After last weeks action that has led to the instant announcement of Congressman Steve Buyer "retirement due to his wife's illness" as I wrote about in Veterans Today they are now taking on the VA and MS Norma Perez of the now infamous e mail telling VA health professionals NOT to diagnose PTSD as the veterans were only compensation seeking individuals and it took to much time to evaluate them, so instead to diagnose them with "adjustment disorder" which left the veteran without any recourse to treatment for PTSD nor any type of compensation at any of the levels the VA approves awards at 10%, 30%, 50%, 70% or 100% for mental health issues, they do not award at 20, 40, 60 or 80 for PTSD. Thats just the way it is.
But in todays story we learn that the VA claims it can't produce any e mail prior to December 9, 2008. CREW Seeks Relief for VA’s Destruction of PTSD Documents
Based on the destruction of the records, CREW has asked the Court to let us depose VA employees who may have known exactly what the VA was doing about PTSD and the extent to which the agency refused to provide proper medical care for veterans with PTSD.
Anne Weismann, CREW’s chief counsel, stated, "It is incredible that with all of the public outrage and concern over this issue, the VA took no steps to preserve important records. This smacks of a cover-up to avoid liability for a disgraceful policy that deprived our nation’s veterans of appropriate health care." Weismann continued, "The VA is not above the law; like all other agencies, it cannot simply destroy documents that have been requested under the FOIA just because those documents may cast the agency in a bad light."
Click here to read CREW’s brief.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a non-profit legal watchdog group dedicated to holding public officials accountable for their actions. For more information, please visit www.citizensforethics.org, or contact Matt Jacob at (202) 408-5565 or mjacob@citizensforethics.org.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)
Matt Jacob, 202-408-5565
mjacob@citizensforethics.org
I am getting to the point where I really enjoy the work that CREW is doing , has been doing and hopefully will continue to do in the future.
From past work by the VA watchdog.org Larry Scott you can see the history of Norma Perez and the affect of her e mail
UPDATE: SENATE HEARING REVEALS VA PSYCHOLOGIST'S "SUGGESTION" WOULD LEAD TO MISDIAGNOSIS
Senator Murray's Questioning
(Washington, D.C.) – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) questioned top Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) officials over a recent e-mail that discouraged VA employees from diagnosing veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The e-mail, which was written by VA manager Dr. Norma Perez, directed VA staff at a facility in Temple, Texas to diagnose "compensation-seeking veterans" with adjustment disorder, a diagnosis that has a lower disability payout than Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Dr. Perez appeared at the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing and was joined by Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's top mental health official.
During questioning, Dr. Ira Katz said that he did not agree with diagnosing veterans with adjustment disorder in the way that Dr. Perez described - often more than a year after a veteran had returned home. Diagnostic guidelines for adjustment disorder say that it should not be diagnosed more than six months after the traumatic event.
"Unfortunately, today's hearing raises more questions than it answered," Murray said after the hearing. "Instead of getting to the bottom of this damaging e-mail, we learned that there may be deeper, systematic problems with how facilities are diagnosing mental health disorders."
"When the head of the VA’s mental health program says that veterans are being misdiagnosed at any facility, it should raise flags for the whole VA system. Is this isolated or are our vets getting the wrong diagnosis, treatment and care across the country? This is a problem and we need honest answers immediately."
Larry Scott covered this a lot when it originally came to light and here are the links to all of his Norma Perez articles
I hope the VA gets whacked good on this destruction of evidence, someone should be held accountable, veterans lives have been severely affected by bad "diagnosis" which saves the DOD and or the VA money. But leaves the veterans penniless and in many cases broke, homeless and divorced due to a lack of money. Who should be held accountable the injured veteran? And yes PTSD is a WAR injury, although it can be caused by non war stressors and civlians also can suffer from PTSD and if it is severe enough they can collect Social Security Disability.