[Health&Healing] Why Vaccine Damage Can't Be Proven in Military Cases

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Why vaccine damage cannot be proven in military cases

Deserting Our Troops

Steven Rosenfeld is a senior editor for TomPaine.com.

 

 

 

The Army and Air Force failed to obey Congress' orders to

create baseline medical records for soldiers sent to overseas war

zones, in this case Iraq, Congress' General Accounting Office (GAO)

concludes in a just-released report.

 

" The percentage of Army and Air Force service members

missing one or both of their pre- and post-deployment health

assessments ranged from 38 to 98 percent of our samples, " the GAO,

Congress' investigative arm, found. " Moreover, when health

assessments were conducted, as many as 45 percent of them were not

done within the required time frames. "

 

These statistics confirm what veterans of the 1990-91

Persian Gulf War and members of Congress have been saying for

months: the Pentagon has been ignoring a law whose primary intention

was avoiding a repeat of the military's mistakes surrounding its

handling of veteran illnesses that have become known as Gulf War

Syndrome.

 

After the Persian Gulf War in 1990-91, tens of thousands of

veterans became sick with mysterious illnesses. But because the

Pentagon did not have baseline medical records for each soldier in

that conflict, it was very slow to acknowledge and act on its

responsibility to provide health care for these veterans.

 

So, in 1997, Congress passed a Public Law 105-85 requiring

the military to conduct detailed pre- and post-deployment medical

records for every soldier sent into a war zone. The GAO says the

military " did not comply " with that requirement in the Iraq War. It

also found the Department of Defense (DOD) " did not maintain a

complete, centralized database of service members' medical

assessments and immunizations. "

 

The issue has been simmering in veteran's circles for some

time, but with the Pentagon announcing last week a new round of

National Guard deployments to Iraq, it raises the question anew:

will the Pentagon fully implement the law?

 

" We've been calling for it. It's time for it to happen, "

said Steven Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War

Veterans Center. " We've had the hearings on the hill. We've done the

Kabuki dance. [undersecretary of Defense for Health Affairs William]

Winkenwerder says they don't need to do the screening. The GAO says

it's insufficient. Now what? "

 

Robinson said he and other veterans advocates will be

speaking to members of the House Armed Services Committee -- which

requested the GAO report -- and Veterans Affairs Committee this week

to see what the next steps may be.

 

Veterans' advocates became aware last fall and winter that

troops being sent to Iraq were not being examined as required.

Instead, the military gave soldiers a short questionnaire to fill

out. After congressional hearings and public criticism from veterans

last winter, the Pentagon said it would conduct post-deployment

exams and expand its questionnaire.

 

The GAO report was based on investigations at five military

bases: Fort Campbell; Fort Drum; Hurlburt Field and Travis Air Force

Base. It recommended that the Secretary of Defense and

undersecretary responsible for military health " establish an

effective quality assurance program that will help ensure that the

military services comply with the force health protection and

surveillance requirements for all service members. "

 

In a Sept. 11 letter responding to the GAO report, Assistant

Secretary of Defense William Winkenwerder said his office " has

already established a quality assurance program for pre- and post-

deployment health assessments. " Winkenwerder said this program has

been in place " since June 2003, " which would be several months after

Congress held hearings on the law and launched the GAO

investigation.

 

While it remains to be seen what impact the GAO report will

have on military health policies, many soldiers now in Iraq and

their family members say the Pentagon has all-but ignored the

requirement for creating the baseline medical records.

 

" My husband [an Army Reservist]'s physical was waived before

he left, " wrote one member of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), an

activist group of families with relatives in the military in Iraq.

Those contacted requested their names not be used.

 

" Myself and my wife were given the anthrax and small pox

vaccines and were not given a choice in the matter, " wrote a

soldier. " No screening was done before these vaccines were given to

see if there might be complications from a genetic or health

standpoint. No blood work was done on us besides a few general

questions from a colonel. "

 

" My son has returned home and as far as I know no one has

made any mention of medical testing, " wrote another member of

MFSO. " They arrived back the first week in August... [They] gave him

a questionnaire to look over. There are three sections, but he said

[questions] in the last section, more current symptoms didn't seem

relative for now. "

 

These anecdotes corroborate the GAO's findings: that the pre-

and post-deployment medical exams were largely an after-thought,

not a policy priority.

 

Among the soldiers contacted, several said they were aware

there could be health consequences of their military services. What

they and their family members most frequently cited was exposure to

byproducts of depleted uranium (DU) munitions. DU is a slightly

radioactive metal that's denser than lead and burns at very high

temperatures. It is used in bullets and artillery pieces. Upon

impact, it burns and vaporizes. Particles from the smoke are very

tiny and can be breathed in and become embedded in lung tissue.

 

" My daughter told me that as they rolled into Baghdad from

Kuwait, right after the end of the big bombing, in mid-April, there

were Iraqi tanks on the sides of the roads, that still had the dead

Iraqi soldiers in them, " wrote another MFSO member. " She asked why

the tanks were not cleared off or the bodies taken out, and she was

told that no one wanted the duty because the tanks had been hit with

DU shells.

 

" She said they all assumed the dust in the road was full of

DU dust, and she said she felt she would now be at an increased risk

of cancer, as did all of her unit. She was manning the 50-caliber on

top of the truck, and said she breathed in the dust for many miles. "

 

Only one e-mail out of more than one dozen received from

MFSO families said their spouse or relative had received the pre-

and post-deployment exams and shots.

 

In conclusion, the GAO said the Pentagon was poised to

repeat the mistakes of the first Gulf War, where it did not promptly

or adequately address the illnesses among veterans that became known

as Gulf War Syndrome.

 

" Failure to complete post-deployment health assessments may

risk a delay in obtaining appropriate medical follow-up attention

for a health problem or concern that may have arisen during or

following the deployment, " the GAO said. " Similarly, incomplete and

inaccurate medical records and deployment databases would likely

hinder DOD's ability to investigate the causes of any future health

problems that may arise coincident with deployments. "