.

By 2000, Janyce Brown and both children had also tested positive for
leishmaniasis. As Janyce struggled to care for her husband and look after two young
children with cerebral palsy, her own health rapidly deteriorated. She died
at home of cancer.

"She was an extremely intelligent individual, someone with the will and the
nerves of steel and the tenaciousness of the meanest bulldog you had ever
come across," Brown said.

"She was fighting for her husband, the man she loved … and her children …
She will always be my biggest hero."

You can reach Paul Egan at (313) 222-2069 or _pegan@detnews.com_
(mailto:pegan@detnews.com) .

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

 

HOW MANY GULF WAR VETERANS GOT TESTED FOR LEICHMANASIS?  DAMN Few!

 

How many have spouses or children are also ill without answers?

 

This situation is unacceptable!  Gulf War vets need help NOW with accurate diagnoses,  and effective treatment for what ever it is we brought home from war.

 

The VA has no unique testing ie diagnosis programs, no clinical approach, no treatment plan, and no demonstrated intent to accept responsibility for the very serious maladies plaguing Gulf War vets and their families.

 

The VA has not been open and transparent to have online data on the numbers of gulf war veterans 90-91 that have been suffering and then also diagnosed with neurological and autoimmune disorders and cancers.  This one effort could be helpful to the tens of thousands that turned to civilian doctors instead of VA medical.  At least their doctors would know what is showing up in that population of veterans and tests re diagnostic screening could be done to give these veterans a chance at  longer and more productive lives.  Is the VA scared that if they did this that a more thorough review would be the result?

 

WE have spent millions on faulty IOM studies that are simply literature reviews of published reports of misdirected studies!

 

As early as 1991, the VA declined offers by environmental medicine physicians and researchers to help train VA physicians to treat environmentally poisoned troops from gulf war 1.  At the time, this may have seemed like a prudent decision.  Today, it is nothing short of criminal negligence!

 

For many years, VA researchers did not take those of us that were damaged and do MRI-RS, Spec Scans, or Pet Scans.  Or if a few doctors like Dr Gordon of the VA did do the tests, the tests were then deemed not scientifically acceptable?

 

Viral testing was not done.   So if veterans had an infection viral or otherwise it was just ignored?  Is this prudent medical practice? 

Needless to say, Leischmanasis was not tested for. 

 

Despite the known toxic effects of radiation exposure, an appropriate test for Depleted Uranium was not developed or used in a timely manner. A renowned Colonel Doctor that served with us in theater has worked on that end for 16 years.  What happened he was deemed not crediable and released from his VA service.

 

Thousands of reports of battlefield chemical alarms were disregarded by Army and VA researchers as false, and therefore not relevant to the health issues experienced by Gulf War veterans.

Chemical alarms by the thousands were said to be false.

 

Lies were told....

 

People read the Reigle Report from May 1994 and the Rockefeller report....

Shots, vaccines, pb pills, DU, chemical exposures, oil fires, ETC ETC....

 

Our reactions to anthrax shots in the theater of operations re Operation Desert Storm were not reported was it because we were the first guinea pigs?  Those problems were dealt with by loosing thousands of rosters that recorded who got the shots in theater and those that were recorded on the international vaccine record were quickly hidden by the loss of these medical records.  The veterans can swear to the fact of getting the anthrax shot coded Vaccine A but have adverse reaction reports been filed for those estimated 200,000 or more

vaccine reactions.

 

They won't release the data on the number diagnosed with known illnesses, i.e.,  MS, cancers etc.

 

SO as far as compensation and care at the VA, we don't stand a chance if they won't even release data on known diagnoses ...we can't even fight to get them added for presumptive causes vis-a-vis Agent Orange!

 

They admit Brain cancers and ALS, but it has not been made law, or even introduced as a bill.  It is done at the decision of the VA by regulation only, if you know enough or informed enough to fight for yourself or a loved one.  What is this all about, why not a law?

 

Two years ago (NOV 05) we had hearings under Government Reform Sub-committee (Shays) in the House of Representatives.  It was a real knockout that VA was not accepting animal studies like they did for Agent Orange!

 

Well, it is now July 07.  After a new election, and the new Committee Chair, Rep Tierney, has forgotten about all the previous work by Rep Shays....and not one congressperson has stepped up to call for hearings on Gulf War illness!

I ask you is this Supporting the troops and the veterans?

 

Not one bill for veterans in this new session of congress mentions Gulf War Illness or Gulf War veterans from '90/'91.  I want all to know and evaluate your Senators and Representatives and those running for President!  Words are meaningless without ACTION that counts!

.

Not only that but we were asking for $20 million in Defense Appropriations for Congressionally-Directed Medical Research focusing on diagnosis and treatment of Gulf War Illness.  I recently learned  the Senate Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations has refused to put it in the Defense Appropriations bill expected to come out later in July!  It will have to be added by amendment and we see how amendments to bills are being treated.  We are still awaiting word from  the House side to see if a similar measure is in their bill for Defense Appropriations

 

So no hearings, no money, and no treatment. 

 

But yet there were negative off-hand comments at a VA committee hearing deriding Dr Roberta White's brain scan research that validates Dr Hailey's work that those deemed exposed by DOD as  sarin exposed among Gulf War troops are indeed damaged neurologically.  These comments are of particular interest because the data was derived directly from human subjects, not lab animals.  In addition, the results were reported at a major meeting of the American Association of Neurology.  This would suggest the findings were peer reviewed by competent academicians, and found to be of a very high standard.  What standard of legal or medical proof do the gulf war veterans have to reach before they receive medical care or die?

 

Is there something more sinister at work here?  Since Bush 41 sent us off in 90-91 and that portion of the war was fast is it a way to hide the truth?  Here we have veterans that were exposed to WMD and they lanquish while our newest troops enter in 03 to Iraq are not being screened for DU in a timely appropriate manner, while they are not treated for TBI if they are minimally effected, while they are not screened for PTSD or TBI or Leichmansis before they are allowed to leave the service, and while reactions to vaccinations are not reported as Vaccine reactions as civilians would be.  Has anything really changed?

 

Are their diagnosed illnesses being tracked and maintained so the public and civilian medical providers have some starting point to proactively screen these American civilian military  heroes?

 

And what is the big picture WTC deaths are paid for, those that got sick at WTC were lied to also and are suffering.  Medical personnel were are you?  What about your duty to diagnosis and treat?

 

Our Gulf War Veterans of Operation Desert Storm 90-91 are dying of Cancers, ALS, and other things look at Honor the names.org  Read the obits!  LOOK at the AGES!

 

Gulf War veterans need help, and we need it now!

 

Another update:

 

The next meeting of the Department of Veterans Affairs Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Illnesses will be held at the University of Texas School of Medicine in Dallas, Texas on the 18th and 19th of July.