I know that the news has been out for a couple of days now, but I had to think before I put into words, my anger at Secretary Peake of the Veterans Administration and HIS decision to send the new Gulf War Illness Report to the IOM for their review.
He didn't have to, he has the ability and authority to make the medical problems they recommended as "presumptive conditions" it has only been 17 years since that short war ended. I was there, and yes I have many of the problems, but since I am also one of the "control group" members, it is impossible to tell if the original exposures caused my problems, from the experiments at Edgewod Arsenal in 1974 or from toxins in the Gulf in 1991.
See when you have been used in both places it is impossible to tell where the medical problems started, did the toxic exposures at Edgewood cause my medical problems, was it anything in the Middle East? There is not a doctor anywhere that could make that determination.
There is one thing I do know though, that the IOM also known as the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academies of Science, has not ever issued a report that found the Department of Defense liable for exposures to anything until forced by the amount of dead bodies piled up to high, like Agent Orange, the nuclear tests in Nevada and the veterans exposed, they ignored them until 2000 and the RECA law was passed by Congress that compensated all personnel civilian and military for exposure to radiation, miners, bomb plant workers from Hanford, Washington, Savanah River Plant and Oak Ridge, Tenn and the veterans from the military experiments in the Pacific and from Nevada.
So in reality all Secretary Peake has done, is kicked the proverbial can down the road. If they have to service connect all Gulf War veterans for the following medical problems it can and will get very expensive:
These include chronic fatigue, persistent rashes, hair loss, headaches, muscle pain, joint pain, neurologic symptoms, neuropsychological symptoms (such as memory loss), respiratory system symptoms, sleep disturbances, gastrointestinal symptoms, cardiovascular symptoms, abnormal weight loss and menstrual disorders.
That cardiovascular one by itself leaves the VA open to billions in future compensation claims from over a million Gulf War veterans.The other medical problems are not insignificant but at 10% disabilities or 30% or 60% depending on severity of conditions like respiratory problems, it does not add up like heart problems do, they usually end up at the 100% level.
It will take the IOM to issue a report that will state, just like their past ones on Gulf War Issues, that there is no concrete proof that exposures in the Gulf actually CAUSED any of these problems, like the March 2003 Sarin Report this was based solely on Sarin they ignored the mustard agents that were also detonated at Kamisayah, Iraq in March 1991, the pesticides used in the theater, (most chemical weapons have pesticides in their make up) are illegal in the United States and have been for decades.
Yet despite that information the IOM never looked at mustard agents, why? Because the contract that DOD paid for, specifically only specified Sarin, so if you are not looking at medical problems caused by mustard agents or any other known pesticide toxins, DOD can claim they looked at exposures when in fact they never have.
They know they have a very high disability rate from the Gulf War, more than 25% of the veterans are already drawing some level of disbility for the problems listed in the highlighted problems above, but most are getting 10% and some maybe 60%, very few are compensated at 100%.
The Vietnam War shows an average of 9% of the veterans being compensated, the Korean War has about 9% of all the veterans being compenstated, but many of them are for frost bite (that is where the name "Frozen Chosin" comes from" the Korean Peninsula feels like Siberia. By the way guess what the percentage of WW2 veterans that got compensated, yes 9%, so what caused the Gulf War veterans to jump up to 25%?
I will take my choice with toxic exposures, but then I have read the reports from the National Institute of Health that the IOM ignored and the SIPRI study based on the German Soldiers exposed to chemical weapons during WW2, yes their medical problems match the list of problems that the Gulf War veterans have except menstrual disorders, the Germans did not use female soldiers in units that handled chemical weapons, so that isn't listed in the 1975 SIPRI Report.
This is just another spin of the famous "hamster wheel" that disabled veterans are used to. The VA hopes most die or give up before they have to pay.