Senator Obama, I wish I could give you the platitudes that so many other Americans have, but I can't. I have been made a cynical bastard by my nation. I am a disabled Army veteran, who has contacted you and all of the other Presidential wannabe's over the past year, due to my and my fellow veteran’s plight. About what are you or them were going to specifically do to correct the mistakes of the past 55 years, a Cold war program so ugly that DOD and the Veterans Administration will not be open about it, nor even give the veterans of their widows the benefit of the doubt as they are supposed to.
The rules of the VA are when if in doubt the doubt is supposed to be given to the disabled veterans. This administration like all of the previous administrations has ignored this rule, just as they have ignored the experiments themselves.
The 7120 of us enlisted men used from 1955 thru 1975 known as "med vols" or as we call ourselves "testvets" there are 16 of us now in contact with each other, and yes we are all disabled and the VA refuses to recognize our disabilities as being related to the experimental exposures, or possibly environmental toxins from the dumping of these substances at Edgewood Arsenal since 1917 when the then War Department created the chemical weapons test and ordinance center.
The "testvets" are shown in the last study done for "Gulf War" research, as in a way to show GW1 veterans that there were no long term medical problems related to Sarin Exposure, there are a few problems with the IOM study by DR William Page P.H.D. he ignored previous medical research that shows long term medical problems by the 1994 national Institute of Health (NIH) and 1975 SIPRI study based in more than 30 years of research on Wermacht soldiers from 1945 thru 1975 by a DR Karl Heinz Lohs, which showed many medical problems from low level exposures, fro handling the munitions in WW2. The problems ranged from gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, neurological and pulmonary, basically all the body systems affected. Since DOD paid for the March 2003 Sarin report and wanted a report that showed little if no liability for GW1 veterans, DR Page gave them the report they paid for. I have learned that after more than 25 years at the IOM that DR page has recently been let go as of January 2008, due to budget cutbacks, that makes no since, his questionable work on the Sarin report and the SHAD/112 report which also showed no long term medical problems for the naval men and ships exposed unwittingly to biological weapons in the 60s, make no sense. He has known the government researchers at Edgewood Arsenal and Fort Detrick for decades, so exactly where has his loyalties lain? It hasn't been in defense of the at risk veterans.
The March 2003 Sarin report indicates that 40% of the men appear to be deceased as of FY 2000 when the data was gathered by the private contractor Ronca, Schilling of New York. They could not find 2098 men suing IRS, VA and SS data bases. Of the 4022 survivors they did locate 54% of them indicated they were disabled, yet DR Page never explained what the cause of the medical problems were. With a 75% death and disability rate of men aged 45 - 65, it never dawned on DOD to have him or any other researchers dig deeper into the problems. Nor did any one question why the known health studies in existence were not compared to DR page's work, there is not an over abundance of research work involving exposures to chemical weapons such as Mustard Agents and Sarin, it is a pretty small field to research.
Yes to extrapolate the 7120 men of Edgewood Arsenal Cold war Experiments and the Wermacht chemical weapons soldiers to the 500,000 allied forces exposed at Kamisayah Iraq in march 1991 when the Americans destroyed the Iraqi ammunition bunkers full of chemical weapons because no one could read the Farsi labels, so they just blew it all up, rather than remove the chemical rockets and artillery shells. They spread a toxic cloud over the Saudi Arabian peninsula, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, etc. The potential liability for the DOD and the Department of Veteran Affairs could reach the trillions of dollars if this was exposed.
I support DR Linda Bilmes suggestion for processing VA claims that was presented to Congress last fall in her testimony, accept the claims and then audit the claims that stand out similar to IRS tax returns, rather than focus on all veterans are committing fraud on the initial claim, use Artificial Intelligence computer programs to approve the reasonable claims, the ones that then need "rationale judgments" such as the severity of PTSD and a determination of a contact percentage the VAROs should be focusing on these claims, rather than all claims.
I have been a member of the Hillary Steering Committee for Military and Veterans, primarily due to the leadership of General Wes Clark who I have known since he was a Colonel at NTC back in the 80s and then again when he was a Brigadier general at NTC when I was then assigned there as part of the National Guards preparation for Desert Storm and the 48th Brigade readiness for deployment.
I have attempted to contact Senator Obama for help on this issue as a member of the Senate VA Committee back in 2006 before he ever declared for his Presidential run, I was contacted by his Chicago Office which was a plus for him, and none of the others even bothered a personal contact. Senator McCain sent a form letter stating that he supported veterans, yet he ignored the human experimentation issue at Edgewood during the Cold war.
Senator Clinton did not even bother to respond. The Governors all used pretty much the same answer they are in charge of states and have no control over federal matters, excuse me they can contact the states 2 senators of any of the states congressmen or women to help, couldn't they? Isn't that what leadership is about, leading the way?
It has been 33 years since the government stopped human experiments at Edgewood Arsenal in 1975. There has been NO help for the veterans or their widows in those years, why? In February 2006 the last surviving research doctor James Ketchum, Army, Colonel, Retired wrote a book about the experiments, titled Chemical Warfare: Secrets Almost Forgotten, I bought a copy of it. I was curious as to how an Army Officer could write about a classified program that the Department of Defense had just as recently as September 2006 had notified me and 70 other "active test vets" who were pursuing compensation claims that we could not discuss the program due to "National Security Act" agreements we had signed between 1955 - 1975. According to DOD we could only speak to our physicians so they could "treat us" we were still forbidden to speak to our families or anyone else about the program and especially the "classified data, such as dosages for weapons etc" uh excuse me, no one ever told us "test vets" that kind of information. Most of the time we don't even know what we were being exposed to, many of the experiments were done in double blind studies, so the researchers did not even know who was given active agents or placebo's.
So we are being told by DOD to keep our mouths shut 33 - 53 years after the fact, and this Army Colonel who claims to be unaware of the CIA involvement of the LSD experiments, and the prison experiments ran thru the SOD group that ran Edgewood Arsenal and the biological weapon tests at Fort Detrick.
He also claims to have no knowledge of the Nazis brought onto Edgewood Arsenal from the early 1950s and that worked there until the late 60s, the reason they were hired was their expertise in human experiments involving chemical weapons at places we all know as Auschwitz, Dachau. There were nine known Nazis at Edgewood Arsenal who worked in the human experimentation program.
If the Army had told the "test vets" that we would be used in chemical weapons and drug experiments by coworkers of Himmler and Mengele, exactly how many of the 7120 "volunteers" would have raised their hands, regardless of what they promised us?
You expose the words "hope" and the future, many of us are cynical because of the past and the failure to have the federal government accept responsibility for the abuses of the past, the famous "PROMISE" that George W Bush campaigned on in 2004 during the middle of the Iraq War, to reassure the military and veterans that the federal government would keep that PROMISE, which for those of you who don't know what it is, it is the fact that if you die or become physically or mentally disabled while on active duty in service to this nation, they will take care of you and your family both medically and financially for the rest of your life.
No one ever said they would ignore you, lose your claims forms, fight with your for five years or longer or flat out call you a liar, and then declare because the data is classified and that DOD and the CIA has it in vaults or has destroyed it such as DR Sidney Gottlieb did prior to his testimony to the Church Committee in 1977.
The Regional Offices at the VA ignore the issue of human experimentation and drug experiments, exposure to LSD by other soldiers, not self use, the 60 day TDY assignment to Edgewood Arsenal from November 2002 when I first wrote VA Secretary Anthony Principi and then refused to address it again until, I contacted the toe tapping Senator from Idaho in September 2005 as the head of the Senate VA Committee and asked for his help and how the VA claims process was screwing me and my family over.
He or someone in his office contacted the VA main office the task was assigned to then Director of Compensation and Pensions Renee Szybala, she responded that my military records indicated that I was taken ill on 10 July 1974 and I was sent back to Fort Lewis before any experiments began, therefore none of my current medical problems could possibly be linked to Edgewoods exposures.
She sent me and Senator Craig copies of that letter, one major problem with it, it was nothing but lies, yes I had been taken to the hospital at Aberdeen Proving Grounds since Edgewood has no hospital on 7 July 1974 and was discharged on 10 July, I was returned to duty at Edgewood in the med volunteer program, I was NOT sent back to Fort Lewis as she proclaimed. I stayed at Edgewood Arsenal doing various experiments until August 22, 1974. Fue to my being on the East Coast I was fortunate to be in Washington DC on August 9th 1974, a day that will always be in the history books, President Richard M Nixon resigned at President and the Congressman from Michigan Grand Rapids, Gerald R Ford, who became Vice President when Agnew resigned due to tax fraud, my Congressman who had never been elected beyond a state Congressman was sworn into office as the President of the US.
His Chief of Staff was one Donald Rumsfeld who had an assistant who is now known as a distant relative of yours, Richard B Cheney, the black sheep of your family tree. These men inherited the human experimentation programs at Edgewood while I was still there on TDY orders. They could have ordered the program closed due to violations of the Nuremberg Codes of 1947, and the and the subtext The Commission proposed several basic ethical principles that "should underlie the conduct of biomedical and behavioral research involving human subjects:"
the boundaries between biomedical and behavioral research and the accepted and routine practice of medicine,
the role of assessment of risk-benefit criteria in the determination of the appropriateness of research involving human subjects,
appropriate guidelines for the selection of human subjects for participation in such research, and
the nature and definition of informed consent in various research.
Excerpts from the Belmont Report:
B. Basic Ethical Principles
Three basic principles ... are particularly relevant to the ethics of research involving human subjects: the principles of respect of persons, beneficence, and justice.
- Respect for Persons. first, individuals should be treated as autonomous agents, and second, ... persons with diminished autonomy are entitled to protection. ... An autonomous person is an individual capable of deliberation about personal goals and of acting under the direction of such deliberation. ... Not every human being is capable of self-determination. ... Some persons are in need of extensive protection.
Respect for persons demands that subjects enter into the research voluntarily and with adequate information.
- Beneficence. Two general rules have been formulated as complementary expressions of beneficent actions in this sense:
Do no harm and,
maximize possible benefits and minimize possible harm.
C. Applications
Applications of the general principles to the conduct of research leads to consideration of the following requirements: informed consent, risk/benefit assessment, and the selection of subjects of research.
- Informed Consent. Respect for persons requires that subjects, to the degree that they are capable, be given the opportunity to choose what shall or shall not happen to them. This opportunity is provided when adequate standards for informed consent are satisfied. There is widespread agreement that the consent process can be analyzed as containing three elements: information, comprehension and voluntariness."
Information: Most codes of research establish specific items for disclosure: the research procedure, their purposes, risks and anticipated benefits, alternative procedures (where therapy is involved), and a statement offering the subject the opportunity to ask questions and to withdraw at any time from the research. A special problem of consent arises where informing subjects of some pertinent aspect of the research is likely to impair the validity of the research.
Comprehension: Special provisions may need to be made when comprehension is severely limited. For example: by conditions of immaturity or mental disability. Even for these persons, however, respect requires giving them the opportunity to choose to the extent they are able, whether or not to participate in research. The objections of these subjects to involvement should be honored. Respect for persons also requires seeking the permission of other parties in order to protect the subjects from harm.
Voluntariness. Requires conditions free of coercion and undue influence.
- Assessment of Risks and Benefits.
The Systematic Assessment of Risks and Benefits. Assessment of the justifiability of research should reflect at least:
Brutal or inhumane treatment of human subjects is never morally justified.
Risks should be reduced to those necessary to achieve the research objective.
When research involves significant risk of serious impairment, review committees should be extraordinarily insistent on the justification of the risk.
When vulnerable populations are involved in research, the appropriateness of involving them should itself be demonstrated. [One should consider] the nature and degree of risk, the condition of the particular population involved, and the nature and level of the anticipated benefits.
Relevant risks and benefits must be thoroughly arrayed in documents and procedures used in the informed consent process.
1980 - American Medical Association Revision of Code of Medical Ethics (United States)
This revision is more streamlined than previous versions and is intended as "a body of ethical statements developed primarily for the benefit of the patient." The references to others in the profession are limited to those which ultimately affect the patients' care: exposing "those physicians deficient in character or competence, or who seek to engage in fraud or deception," "use the talent of other health professionals when indicated," and "recognize a responsibility to participate in activities contributing to an improved community."
1991 - Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) Guidelines for Ethical Review of Epidemiological Studies (Switzerland)
International Guidelines for Ethical Review of Epidemiological Studies
In 1982, the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) issued Proposed International Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects. "These are guidelines for the application ... of the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki, adopted by the World Medical Association in 1964 and amended in 1975, 1983 and 1989." Respect for persons, especially as regards informed consent, is the central concern and is addressed in the first parts of the code.
Excerpts from the International Guidelines for Ethical Review of Epidemiological Studies:
General Ethical Principles
Respect for persons incorporates at least two other fundamental ethical principles:
Autonomy: ... those who are capable of deliberation about their personal goals should be treated with respect for their capacity for self-determination; and
protection of persons with impaired or diminished autonomy: ... those who are dependent or vulnerable be afforded security against harm or abuse.
Beneficence is the ethical obligation to maximize possible benefits and to minimize possible harms and wrongs.
Non-malfeasance ("Do no harm.") ... guards against avoidable harm to research subjects.
Justice requires that cases considered to be alike be treated alike, and that cases considered to be different be treated in ways that acknowledge the difference.
Informed Consent
Individual Consent
- Consent is informed when it is given by a person who understands the purpose and nature of the study, what participation in the study requires the person to do and to risk, and what benefits are intended to result from the study.
- An investigator who proposes not to seek informed consent has the obligation to explain to an ethical review committee how the study would be ethical in its absence: it may be impractical to locate subjects whose records are to be examined, or the purpose of some studies would be frustrated.
Community Agreement
- When it is not possible to request informed consent from every individual to be studied, the agreement of a representative of a community or group may be sought. ... Approval given by a community representative should be consistent with general ethical principles.
- It will be more difficult to ensure group representation, and all the more important to obtain subjects' free and informed consent to participate.
Selective Disclosure of Information
- In epidemiology, an acceptable study technique involves selective disclosure of information, which seems to conflict with the principle of informed consent. For certain epidemiological studies non-disclosure is permissible, even essential, so as to not influence the spontaneous conduct under investigation, and to avoid obtaining responses that the respondent might give in order to please the questioner.
Undue Influence
- Prospective subjects may not feel free to refuse requests from those who have power or influence over them. Therefore the identity of the investigator ... must be made known to them. It is ethically questionable whether subjects should be recruited from among groups that are unduly influenced by persons in authority over them or by community leaders.
Confidentiality
- Unlinked information, which cannot be linked, associated or connected with the person to whom it refers; as this person is not known to the investigator, confidentiality is not at stake and the question of consent does not arise.
Linked information, which may be:
anonymous, when the information cannot be linked to the person to whom it refers except by a code or other means known only to that person, and the investigator cannot know the identity of the person;
non-nominal, when the information can be linked to the person by a code (not including personal identification) known to the person and the investigator; or
nominal or nominative, when the information is linked to the person by means of personal identification, usually the name.
Balancing Personal and Social Perspectives
- [While] at the personal level it is essential to ensure individual informed and free consent, such consent alone may not be sufficient to render a study ethical if the individual's community finds the study objectionable. Social values may raise broad issues that affect future populations and the physical environment.
It is a shame or a national "black eye" that the greatest nation on earth has the worst record in dealing with the mistakes of our pasts, regardless of how well intentioned men like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Gerald Ford, Presidents from Roosevelt thru Ford all allowed violations of the Nuremberg Codes of 1947. In all fairness FDR died before the United States and Great Britain were the driving forces in the creation of the Nuremberg Codes of 1947. But he did authorize General Wild Bill Donovan to "recruit" Nazi scientists to come to the United States to work for military projects rather than allow them to become Russian prisoners and scientists for Russia.
Maybe Senator, I expect too much as a disabled Army veteran of two wars. From Vietnam to Gulf war One and the "Cold War" (peacetime) I expect the DOD and the VA to be honest in dealing with veterans and widows. I have this strange belief that elected officials like Congressman and Senators should represent their voters and residents of their districts.
I expect that classified material remain classified if necessary, but if there is reasonable doubt, then the veterans and the widows be afforded that doubt in their favor, when the data that is needed to provide the proof is classified. None of the disabled veterans of the experiments that I am in contact with expect the government to open the files on the 254 drugs and chemical weapons, but they do expect that reasonable doubt be used in adjudication of their compensation claims, rather than to have the VA and DOD act like the program never happened.
I can promise you, I never envisioned writing a Presidential candidate of a US Senator about a military program that happened more than 33 to 53 years ago, that involved drugs, chemical weapons, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the OSS and the CIA, men like Sidney Gottlieb the CIA assassin, Presidents' Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford, men like DR Kissinger, Generals Omar Bradley, Westmoreland, General Beedle Smith, CIA Directors from the beginning to the present List of all Directors
The other men who knew of the human experimentation would be member of the National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other people that were on a "need to know basis".
This is the governments own report on Nazis and Japanese WW2 era projects and research materials the US agencies accumulated after WW2 either thru purchases or thru employment bargains.
Senate Working Group on Nazis and japanese war criminals
The CIA is supposedly helping the senate get to the names of the Nazis and Japanese who entered the US after WW2 and continue to live here or who have died here while employed by the United States government. It's a shame that the CIA has protected the Nazis better than it has cared for the enlisted soldiers they used in the Cold War experiments.
As President, will you be able to help the 7120 veterans and or their widows obtain the benefits they have been denied since 1975?
Or at least make the veteran Administration get off their lazy over paid bureaucratic behinds, while disabled veterans and their families suffer medically and financially because they can not prove this ever happened.
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