Rea and Moss
Who Should Help the Chemically Ill?



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

William J. Rea, environmental physician par excellence, says if you
are environmentally ill or have the Gulf War syndrome, see a
physician who knows about chemical illness. When I asked about
toxicologists, Rea says the equivalent of "not a good idea."

And on the other side, is James I. Moss, a research toxicologist and
a man of principles who has devoted himself to learning how chemical
interactions facilitate harm in animals. Moss says: "It will be
toxicologists who nail down the `cause and effect' mechanisms of
environmental illness that will give credibility that seems necessary
to move governments to clean up the messes."

Well, folks, science is not all cut and dried. The "scientific
method" is more "mythic" than "real" in the sense that it is
idealized in textbooks and journals. Albert Einstein recognized this
when he said to ask physicists what they do. They hardly do what they
are painted to do in the lore and literature. And those who study
scientific literature know that the linear way in which research is
written up is not the way it is actually conducted. So much for that.

It helps me to think of a differentiation between "mainstream
science" and "knowledge based on scientific principles." I am going
to take a detour to make a point. Earlier this year, Blazing Tattles
published a three part series on aspartame, written by Mark Gold.
There was so much literature on aspartame's harmful effects, that I
ran the article over three issues. Yet, when I posted a remark in
passing about aspartame's harmful effects to a scientific newsgroup
on Internet (Usenet), a fellow replied he did a "Medline" search and
came up with nothing to support my contention. People who seek
references to scientific articles in the field of medicine use
Medline as a computer database which they can search. So why is there
this big discrepancy between the Medline "science" of aspartame (or
environmental illness) versus the reality of existing knowledge based
on scientific principles?

That is because a peer review board of editors decides what is
publication-worthy for scholarly journals. Articles which they deem
to be "crackpotism" are of course rejected out of hand. But what
about brilliant articles which do not fit the dominant scientific
model or exemplar of that particular journal or discipline? Well,
they may be perceived as crackpotism or simply unworthy of that
publication. So innovative work is rejected along with value-less
work. Sometimes the reviewers don't know the difference. And in some
cases, the reviewers have their research contracts with
pharmaceutical, food, chemical, tobacco, or packaging companies to
consider, sorry to say.

In the field of medicine, the situation becomes more complex, as
today it often costs astronomical amounts of money to sponsor
research and who has this money to pay? -- Often it is the same
people who advertiser their products in the medical journals. Alan S.
Levin, M.D., went on record in Blazing Tattles to say the medical
journals are no more than trade publications (as opposed to scholarly
publications). I am beginning to wonder, when special interest
medical groups, such as the Arthritis Foundation, now sell
pharmaceutical products to raise money for itself!

In the case of aspartame, the people who write about its negative
effect find their work more readily published by private presses,
often as books. These are not "peer reviewed" in the academic sense,
but they are reviewed by peers in alternative practice who can judge
the scientific validity, reliability, and trustworthiness of the
material. You won't find these references popping up on Medline.

In the case of environmental medicine versus toxicology, I think you
have a distinction between practice and research, but not between
science and non-science. Physicians have traditionally been healers,
tenders of the sick. Physicians used to learn their practice by
apprenticing to a practicing physician. The student- physician would
travel around with the Master physician on house calls and hospital
visits. They learned to recognize illness and they learned to
prescribe for it. However, the science of environmental medicine, of
those who treat the chemically ill, uses the same methods of science
as do other scientists.

Without becoming overly technical, let me say that the environmental
doctor or researcher sees cause and effect as do toxicologists. But
their techniques differ.

The toxicologist introduces chemicals into tissue or animals and
studies the effects in a laboratory. Their units of analysis may be
tissues, cells, or they may be creatures used in the laboratory. The
work may or may not be based on rigorous theory which predicts ahead
of time the results.

The environmental physician can do the same thing, but normally is
dealing with patients or other humans, and does not wish to harm them
by knowingly introducing toxic elements into their lives. However, in
certain kinds of allergy testing, this very thing happens. A chemical
is introduced into the subject, through inhalation, sublingual drops,
or intradermal testing. Any reactions of the patient are observed
which may consist of verbal reports of the patient of internal
changes perceived (e.g., lungs burning), swelling at the site of
injection (wheals), or observations the laboratory people make either
in terms of modification of behavior (such as agitation or weeping)
or physical stigmata such as edema or pallor, or in terms of changes
of body temperature, pulse, and the like.

Environmental physicians also observe what happens when chemicals are
taken out of the patients' lives. This is done either in special
units over which there is almost total control, or the patients
modify their own lifestyles to get toxic products, materials, foods,
and so forth out of their lives. Improvements can be observed in the
health of the patients.

One does not need to have a knowledge of the mechanisms in order to
help heal the sick. One needs to know what works. Aspirin has been
used for a very long time in modern society without knowing the
mechanism(s) by which it works. It was known to reduce pain and
fevers. (It was also known to do other things as well, such as effect
clotting time and swellings.)

So who should the chemically ill consult if they want to get healthy?
I would see anyone who can help me achieve my goals. My greatest
chance of hitting on target has come from seeing health workers who
are oriented to environmental medicine, although it is no guarantee.
It just increased the probability of getting help. My advice: Keep
trying.

http://www.sumeria.net/health/reamoss.html

Caring for People with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities: Creating
Access to Health Care

by Louise Kosta

Chief writer, The Human Ecologist

Human Ecology Action League, Inc., Atlanta Georgia*

What happens to patients with multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS)
when they seek health care for conditions not related to MCS?
Thirteen years of close association with the Human Ecology Action
League, Inc. (HEAL), and ongoing analysis of HEAL member surveys,
have led me to draw several conclusions. The most important of these
is that people with MCS need their environmental physicians to
facilitate high quality health care from providers who may be
neutral – or even skeptical – about MCS

In all these situations, the focus of the interaction switches from a
focus on the patient's need for care, to a focus on the patient's MCS
diagnosis. The skeptical provider, who often has little understanding
of MCS, may view the patient as a potential source of continuous,
unreasonable and unrealizable demands. Faced with what appears to be
a no-win situation, the provider may respond emotionally. The result
is a direct attack on the patient's diagnosis, and in some cases, a
verbal attack on the patient. Care for the patient ceases to be an
issue, as the skeptical provider seeks self-protection by going on
the offensive about a diagnostic controversy.

This is a highly unusual situation. I can think of no other clinical
situation in which patients are expected to defend their diagnoses.
Rather, patients with noncontroversial chronic conditions who seek
care for other, unrelated, health concerns simply state their
diagnosis, and provide the physician with the name and phone number
of the physician who cares for their chronic condition. If necessary,
the physicians can then confer about how best to care for the
patient. Any disagreement about the patient's condition takes place
away from the examining room, and out of the patient's hearing. All
proceed with a basic agreement that patients are patients, people in
need of care.

Is it good professional conduct for physicians to attack patients
about their diagnoses? Of course not. But there is another component
to this situation: Physicians who diagnose patients with MCS also
have an obligation to these patients to facilitate good health care
for their other, non-MCS health conditions.

Environmental physicians, like other specialists, do not provide
primary care medical services, nor do they typically staff emergency
rooms, provide reproductive health services, or deliver babies. Most
do not practice in surgical, cancer, or heart disease specialties.
Nor do many treat diabetes, dental or oral disease, degenerative bone
conditions, or neurological disease. People with MCS are likely to
need the care of those who do treat these conditions, however.
Although they cannot (and do not) expect their environmental
physicians to provide these services, they should be able to rely on
their environmental physicians to consult with their general medicine
and specialist care providers about how best to provide care
appropriate for the patient with MCS. When it comes to caring for
individual patients, physicians have the primary responsibility to
provide appropriate care.

This means that the environmental physician must play a central role
in the general medical care of patients with MCS. When necessary,
patients should be able to simply state that they have the MCS
diagnosis, and refer the practitioner to their environmental
physician. They should be able to make this referral with full
confidence that the environmental physician will be able to provide
their non-environmental medicine practitioner colleagues with
information that will enable provision of good medical care for the
patient with MCS. The physician who diagnoses MCS in a patient is
keenly aware of the burdens that MCS imposes. However, defending the
MCS diagnosis when seeking treatment, and educating physicians about
MCS in the treatment room, should not be among those burdens. Rather,
the environmental physician should be prepared to inform MCS
patients' care providers about how best to provide care for these
patients.

If the focus is kept on caring for the patient, neither the
environmental physician nor the patient's other care providers need
quarrel about MCS. No time need be spent on whether or not MCS is
real, whether the patient has MCS, whether MCS is a psychological
condition, or any other ideological consideration. Focus on the
patient means that the physicians confer only about how best to care
for the patient. They should confine their concern to identifying the
treatments, devices, and surroundings that are appropriate for this
particular individual patient.

When a provider challenges them about their diagnosis, they feel
obliged to defend both it and the diagnosing physician. They do not
feel competent to do this, and often they are not well enough to do
this when they are in need of medical care. They also feel obliged to
provide all the relevant information about MCS that could affect
diagnostic and treatment choices. I can think of no other medical
situation in which the patient in need of medical care must provide
this information. Most patients are unable to do this, and they know
it.

However, HEAL has always been aware that individual patients need
individual care that takes into account their entire state of health.
This means that for individual patients with MCS, the answer to the
question of how to obtain needed appropriate care is a treatment
question, and only those qualified and authorized to treat the
patient can provide the right answer for that patient.

In an ideal world, all physicians would be knowledgeable about MCS,
and amenable to accommodating it. In a better world than the one we
currently have, the patient with MCS could avoid practitioners
hostile to the idea of MCS, and consult only those who do not share
such negative views. In the real world as it currently exists,
however, patients with MCS must seek care from providers who, however
competent in their fields, are mostly uninformed about MCS, or may be
openly hostile to it.

continued at http://www.tldp.com/issue/210/caringfor.htm

What is Occupational and Environmental Medicine?

Occupational and environmental medicine is perhaps the most wide
ranging of all medical specialties. It is the medical specialty
devoted to prevention and management of occupational and
environmental injury, illness and disability, and promotion of health
and productivity of workers, their families, and communities.

Many physicians may not realize that occupational and environmental
medicine is a specialty of challenge and opportunity. Because the
majority of the population is employed, the need for specialists in
the field continues to grow. Regardless of the particular aspect of
medical practice a physician finds most interesting -- diagnosis,
internal or family medicine, psychiatry, surgery, epidemiology,
toxicology, forensic medicine, administration, preventive medicine --
occupational and environmental medicine can encompass them all.

More than a quarter of a century ago, an editorial in the Journal of
the American Medical Association defined occupational medicine as "a
specialty field of medicine concerned with: 1) the appraisal,
maintenance, restoration, and improvement of the health of the worker
through the application of the principles of preventive medicine,
emergency medical care, rehabilitation, and environmental medicine;
2) the promotion of a productive and fulfilling interaction of the
worker with his work through the application of the principles of
human behavior; and 3) the active application of the social,
economic, and administrative needs and responsibilities of both the
worker and the work community." This definition emphasizes the
importance of a medical practice recognized since the days of
Hippocrates (460-377 BC).

Occupational medicine was previously identified as "industrial
medicine." This term was used when heavy industry (e.g., lumbering,
automobile manufacturing, mining, railroads, steel manufacturers,
etc.) employed physicians to provide acute medical and surgical care
for employees. By 1945, medical programs had spread to business
organizations with a predominance of clerical and service employees.
Large banks, insurance companies, mercantile establishments, etc.,
could not be described as industrial; therefore, the broader
designation of "occupational medicine" came into common use.
Occupational medicine achieved specialty status from the American
Board of Preventive Medicine (ABPM) in 1955.

Today, the complexity and pervasiveness of modern industrial
processes afford occupational and environmental medicine physicians
the opportunity to address work site and environmental concerns and
such community health and policy issues as atmospheric pollution,
product safety, health promotion, and benefits value management. The
term "environmental medicine" has also recently been used to describe
this growing, challenging, modern medical specialty. Environmental
medicine has been defined as the branch of medical science that
addresses the impact of chemical and physical stressors on
individuals and groups. Both occupational and environmental medicine
use similar skills and focus on the recognition and prevention of
hazardous exposures.

Occupational and environmental medicine belongs to the future. It
offers unlimited challenges and its interests are so broad that
within its scope a physician can satisfy special concerns in academic
research, administration, hospital practice, private practice, or any
of the other aspects of medical practice. Occupational and
environmental medicine requires high professional standards

Why are veterans allowing the government offices which should give
support and information to quietly slip behind closed doors?
Why are the large VSO's not speaking out about this Cover-up?
Denial of Information program is working and veterans will get the
silent treatment to their inquires.  Thousand of dollars was
appropriated by Congress for DOD-HA declassify and allow the Centcom
medical survey to be available.

So far very little of this data has ever made public.  Why ?
Could it be data may show more Chem Bio or Endemic illness,
thus be a financial strain?
We shall speak out.
Venus Hammack

==========================================
Dear Readers

Yesterday morning I called the front office at DHSD, and the phone
gave me a message saying they were closed. So I called
the BDM team, and after a minute they basically told me the
BDM team had been moved back over to the main building
with DHSD. I wanted to talk with Mike Kilpatrick, and the
BDM told me everyone was in conference.

I went to Deployment Health Support Directorate yesterday
on the way to the Washington DC VAMC. I sat in the front
until Austin Commacho came out to talk to me. At that point
I explained to Austin that I wanted to talk with Mike Kilpatrick
about the IOM Infectious Disease meeting, and the Centcom
medical survey.

We engaged in a unique conversation given our past dealings
with each other. He explained to me that DHSD is no longer
doing outreach, and he himself is out of the loop. That "they"
have given a change on the direction of DHSD. I said "they"
was pretty vague, and he basically hinted Health Affairs.

So I put the bug in his ear that I still want to see the 2002 NSO
meeting data, the March 2005 NSO data, and a official response
from DHSD on the Centcom data thta should have been
declassified. I then explained that if DHSD is going to present
Gulf War related data to the IOM and other government agencies -
then I would still have a active interest in the workings of DHSD.
To include changes in thinking in neurology.

Today we see a post in the Federal Register about military
compensation and pension with the people over at Personnel
and Readiness. Which no doubt was part of what DHSD was
discussing yesterday in closed quarters.

With Health Affairs no longer seeking or doing outreach to Gulf
War veterans, and the push for the stress issues - its not hard
to visualize what is going to be said at this meeting. I had predicted
the direction this year would take, and slowly but surely the signs
are manifesting one by one.

A comment was made to me by a undisclosed veteran that
things were reversing back to 1998 all over again. I beg to
differ, things are worse than that. In 1998 we had government
oversight in place, the media was more freindly, the groups
were working together a little better than now, and the folks
at the Pentagon answered their phones willingly. Veterans
were not as afraid to speak out because the Patriot act wasnt
in place. Hell, you could still walk up the outside steps of the
Pentagon at the outside front entrance without too much hassle.
Etc, etc.

DHSD, Tricare, DHCC, FHP, and the bulk of the military
medicine team sure are demonstrating that Gulf War veterans
have no say in their own healthcare. With no oversight in place,
it certainly wont get better.


Sincerely
                                                                 Kirt
K. Love

[1] This is an issue DSJF should keep an eye on.
[2] We need to know what the encounter with these systems have been
like, useful or not useful?
[3] Are veterans comfortable with the VSO's with EHR?
=============
Subject: VSO Access to Electronic Health Records 09/ 10/ 03

The Veterans Health Administration is carrying out a multi-phase
strategy for providing Veteran Service Organizations / Officers
(VSOs) with appropriate electronic access to veterans' health record
information.

Current.  Since August 2002, VHA has provided authorized VSOs access
to veterans' health information through CPRS Read Only.  CPRS Read
Only is available only at VA medical centers (VAMCs) and large
outpatient clinics, and must be used on site.  VSOs who work on-site
at VAMCs have found CPRS Read Only to be a valuable tool in preparing
claims on behalf of the veterans they represent.

VHA recently released version 22 of CPRS.  This update is compliant
with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and includes features to
improve access by visually-impaired users, such as larger font sizes,
keyboard equivalents for mouse click actions, and consistent cursor
movements using the Tab key. Version 22 works with screen-reader
software such as JAWS and WindowEyes.  In August, VHA conducted a
demonstration of CPRS Read Only version 22 at the National Convention
of the Blinded Veterans Association, using both JAWS and WindowEyes.
VHA is continuing to work these software vendors to incorporate new
features to improve accessibility.

2nd and 4th Quarters FY2004.  VSOs have asked VHA to provide
electronic access to health information at the VBA ROs via the
Compensation & Pension Record Interchange (CAPRI) software used by
VBA claims adjudicators.  CAPRI-Local is used to provide authorized
users read-only access to veterans' protected health information
stored electronically at VHA medical centers.

·         By 2nd Quarter FY2004, VHA will make CAPRI-Local
available to VSOs at VA medical centers (VAMCs) and large outpatient
clinics.  As with CPRS Read Only, VSOs will have access to the
records of veterans for whom they hold power of attorney (POA).

·         By 3rd Quarter FY2004, VHA will make CAPRI-Local
available to VSOs stationed at VBA ROs.  VSO users will be able to
access only those medical centers within the region served by the RO.

CAPRI-Remote is an enhanced version of CAPRI, which allows users to
access different sites without having to log in separately to each
one.  CAPRI-Remote will be deployed to all VBA users by 1st quarter
FY 2004.  VHA is exploring whether or not it can make CAPRI-Remote
available to VSOs at VA medical centers (VAMCs) and large outpatient
clinics and at VBA ROs.

By October 2004, veterans will have access to their electronic health
records via My HealtheVet (MHV).  This effort offers veterans a new
web-based access method for obtaining and communicating generic and
individualized health-related information.  Increased access to
medical information is expected to enhance patient-provider
communications and improve the overall quality of care and service
that we provide to our nation's veterans.  The MHV application will
allow the veteran to grant access to all or some of his or her health
information to others, such as family members, veteran advocates such
as VSOs, and VA and non-VA health care providers.  MHV is being
tested at several pilot VAMCs and experience gained from this pilot
is being integrated into the MHV national effort.  Nationwide
implementation will occur through four phases, each with increasingly
complex functionality and security.  Key project milestones and
targeted completion dates are provided below:

§ Phase I
September 2003): Web Content/Health Education Information

§ Phase II
November 2003): Prescription Refill and Self Entered (SE) Data

§ Phase III
January 2004): View Co-Pay Balance/Appointments/SE Metrics

§ Phase IV
October 2004): Electronic Health Record/Grantee & Delegate Functions

[1] this Office was unable to present to the IOM Committee, because
their records and data from the Gulf War was never released by OSAGWI
or DHSD (deployment health support directoriate.
+++++++++++++++++++
Director, Risk Analysis Directorate & AFIOH Technical Director
Associate BSC Chief for Medical Entomology, Consultant to the AF
Surgeon General for Entomology Operational Medical Entomology/Vector-
borne Disease Surveillance

             Explain current advances in the field deployable
capabilities in the area of Operational Medical Entomology/Vector-
borne Disease Surveillance.

             Illustrate the application of these advances with "real
world" operations from SWA.

=============
ID= infectious disease committee

It is a shame this Office failed to make a presentation to the IOM
Committee. Are we to beleive influenza did not affect Gulf War
Veterans?  Jagmedic
===================
   James Neville, COL, USAF, MC, FS
Commander, Air Force Institute for Operational Health AFIOH/CC

Influenza Outbreak Preparedness for Warfighters Surveillance program
managed by the Air Force Submitted specimens have been identified as
positive for influenza since the start of the influenza season.

You notice personnel from the office below did not volunteer to
submit their Study to the IOM.  Why?
What this Committee does not see they can report on.
Jagmedic
=====================
Colonel David W. Vaughn, USA
Director, Military Infectious Diseases Research Program
U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command
Providing US military personnel with safe and effective vaccines,
prophylactic drugs, vector control methods, treatments, and
diagnostics to minimize the effects of endemic infectious diseases.

Current program focus on malaria, dengue, diarrhea, scrub typhus,
group B meningococcal meningitis, hemorrhagic fever with renal
syndrome, leishmaniasis, and HIV/AIDS

[1] This Researcher which should have presented at this Committee.
[2] Why was this subject not addressed for Gulf War vets?
[3] Train of thought: immune reaction- infections - yes
Venus Hammack
DSJF Director
======================================================================

  Trauma and the Immune Response: Possibilities for Fine
Control of Immunity and Implications for the Injured Combatant

             The immune response toward infectious organisms has
typically been considered as a distinct entity involving cells of the
acquired immune system and leading to a specific response to
environmental pathogens
             It is now recognized that acquired immunity is closely
tied to innate indicators of trauma, and that pathways involved in
hemostasis have considerable influence over immune activation

             In physiological circumstances, this association between
minor trauma and the immune response serves to provoke an appropriate
immune response to a limited infectious challenge at the site of
organism entry

             It is now becoming apparent that in situations of massive
injury, this link can become counter-adaptive and induce many of the
aspects that are now associated with late combatant mortality:
multisystem organ failure, disseminated coagulopathies and shock

             Developing the case for innate-acquired communication
during trauma and highlight areas that are likely to yield novel
therapies for treatment of the injured combatant
             Allan D. Kirk, MD, PhD, FACS
Senior Investigator and Chief, Transplantation Branch, NIDDK
National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services

Operation desert crust
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18625007.100

Gulf war veterans may be surprised by an admission buried in a patent
filed by the US government's Naval Research Laboratory: the
polyacrylamide compound used since the second world war to stop dust
blowing off desert airfields and roads degrades to an acrylamide
monomer that is "a known neurotoxin to humans", says the patent.

So the lab has developed a safe alternative. Granulated sugar or corn
syrup is mixed with dishwashing liquid, phosphate, starch and water
to form a hard crust on dusty land or sand. Tests by the Marine Corps
in the desert near Yuma, Arizona, show the crust can withstand the
downdraught from heavy-lift helicopters. It can also protect dusty
land against wind erosion (WO 2005/021674).
=====================
Jagmedic wrote:
Force Health Issue/deployment health Issue:
[1] will we ever know where and when the polyacrylamide compound was
use?

[2] will DoD or VA acknowledge this is "adverse health exposure"?

[3] will anyone (veteran) come forward to say they had any contact
with this material?

Just because this material was used in the past, doesn't mean it will
not affect our health today.

Jagmedic

Keep this document to refer to about
[1] the actions which the VDBC (veterans disability benefits
commission)  will take - see Chu remarks

[2] the problem with using TRICARE

[3] currently the links on this page is working. Download material as
soon as possible.

http://www.vbnhq.com/JDsBunker/JustTheFacts.htm

Heed the Lessons, Not the Lies

Government Executive, 00172626, Jul2003, Vol. 35, Issue 9


By Winslow T. Wheeler,

Victory in future wars is often a function of learning from the one
just fought. In 1944, President Roosevelt learned from France's
failure to learn from its victory in 1918 and told his secretary of
war, "It would be valuable ... for postwar planning to obtain an
impartial and expert study of the effects of the aerial attack on
Germany." The result was the 1946 "United States Strategic Bomb
Survey," by such scholars as Paul Nitze and John Kenneth Galbraith,
which had a profound effect on the U.S. military.

After the first Persian Gulf War, Franklin C. Spinney cited
Roosevelt's missive in a March 1991 Newsday commentary recommending a
study of Operation Desert Storm.

Spinney, described in the news media as a "Pentagon maverick," argued
that the world was again changing and that the U.S. military needed
another thorough and impartial evaluation to chart defense planning.
He suggested that the nonpartisan National Academy of Sciences lead
the analysis.

No such study resulted.

Air Force Secretary Donald Rice commissioned a "Gulf War Air Power
Survey" in 1991, but when its findings failed to conform to Air Force
dogma, he limited printing to just 500 copies. In April 1992, the
Defense Department produced its official "Conduct of the Persian Gulf
War," but the study was thinly disguised selfpromotion. Several books
were written about the conflict, but none of the authors had access
to critical Defense Department data, which remained classified.

In the absence of readily available, comprehensive information, a
public image of the first Gulf War emerged. It all added up, most
agreed, to the supremacy of American high-tech weapon systems and a
revolution in warfare.

It also was garbage.

In 1997, the General Accounting Office released a 235-page study. It
had none of the eminence of the fabled "United States Strategic Bomb
Survey," none of the authority of an official Defense Department
study, not even the selling point of an effort to censor it. But it
did have data.

The report was "Operation Desert Storm: Evaluation of the Air
Campaign," which I produced along with four smart, tough colleagues
at GAO. Not only did we win access to virtually all of the Defense
Department's relevant data, but military officials were unsuccessful
in manipulating the results. The report is crammed with information
the myth-makers of Desert Storm never wanted anyone to know:

On the first night of the war, F-117s successfully destroyed just
two, maybe three, of the military's 15 air defense targets. By day
five, Air Force Intelligence assessed those defenses as being "down,
but not out."
About half the Tomahawk missiles launched "failed to arrive at their
intended targets."
Instead of "one target, one bomb," successful attacks against
bridges, for example, required an average of 10 bombs — all of them
precision-guided.
In the new, 2003 war against Iraq, some people seemed taken aback by
events that should not have surprised them. As many as several
hundred innocent civilians may have been killed by U.S. precision-
guided munitions. This seemed to shock some U.S. journalists; others
nodded knowingly as Defense spokespeople explained that these weapons
go wrong only on the rarest occasions and that maybe Saddam's weapons
did the damage. Scores of American soldiers were killed not by
Saddam's over-touted Republican Guard and Iraq's best weapons, but by
poorly trained fanatics with assault rifles and rocket-propelled
grenade launchers designed in the 1940s. The news media and the U.S.
command were caught flatfooted.

Today, we are setting ourselves up for a replay. The hucksters of
various technological wares are selling the same snake oil we saw
immediately after Desert Storm:

Air power, especially stealth, decimated the Republican Guard.
This war had fewer civilian casualties than any comparable one in
history.
In response to mid-war critics who called for more "boots on the
ground," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "Never have so many
been so wrong about so much."
Rumsfeld should not be leading the gloating. He should be reviewing
lessons from the past, quietly noting who are today's loudest data-
free prognosticators and demanding answers to unsolved operational
problems such as friendly fire. Indeed, Rumsfeld has more to lose
than anyone. The "Rumsfeld Doctrine" is now being proclaimed as the
model for the future even before this war is understood. If his
doctrine flops the next time around, Rumsfeld will be the goat, not
the acclaimed Caesar.

We need a thoroughly independent comprehensive analysis of this war
from a collection of nonpartisan, unbiased scholars, evaluators and
experts. Rumsfeld should be begging for it. He could be sorry if he
doesn't.

Rumsfeld should not be leading the gloating. Indeed, he has more to
lose than anyone.

~~~~~~~~

By Winslow T. Wheeler, Visiting senior fellow at the Center for
Defense Information.


Wheeler spent 31 years working for four senators from both political
parties and for the General Accounting Office, where he
directed "Operation Desert Storm: Evaluation of the Air Campaign."


----------------------------------------------------------------------
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All,

This article may be a little old, but the testimony and message is
just as clear today as it was when it was given...

Title: REQUIREMENT THAT EMPLOYERS REHIRE RETURNING SERVICE MEMBERS ,
FDCH Congressional Testimony, Jul 24, 2003

REQUIREMENT THAT EMPLOYERS REHIRE RETURNING SERVICE MEMBERS


Statement of Mrs. Michelle Comeau-Dumond Persian Gulf War Veteran and
Military Spouse

Committee on House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Benefits

July 24, 2003

Good Morning Ladies and Gentleman,

My name is Michelle Comeau-Dumond. I am a disabled veteran from
Operation Desert Storm, a wife of a Maine National Guard member
currently serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and a mother to two
beautiful little girls. I am here before you today as a person who
has been on both sides of the uniform. I have seen the affects of
combat and the affects on military families torn apart by
deployments. I have watched hundreds of hours of TV concerning
various stories about the war on terrorism, but what I want you to
see today is the affects it is having in our own back yards of the
United States of America.

My story and family are not unique. My girls and I are but one of
some 200,000 Guard and Reserve families effected by this current
situation in the world, and not just in Iraq but Kuwait, Afghanistan,
Bosnia, Kosovo, and several other countries and locations where
Guardsman and Reservists are deployed, stateside and abroad. Much
like what happen to us happens to most military service members. They
get a call at any hour night and day, and are expected to respond.
The families rush around to wash cloths, pack bags, wives hold back
their own tears and wipe away those of their children`s. We do our
best to do our jobs, give`em a big hug & kiss and put our best face
foreword as we watch them roll down the road. We proudly send them
off to war, while dealing with emotions of anxiety, confusion,
uncertainty, and overall stress and concern about how our family will
survive.

Our family life style is now drastically changed without our loved
one and breadwinner, as I found out first hand the day I returned
home after the send off. . It was February, in northern Maine and we
had been hit with one the worst blizzards in many decades; Aroostook
County had been declared a disaster area. I arrived home to find 6
feet of snow in my driveway, and 10 feet on my garage roof. I could
not open the garage door to get any shovels out because the beams
were buckling. The snow blower would not start, and I couldn`t find
any one to immediately repair it. My girls and I dug out our door
with our hands to get into the house and I started to make phone
calls for help. We had not had a family support briefing yet so I did
not have the phone numbers needed to reach them and I could find no
other help!!! I managed to haul our suit case through the snow bank,
and drove the car into the bank in front of the drive way, hoping no
one would hit it.

The next day I got a path dug to the house, the temp had dropped to
45 deg. below zero. The day after that I was taken by ambulance to
the hospital with Pneumonia. I forced the doctor to release me from
the hospital after promising I would not shovel, as I had no one to
take care of the girls now.

It took me a week and a half to clear snow and had to pay people to
do work my spouse would normally have done. The snow blower was
easily fixed but cost me $50.00 when my spouse always fixes those
items. Now that the snow is removed it has revealed that the deck on
top of the garage needs to be repaired and the siding on the house
needs to be replaced. These are things my spouse would do for cost,
but now I have to pay someone to do them. These things cannot wait
for my husband to return, because winter is coming again and things
will only get worse, yet I have no help and not enough money to have
the work done.

In March, my spouse temporarily returned to his home unit in Bangor,
to train with their aircraft and fly them to their port of departure.
He made arrangements to stay at a local hotel in Bangor, a 4 hour
distance from our home. My husband was told his military credit card
could be used for the room, and to save all receipts for travel and
food for reimbursement. When he checked out of the room the card
would not work, we were forced to use our personal money to pay for
the room, food and travel. A cost of almost $1700.00 to the family
which put a huge financial burden on us...

As a result, I fell behind on monthly payments on every bill and ran
out of heating oil during the coldest winter in northern Maine
history. We had purchased a heating oil plan but this was the first
year we did not make it through the winter. I was forced to beg for
oil, when two months earlier I had perfect credit and had never
missed a payment. I knew the family support program was there to
help, but knew there were families even worse off than us, knew they
were very limited on the funds and staff available. After all, we
still had food, a roof and now heat, at least for now. But it wasn`t
long before I was forced to go to the church and ask for food. On two
occasions they assisted me with food for my children.

It seemed like every day something was breaking down; the driver`s
window in the truck, an oil leak in the car, the screen door was
falling off, the faucet in the sink has been replaced with a pair of
pliers. Just when I thought I could not take any more my grandfather
passed away. I had no way to get there. I had no money and no cloths
because I had lost 40 pounds from stress and was working on my third
bout of pneumonia. I had reached my breaking point. I picked up the
phone and asked our state family support coordinator, who is located
in Augusta, 6 hours away, for help. I told her I needed just enough
money to get there and back; a 500+ miles trip, plus meals on the
roads one way. Once there I could stay with family and borrow cloths.
The state family support coordinator asked if I had enough money to
get to Augusta. I had a gas card that was not quite maxed yet, and 6
hours later my girls and I were in her office where she gave me
$200.00 for travel and a new outfit to wear to the funeral. I never
thought I could be so happy to go to a funeral, but now I would be
able to say goodbye to my grandfather and my children`s great
grandfather.

We returned home thinking things were looking up to find out my
husband was loosing his job because of this little known clause in
the USERRA Law. This clause say`s you can leave your employer to
defend your country, leave your family to fend for themselves, and
there is no job protection if the employer has a company wide layoff.
Yes, you heard me correctly; when my husband returns home from Kuwait
he will be unemployed. How will he be able to seek employment in
Northern Maine while he is honorably defending his country and the
freedom of others in Iraq? The paper mill he works for is laying off
100+ employees, two of which are currently deployed; do you not think
the other 98+ will have a head start in filling all the available
jobs in the area where they live? If they wait till they return home,
what kind of luck will we have in selling a house in a community
where high unemployment exists? There must be a way to protect our
country`s protectors! I have a few ideas; Schooling for new trades,
job placement when at deployment station and Real Estate
opportunities for ones who are forced to relocate.

My stories seem comical now and perhaps they are small compared to
others, but in Maine alone we have felt the pains of the war on
terrorism. Many spouses and families have suffered. Many spouses left
behind have been fired, or quit their jobs because their employer
would not accommodate them with shorter hours to care for their
families special needs, or simply to manage the day to day matters of
home.

Why are the families of the Guard and Reserve fighting just as hard
at home to support their spouses and yet have no legal protections
themselves? There are spouses who can`t drive due to visual handicaps
and live in rural areas away from central commands and no way to help
them. They are left to the wolves, why do we not have special
provisions set aside for these special needs people when their spouse
is called away to serve our country. If provisions were set aside
they could arrange for extra help with there children and rides to
get grocery. I am not asking for tickets to Disney World, I am simply
asking for basic life provisions.

You`re probably thinking, but we pay your spouse for military
service. Yes, you do. But here is a fact I don`t know if you realize.
In my family alone we have lost $12,000.00 for one year`s time while
my spouse is serving. In a family that makes under $50,000.00 a year
that is a large reduction in our income. Families need protection as
well as soldiers. My children were chastised at school and teachers
singled them out, simply because their father went to war. My 8 year
old desperately needs counseling and the support group did try to
find us some in the area but to no avail. There are no qualified
civilians to deal with children and real war problems.

Guard and Reserve families need more family support during
deployments; they are the only ones that know what each other is
going through. Words can not say what family support coordinators and
Family support programs do for those left behind. But Maine has only
one coordinator that does the work of 10 people, 24/7 with very
little money, and assistance. Often times they rely on local
donations. Out reach to all the families is difficult too. The state
of Maine alone has 417 miles of interstate, and another 120 miles
north of that from north to south. With several guard and reserve
units activated overseas and abroad, some 1,000 citizen-soldiers from
Maine alone. We are a very rural state and our coordinator does her
best with what she is given. What must be done is to protect and
provide both our soldiers and their families support and protection
by federal law. Without that many other families will suffer and
struggle through many of the same problems that can be avoided.

Family Assistance centers have been set up during this mobilization.
It consists of a person on the other end of the phone to refer us to
outside sources. They do a fine job with what they have, but are not
established until war and are only equipped to refer. We need is
inside resources, trained professionals. They do not have the
training to deal with what we have been exposed to. We need
professional staff on hand like an active duty base would have. The
family program should be staffed like an Army Community Center with
counselors for both child and adult, financial counseling services,
job placement help, legal counseling and more.

The family program schedules dinners and informational meetings
through out the state at different times and locations. They try very
hard to reach us all. They also schedule events for the children and
adults so we may socialize and just be together. Being able to talk
to people who are in the same situations having the same feelings
make a huge difference for me emotionally and physically. The family
program would be able to reach more of us with more funding and
assistance. I live 1 1/2 hours away from the closest meeting and can
not always make it due to financial reasons, that one trip could mean
two weeks of gas in my car at home. I am the only one in this part of
our county so it would not make sense for them to change the meeting.
However, if they could help with gas I would be fine, and I know
other families are in the same position.

I stand before you as a proud spouse and American. I will continue to
stand behind my husband and my country. I appreciate the opportunity
to address you today and I ask you to stand also for the issues that
are affecting our military families.

Thank You

COPYRIGHT 2003 BY FDCH e-Media, Inc. WASHINGTON, D.C. U.S.A. NO
PORTION OF THIS TRANSCRIPTION MAY BE COPIED, SOLD OR RETRANSMITTED
WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN AUTHORITY OF FDCH e-Media, Inc.

[1] the laboratory test are very expensive
[2] can be without sympthoms for 5 to 10 years
[3] currently there is NO cure
[4] so why tell the patient?

PARASITIC SKIN INFESTATIONS SKIN MANIFISTATIONS DUE TO PROTOZOA
http://www.drmhijazy.com/english/chapters/chapter12.htm

[1] WHO  Leishmaniasis
http://www.who.int/topics/leishmaniasis/en/

[2] 2002 - Leishmaniasis in Afghanistan
22 May 2002 -Disease Outbreak Reported
http://www.who.int/csr/don/2002_05_22/en/index.html


[3] Second-generation vaccines against leishmaniasis
Report of the Fourth TDR/IDRI Meeting on Second-Generation Vaccines
against Leishmaniasis, 1-3 May 2001,
http://www.who.int/tdr/publications/publications/leishmaniasis-
vaccines.htm

[4] the WHO Initiative for Vaccine Research (IVR) is to guide,
provide vision, enable, support, and facilitate the development,
clinical evaluation and world-wide access to safe, effective and
affordable vaccines against infectious diseases of public health
importance,especially in developing countries.
http://www.who.int/vaccine_research/diseases/leishmaniasis/en/

--Various terms have been used to describe (VL)visceral leishmaniasis
including Jericho boil, chiclero ulcer, espundia, Baghdad boil,
Dum-dum fever,
Sikari disease,
sandfly fever,
Burdwan fever,
Shahib's disease and
tropical splenomegaly. However, the most commonly used term is Kala
azar, which in Hindi means black sickness or black fever. The terms
originally referred to Indian VL due to its characteristic symptoms,
blackening or darkening of the skin of the hands, feet, face and the
abdomen (Lainson and Shaw, 1987).

http://web.mit.edu/king-lab/www/research/protein%20definitions-H.html

Leishmaniasis
Leishmaniasis is a disease caused by parasites that belong to the
genus Leishmania (closely related to trypanosomes) and is transmitted
by the bite of certain species of sand fly.

Synonyms for leishmaniasis include kala azar, Black Fever, sandfly
disease and Dum-Dum fever, but also Espundia and chiclero's disease.
Most forms of the disease are zoonosis but some are anthroponosis.

There are four manifestations of leishmaniasis

[1] Visceral leishmaniasis - the most serious form and potentially
fatal if untreated.

[2] Cutaneous leishmaniasis - the most common form which causes
numerous sores on the body, which heal within a few months leaving
unpleasant looking scars.

[3]Diffuse cutaneous leishmaniasis - this form produces widespread
skin lesions which resemble leprosy and is particularly difficult to
treat.

[4] Mucocutaneous leishmaniasis - commences with skin ulcers which
spread causing tissue damage to (particularly) nose and mouth.

http://www.icp.ucl.ac.be/trop/about/subject2.htm

The wife of gulf war 90 vet recently died after suffering from this
disease, which she got from her deployed husband. After additional
diagnoses of liver cancer, she expired in 3 months.

KALA-AZAR, or Dum-Dum fever, a tropical disease, characterized by
remittent fever, anaemia and enlargement of the spleen (splenomegaly)
and often of the liver. It is due to a protozoon parasite (see
PARASITIC DISEASES), discovered in 1900 by Leishman in the spleen,
and is of a malarial type. The treatment is similar to that for
malaria. In Assam good results have been obtained by segregation.

This infection has been diagnosed in deployed troop in Irag and
Afghanistan.

http://69.1911encyclopedia.org/K/KA/KALA_AZAR.htm

There are many different "cutaneous leishmaniasis"  caused by
Leishmania. In some diseases the amastigotes do not spread beyond the
site of thevector's bite.  This results in a leishmaniasis (oriental
sore, Jericho boil, Aleppo boil, or Dehli boil) that often heals
spontaneously (view geographic distribution).

In other instances the amastigotes may spread to the visceral organs
(liver, spleen), resulting in "visceral leishmaniasis" (kala-azar or
Dum-Dum fever) (view geographic distribution) or to the mucous
membranes of the mouth and nose, resulting in "mucocutaneous
leishmaniasis" (espundia or uta).  Left untreated, these latter
diseases result in high rates of mortality.

To see photos of these  parasite and a vector (a sand fly- go to
http://www.biosci.ohio-state.edu/~parasite/leishmania.html

A Medical Mystery: Delusional parasitosis
Patients claim fibers sprout from lesions and parasites crawl under
their skin. Most doctors tell them it's all in their heads
Frank X. Mullen Jr. RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL

PLAGUED FOR YEARS: Theresa Blodgett's upper thigh is covered by a
rash. The Reno resident has been plagued for years by a mysterious
illness.

For more than three years Reno resident Theresa Blodgett, 37, has had
a mystery disease that seems like a plot device from the television
show "The X-Files."

Blodgett's symptoms include feeling invisible "parasites"
biting her
skin. She complains of overwhelming fatigue and body aches. She
suffers from hair loss, skin lesions, rashes, and blue or
red "fibers" that sprout from her lesions. She sees tiny
black specks — like coffee grounds — on her arms.

More than a dozen doctors have told her the cause of her strange
ailment is in her mind.

But a controversial new theory says many people who are branded with
delusions of parasitosis are suffering from a physical illness, not a
mental disease. Enlarged images of the "parasites" are posted
on several Web sites and a Texas doctor said he has found biological
causes and physical evidence for many of the symptoms described by
Blodgett and others.

Dr. William Harvey of Houston said many of his chronic fatigue
patients, including 17 with "mystery disease" symptoms, have
tested positive for borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that also
causes Lyme disease. He suspects the weird symptoms and parasites are
not the cause of the illness, but are opportunistic infections and
organisms taking advantage of the lowered skin immunity of people
whose systems are weakened by the microbe.

Harvey said delusional parasitosis is a real disease, but some of the
patients he's seen aren't hallucinating. Because the symptoms
of the real disease match the description of the psychosomatic
ailment, doctors often misdiagnose the cases, he said.

"This disease isn't alien or magical; it's real and the symptoms are
real," said Harvey, who is board-certified in aerospace medicine and
has worked both as a space-medicine researcher and in hospital
emergency rooms. "After three-and-a-half years, I'm still trying to
understand this as objectively as I can…

"Without understanding the skin lesions fully, I'm treating patients
with antibiotics and having clinical success. Something appears to
have happened to their skin immunity."

But most dermatologists and other doctors interviewed said they
aren't buying the theory, even though they haven't seen Harvey's
research or the microscope photos of the strange fibers. They dismiss
the mystery disease as a mental condition.

Dr. Peter Lynch, professor emeritus in dermatology at the University
of California, Davis, said the attempt to identify a physiological
reason for delusional parasitosis symptoms is "a convenient way not
to have to deal with a psychological problem."

"In many cases, (delusional parasitosis) is a mono-delusional
problem," Lynch said. "The patients are normal in every other way.
It's always hard to get such patients to believe it's a psychological
problem. Some patients are very convincing, and I've had
psychiatrists call me about referrals I've made and ask if I'm
absolutely sure there's nothing organic going on here."

He said in the 40 years he has been practicing medicine he hasn't
seen a delusional parasitosis patient with physical symptoms that
can't be explained. He said while it's possible some cases may be
wrongly diagnosed, it's unlikely a large segment of patients is
suffering from a physical illness.

"You can miss a case and of course that happens," Lynch said.
"But are many being missed? In a word, no."

Same symptoms seen

This is the story of a disease allegedly misdiagnosed for
generations. This is a story about doctors who know their patients'
suffering is real, but insist in the majority of cases that the
problem is in their minds. This is the story of some "hallucinations"
that can be seen under a microscope, and of a fear that keeps
patients miserable, isolated and on the brink of despair.

Whether myth or fact, no one denies patients are in great pain.

Blodgett said it's as though her body has turned against her.

She gathers up the black specks, the mysterious fibers and the small,
fuzzy "cocoons" she finds on her skin and around her home. She tapes
the macabre samples to typing paper, but she said no doctor will
analyze the collection. Physicians who glance at the specimens
dismiss the lot as stray hairs, clothing fibers, scabs and other
common household debris, she said.

"It's a nightmare," Blodgett said. "Every day I awaken to a nightmare
and no one will believe me."

Doctors have diagnosed her with delusions of parasitosis. Medical
journals define DOP as a patient's unshakeable and mistaken belief
that he or she is infected with parasites. Some physicians have
prescribed anti-depression medication for Blodgett that she said
makes her sicker and causes muscle spasms.

"I need help," she said. "I'm not crazy. This is happening to me. I
know it's unbelievable but it's happening. It's not in my mind; it's
in my body."

She is not alone.

Thousands of people from Canada to Miami, and from Seattle to Houston
report the same symptoms, according to a national group formed to
help such patients. Scientists have used state-of-the-art microscopes
to take photos the fibers and "parasites," but they remain
unidentified. The Reno Gazette-Journal talked to other patients in
Reno, Fallon, Fernley, Las Vegas, Boulder City and the Bay Area who
report similar symptoms and have received similar diagnoses: their
disease is psychological, not physical.

But if Blodgett and other patients are delusional, the activists
said, thousands of people have been having the same hallucinations in
exactly the same way, thousands of miles apart. And the delusions can
be photographed and — if anyone will take the time — studied.

"I was feeling things moving under my skin," said Margaret Moore, a
San Francisco interior designer who has had symptoms for five
years. "Something was coming out of the lesions on my skin, something
that looked like tiny worms or filaments. I brought the samples to my
doctor, but he didn't want to look at anything. He threw out my
samples and asked if I had a history of psychosis."

Moore said when she insisted the symptoms were real, the doctor "got
mad" at her and prescribed a muscle relaxant. She went to other
doctors who gave her the same diagnosis "from across the room,"
without seriously considering her complaints.

During the last year, thanks to the Internet, she has corresponded
with dozens of other people with the same symptoms who were also told
by doctors their illnesses were in their minds.

"I don't think we're all having this mass delusion," Moore said. "But
when your family hears that five or six doctors all agree, they
say, `come on, admit you're nuts.'

"Then you are really alone."

The Morgellon's Foundation — named for an early description of a
similar-sounding illness — was formed in 2002 to help the people
most doctors won't believe. Some doctors interviewed said the
foundation is dangerously reinforcing peoples' mental illnesses.

But the foundation's spokespeople said the knee-jerk diagnosis of
delusions is the problem, not their questions or the evidence they
offer. Morgellons' members encourage further investigation into
what they consider a health mystery. But they said researchers don't
seem interested in new data and dismiss their information as
quackery.

Mary Leitao of McMurray, Pa., is the executive director of the
Morgellon's Foundation, a group she said she began out of
desperation. Her son, Andrew, now 5, began complaining of things
crawling on his skin and was breaking out in lesions when he was 2.

Leitao, who has a degree in biology and who has worked as an electron
microscope operator and a chemist, saw the fibers and the "fuzzballs"
in Andrew's skin lesions. She took him to an infectious disease
specialist at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.

At first, she said, the specialist thought the skin condition was an
unusual case of scabies and prescribed a cream-based medicine. When
that didn't work, the doctor assured her the lesions weren't
caused by anything infectious and Andrew was referred to a
dermatologist.

Leitao said the dermatologist was initially fascinated by the blue
fibers sprouting from her son's skin lesions.

"The doctor looked at everything I showed him," she said.
"He examined Drew's skin lesions using the handheld microscope I
brought. He was so amazed at the blue fibers coming straight out of a
skin lesions that he called his physician's assistant over to look at
them."

She showed the doctor how the fibers glowed under an ultraviolet
light.

"(The dermatologist) admitted he did not know what made the fibers,
but was not willing to help me find out," Leitao said. "His final
diagnosis was eczema. He gave my son topical eczema medication, which
did not help."

As she left his office, she saw the doctor going out to lunch with
his wife and 4-year-old son.

"Not a care in the world," she said. "What is wrong with these guys?
No innate scientific curiosity or human empathy?

"I realized I was on my own."

Other parents of Morgellons' patients said their children also have
been diagnosed with common skin conditions, but if the parents also
report symptoms they get the DOP label.

The textbook diagnosis

Medical textbooks and journals warn that when a patient visits a
doctor with samples of "parasites" removed from their skin,
it's usually an ominous sign of mental illness.

"But the first obligation is to make sure they don't have an
infestation," said Dr. Jay Adams, a Carson City dermatologist who
is president of the Northern Nevada Dermatological Association.

"Take the time to look at it under a microscope."

He said doctors usually get a sense of the patient during the visit
and may suspect they're dealing with a delusional person.

"Everybody has fibers and foreign objects on their skin, even things
that live on them although we don't usually like to think about it,"
Adams said. "For the most part people don't obsess about that. There
definitely are a group of patients who have focused on the idea that
things are crawling under their skins and will take extreme measures
to prove that to you. It can take over their lives."

Adams said it's possible some patients may be misdiagnosed with
delusions when they actually may have a physical cause for their
symptoms. But he said that's rare.

"I think that patients with (delusions) are a far more common answer
than any of the patients who may really have parasites. Delusions of
parasitosis is real. Most of the patients are delusional."

He said that under magnification, the samples usually turn out to be
lint. As for the black specks and other things the patients get off
their skins, he said it's possible to scratch, and poke and peel
away parts of the skin tissue or just collect the lint that can be
found anywhere.

"You don't want to encourage people to further resist the idea that
they are not infested with parasites," Adams said. "It's dangerous to
reinforce their delusion."

The medical books also have an explanation for family members or
friends of patients who witness the strange fibers or parasites. It's
called "folie a deux" — a French term meaning "the madness of two."
If more than one person testifies to seeing the symptoms, then
it's called "the madness of three," and so on.

Thus, witnesses don't count because being a witness is considered
evidence of sharing the patient's delusions.

Adams said he is not familiar with the Morgellon's Research
Foundation, but said it sounds like a "cult" in which the members
reinforce each other's psychosomatic symptoms.

Patients band together

Yet patients a continent apart have reported the same symptoms and
strange parasites long before seeing the Morgellon's Web site or
talking to other patients with similar symptoms. All said their
doctors made a snap diagnosis of delusions.

Lobelia Sharp, a plant pathologist at the University of California
San Francisco, said she's had the lesions, fibers and other symptoms
for about six months. She was diagnosed with delusional parasitosis,
she said.

"I kept insisting that the doctors look at the fibers coming out of
my skin," she said. "They said the answer was anti-depressants,
chemical restraints. I was taken to the hospital by ambulance and
held in the mental ward."

She said she and a friend who is a mold scientist recently spent an
evening using tweezers to snag "filaments" out of her skin welts and
examine them under a microscope. The material — which she said was
cellulose plant fibers — were similar to each other but unlike
anything either of them had ever seen.

"These were highly ordered cellulose fibers, not lint," she said.
Some research done

William Harvey, the Houston physician who believes the disease is
real, said he saw his first Morgellon's patient in November 2001.
She was the daughter of a surgeon who suffered from unexplainable
skin lesions.

"The patient told me some strange stories about things that were
living on her skin so I, too, wondered if her illness was
psychologically based," he said.

He looked at the lesions and saw "tiny colored threads" in the
wounds. He sent several specimens to a mold expert for analysis. The
fibers were put in culture dishes to grow, but only a fungus called
candida tropicalis was found.

Harvey also found tiny worms on a patient's scalp that later proved
to be the nymph form of a feline parasite — a tapeworm that preys
on cats and shouldn't be found on humans. Other patients were
infested with forms of algae, other plant pathogens, or candida
tropicalis, the fungus found in the laboratory culture of he "fibers."

"Once I started taking these patients seriously, I saw the variety
and number of unusual and unexpected skin occupants was real, they
were unequivocally there," Harvey said. "I still don't know what some
of these things are, but my theory is that the symptoms are a
phenomenon of a much larger process that has rendered their skin
immunity ineffective."

The process could allow plant and animal organisms that couldn't
survive on uninfected people to thrive on Morgellon's patients' skin.

Some patients report the "crawling feeling" without the threads,
lesions or other symptoms, Harvey said, and all seem to have easily
testable immune deficiencies. All 17 of his "Morgellons'" patients in
Houston have tested positive for the microbe associated with Lyme
disease, he said.

Harvey said he treats the skin lesions with a lactic acid cream and
all the other symptoms with high-dose antibiotics. He said the
lesions heal over with treatment, but they leave blue indentations at
the sites of the skin breaks. "That scar may give us a clue," he
said. "Something pathologic is happening there."

His first two patients who have completed treatment for their
borreliosis symptoms appear to have recovered their skin immunity and
lost their "Morgellons'" sores as well, he said.

"Kill the infectious agent and the immune system appears to reset
itself," he said.

Harvey said physicians' inability to see diseases before they are
officially "discovered" in peer-reviewed journals isn't rare.

"Diseases are defined within a box and thus everything outside that
box isn't the disease," Harvey said. "That's the way medicine and
science evolves. All definitions in all texts change continuously. In
this case we know enough to broaden the size of the box and know that
in time we'll get to the more fundamental reality."

http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2004/05/08/70309.php

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/221/nation/Discharge_sought_for_sold
ier_refusing_vaccineP.shtml

FORT DRUM, N.Y. -- An Army panel recommended yesterday a general
discharge for a soldier who was court-martialed for refusing to take
the anthrax vaccine while breast-feeding her baby.

The three-member Army Administrative Separation Board at Fort Drum
reached its decision regarding Private Rhonda Hazley's fate after
considering testimony and written evidence during a seven-hour
hearing.

Hazley, a unit postal clerk, was convicted at a summary court-martial
in March of disobeying orders. She served 14 days in jail and was
demoted three grades in rank to private.

Hazley, a 36-year-old single mother of four from East Dublin, Ga.,
refused the shot because she was breast-feeding and was concerned
about the health risks to the child.

----- Original Message -----
From: Randice

Dear Fellow Gulf War Vet's, friends and advocates--

One of the top complaints that I've head about over the years regarding
medical claims is "what happened to this file or a test that was
orginally in my Military jacket". Soldiers and Veterans should take it
upon themselves to ensure that they have a complete "back-up" copy of
all medical records, just in case...

http://www.valaw.org/
http://www.hadit.com/
To be useful when it come to dealing with your VA claim
=====
Jagmedic wrote "knowledge is power"

Medical Outreach and Issues Directorate (MOI)

The OSAGWI Medical Outreach and Issues Directorate successfully
identified nearly 28,000 Gulf War in-patient medical records stored
at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri. This
directorate created a database to assist in retrieving these records
for veterans who require copies to file medical claims. OSAGWI staff
is copying the database for VA to speed processing of veterans'
claims. DoD, VA, and the National Archives and Records Administration
are cooperating increasingly on issues involving medical record
transfer and storage. These steps will provide some solutions to both
Gulf War medical record-keeping deficiencies and the President's
mandate (November, 1997) to create a new force health protection
program with a comprehensive, life-long medical record for each
military service member.

The MOI also plays a key role in assuring that veterans receive the
care they need and deserve. MOI physicians have been a resource for
medical information for DoD and VA physicians who are caring for Gulf
War veterans. During outreach visits, MOI physicians regularly
deliver medical briefings to local health care providers, updating
them on the medical and scientific issues important to veterans'
health.
  http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/medsearch/reports/mvhcb_home.shtml
======================
Feedback
Comrades, we must look at this information. We should make copy of
data on these pages which address the sympthoms we suffer from. And
we must re-educate our health care staff.