Every now and then, something
comes along in our vast Internet
Vet-universe that really makes
some of us smile at each other
and say "There is a God after all".

Such is the case when we gladly
received an email the other day
from Steve Robinson of the National
Gulf War Resource Center.

On Tuesday, November 15, 2005
the Congressional Subcommittee on
National Security, Emerging Threats,
and International Relations shall
hold a public hearing titled:
Examining VA Implementation of
The Persian Gulf War Veterans Act
of 1998.

The email goes on to quote as follows:

"This hearing will
discuss the implementation of
the Persian Gulf War Veterans Act
of 1998. Specifically the
Congressional Oversight Committee
will consider evidence that the
Department of Veterans Affairs and
the National Academy of Sciences
deliberately excluded an important
type of scientific studies from
standards used to determine
benefits of veterans of the 1991
Gulf War.

In addition, the hearing
will reveal gross mismanagement of
research funding and a purposeful
attempt to steer research towards
the theory of stress as the causal
factor in Gulf War Veterans illnesses.

With the impending
cuts across the Federal Government,
Gulf War Veterans are concerned that
research dollars promised for finding
treatments will now be diverted for
hurricane relief and the increasing
costs for the war in Iraq."

It's no secret here that the National
Academy of Sciences is a bit of an
alias name for the Institute of Medicine
of which the VA Disability Commission
is currently consulting with to
review, revise, and amend the
entire SCC disability system under
38 CFR Part 3. The 2 groups
are remarkably intertwined.

Within the very first handout of
the IOM that I read, just one month
after I had made my own personal
appearance before the Commission
in August, I easily identified the
Institute of Medicine as the apparent
cause of the horrifically burdensome,
cruel, tortuous, barbaric, and
nut-farm co-authors of today's
klunking and useless VA SCC
disability system. They don't quite
"get it" that they are imposing
a legal system upon sick and
Incapacitated veterans.

While hiding behind a website
storefront just like the VA does
which essentially says
"We're important, just ask us!"
the IOM/NAS comes across as
Nazistic, Hitler-esque, parrot
heads who aim to please nobody
else but the VA Secretary. In
setting out the profile for
exposure disease, they recommended
such bizarre crap as population
ratio's as an adjudication
evidene standard for SCC
benefits.

In an email pleading to the VA
Commission, I have personally
advocated that the IOM make a
full disclosure of how many of
their members are current, former,
or aspiring VA doctors, and how
many of their 74 foreign associates
are from countries that our
Veterans have gone to war against.
No reply has been received on
that one yet, so excuse me while
I hold my breath!!!!

There's no mistaking that this
country owes a lot to the pcb
exposure science that was brought
forward through the human guinea
pig cooperation of sick, injured,
and Incapacitated Gulf War Veterans.
If anything, the National Academy
of Sciences should be presenting
the Gulf War Veterans with a
prestigious and honarary award
of some kind for their significant
human contributions and advancements
to the science of pcb exposure
medicine. Excuse me while I hold
my breath again!!

If the NAS doesn't, then Congress
should.

Anybody who thinks it's easy to
have a chronic, painful, mysterious,
and debilitating war illness after
spending several months to a year
or more in a hot desert without
necessarily the best of supplies
or body adaption for it, only to
have the brunt of the VA Hospital
system and the entire medical
universe at large sticking needles
in you at every turn, and running
you through more tests than the
human body is meant to endure, really
really really needs to wake up and
smell the cornbread because NO
it is NOT easy.

These men and women deserve a
standing ovation from us just
for surviving medicine itself
after fighting a dirty skunk of
a war in noplace fit for humans
and winning it to boot!!
GO Gulf Vets !!!

I for one will have my heart
pressed to my computer screen
in deep and sincere prayer with
the greatest of wishes that the
Congressional subcommittee will
find something to bring immediate
justice and relief to our stricken
hero's of 91. If I could, I would
ride a bicycle to DC just to be
a proverbial fly on the wall to
see the VA and National Academy
of Sciences get what is coming to
them. Better late than never.

But for now.....like everything
else....I'll just hold my breath!