[CO-CURE] GW#1 lawsuit: VA can be sued for failure to diagnose illness / New PC

[Guest guest]

Perhaps if anyone knows somebody with Gulf War Syndrome, they

should pass this on?

best wishes

Shan

 

" This is a huge case, " said Joyce Riley, spokeswoman for the American Gulf

War Veterans Association in Versailles, Mo. " This gives a lot of veterans a

lot of hope. "

 

....U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled the federal government and the Department

of Veterans Affairs can be sued for alleged failure to diagnose Brown's

illness... leishmaniasis...

 

....leishmaniasis if often difficult to diagnose and could be an underlying

factor in half or more of the thousands of cases of veterans commonly referred

to as suffering from " Gulf War syndrome. "

 

....Late last month, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati

partially overturned O'Meara's decision, saying the government is not liable for

injuries suffered while Brown was on active duty but it can be sued for what

happened once he returned to Michigan. The government may appeal, officials

said.

....

 

" They should not be allowed to just use us up and throw us away, " said Brown,

now alone and raising two disabled children, ages 9 and 10, on his disability

income. " Somebody has got to be accountable. " ...

 

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MYPCOLASMA REGISTRY REPORTS

for gulf war syndrome & chronic fatigue syndrome

© 2006 Sean Dudley & Leslee Dudley. All rights reserved.

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Is family a Gulf War casualty?

Ruling lets ill widower propel lawsuit

Paul Egan / The Detroit News

DetNews.com - Detroit,MI,USA - August 7, 2006

 

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060807/LIFESTYLE03/608070331\

/1003/METRO

 

SWARTZ CREEK -- Nobody can say U.S. Army veteran Arvid Brown's Gulf War

illness is all in his head.

 

Brown's late wife, Janyce, caught leishmaniasis -- a sometimes deadly

parasitic disease borne by sand flies that can attack the body's cells and

internal

organs -- a malady he brought home from Operation Desert Storm. So did the

Swartz Creek couple's two young children.

 

Now, the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled the federal government and the

Department of Veterans Affairs can be sued for alleged failure to diagnose

Brown's

illness and for any injuries he and his family suffered.

 

Veterans' groups are hailing the decision as a victory for families of tens

of thousands of veterans of not only the first Gulf War, in which Brown

served, but subsequent Mideast conflicts.

 

" This is a huge case, " said Joyce Riley, spokeswoman for the American Gulf

War Veterans Association in Versailles, Mo. " This gives a lot of veterans a lot

of hope. "

 

When Brown, now 48, returned from the Gulf War in 1991, he couldn't

understand why his once-vigorous health was deteriorating. His head, muscles and

bones

ached, his strength was sapped; he was constantly exhausted but could not

sleep.

 

Doctors with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs could not pinpoint an

ailment. They denied him disability benefits in 1995, and Brown said they

prescribed painkillers and mood-altering drugs that made things worse.

 

It was Brown's wife, Janyce, who had the research skills and persistence

eventually tofind a doctor who in 1998 diagnosed Brown with leishmaniasis.

 

By then, Janyce, too, had contracted the disease and both the couple's

children had been born with it and other ailments, according to medical reports

filed in the case from Dr. Gregory Forstall, then- director of infectious

diseases

at McLaren Regional Medical Center in Flint, now in private practice.

 

The government has not disputed the medical reports.

 

Janyce Brown developed a series of ailments and last year died at age 43 of a

rare and inoperable form of liver cancer. Though no definite link was

established between her leishmaniasis and other diseases, Arvid Brown said his

wife

was healthy before they met.

 

Janyce Brown in 2004 brought a $125 million lawsuit against the government,

but a federal judge in Detroit ruled the family couldn't sue for injuries a

soldier suffered while on active duty.

 

U.S. District Judge John Corbett O'Meara's decision was based on the Feres

doctrine, after the soldier involved in a precedent-setting 1950 U.S. Supreme

Court decision. Army Lt. Rudolph J. Feres died in a 1947 fire caused by a

defective heater in a military barracks at Pine Camp, N.Y. The court ruled his

widow

could not sue because Feres was on active duty.

 

Late last month, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati

partially overturned O'Meara's decision, saying the government is not liable for

injuries suffered while Brown was on active duty but it can be sued for what

happened once he returned to Michigan. The government may appeal, officials

said.

 

" They should not be allowed to just use us up and throw us away, " said Brown,

now alone and raising two disabled children, ages 9 and 10, on his disability

income. " Somebody has got to be accountable. "

 

Many look toward lawsuit

 

Mark Zeller, 42, a Gulf War veteran in Dahlonega, Ga., said he is about to

bring a lawsuit against the government and believes the decision in Brown's case

will strengthen his legal position.

 

" I can't do anything and I have to sleep all the time, " said Zeller, who has

been diagnosed by Veterans Affairs doctors with chronic fatigue syndrome but

says his wife and five children also constantly suffer from flulike symptoms.

 

The Fe res doctrine " safeguards the government, but what safeguard do we

have? " asked Zeller.

 

Leishmaniasis is little-known in North America but common in southwest Asia

and many other parts of the world. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention, about 12 million people in the tropics and subtropics

have the disease. One form produces skin lesions. The more severe and deadly

form, which Brown has, attacks blood cells and the body's internal organs. Like

malaria, it is a chronic disease that can be controlled but not cured.

 

Dr. Katherine Murray Leisure is a former Department of Veterans Affairs

doctor now in private practice in Lebanon, Pa., specializing in infectious

diseases. She said leishmaniasis if often difficult to diagnose and could be an

underlying factor in half or more of the thousands of cases of veterans commonly

referred to as suffering from " Gulf War syndrome. "

 

Bedouins and others who live in the desert clothe their entire bodies for

good reasons, Murray Leisure said. But, when U.S. forces go to the desert to

fight, " we try to pretend we're at the Jersey shore. "

 

Situation likened to Titanic

 

Terry Jemison, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, said

he could not comment on the Brown case because of the ongoing court case. But

he said the department is aggressively researching the ailments of Gulf War

veterans and plans to spend $15 million a year on research for the next five

years.

 

No reliable numbers are available on how many family members believe they

have been infected. But Riley, a registered nurse and former U.S. Air Force

captain, said she believes tens of thousands of veterans' relatives have

suffered.

 

" I think this is the Titanic, " said Robert P. Walsh, Brown's Battle Creek

attorney. " All these guys saw was the tip of the iceberg. "

 

Arvid Brown, who grew up in southwest Detroit, spent about six months

overseas during Desert Storm, helping to build, maintain and operate a prisoner

of

war camp near Hafr Al-Batin in northeastern Saudi Arabia, about 25 miles from

the Iraqi border.

 

Brown remembers the sand flies, the camel spiders and the bug repellent. He

remembers meeting soldiers in the desert who wore dogs' flea collars around

their necks, wrists and ankles and thinking how unhealthy that seemed.

 

The muscle aches, bone pains, headaches and rashes began while he was in

Saudi Arabia, but " it was easy to attribute it to heat and everything I was

doing, " Brown recalled.

 

Long-delayed diagnosis

 

Solving the mystery would take seven years as Brown's condition worsened

through periods of disorientation, blackouts, extreme light sensitivity and

almost

unbearable pain. By 1998, when he was finally diagnosed, Brown had lost his

job, been forced to give up driving and said he awoke early most mornings from

a fitful sleep, vomiting blood.

 

Veterans Affairs doctors, who according to court records examined Brown on

Sept. 13, 1994, but did not detect the disease, said he was suffering anxiety

attacks and prescribed pills, Brown said. The department did not grant him

benefits until 1998 and only this year recognized his diagnosis of

leishmaniasis.

 

Jemison, the VA spokesman, said the department " remains committed to ensuring

all veterans receive high-quality care. "

 

In its answer to the lawsuit, the VA denied failing to diagnose Brown and

denied committing malpractice in the medical care it gave Brown.

 

Somehow, amid the pain and fatigue, Brown, who was divorced from his first

wife soon after returning from the Gulf, was able to meet and marry the woman he

credits with saving his life.

 

Brown wed Janyce Surface in September 1994 as his health continued to spiral

downward. He lost his job and they struggled to pay bills. Children arrived:

Asa, now 10, in 1995, and his sister, Helen, now 9, in 1997. Both were born

with severe handicaps and later tested positive for leishmaniasis. Helen is

still

unable to speak.

 

It was Janyce Brown who got her husband an appointment with Forstall, who

diagnosed Arvid Brown with leishmaniasis in October 1998. Chemotherapy put the

disease into remission, though Brown continues to struggle with his health

today.

 

By 2000, Janyce Brown and both children had also tested positive for

leishmaniasis. As Janyce struggled to care for her husband and look after two

young

children with cerebral palsy, her own health rapidly deteriorated. She died at

home of cancer.

 

" She was an extremely intelligent individual, someone with the will and the

nerves of steel and the tenaciousness of the meanest bulldog you had ever come

across, " Brown said.

 

" She was fighting for her husband, the man she loved … and her children …

She will always be my biggest hero. "

 

You can reach Paul Egan at (313) 222-2069 or pegan.

 

___

 

EXCERTS FROM:

 

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MYCOPLASMA REGISTRY

for gulf war syndrome & chronic fatigue syndrome

FREE Brochure: " HOW TO GET AN ACCURATE

POLYMERASE CHAIN REACTION (PCR) BLOOD TEST

for Mycoplasmal and Other Infections

with International List of Laboratories "

© April 2006 Sean Dudley & Leslee Dudley

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• PERSIAN GULF WAR VETERANS

The Gulf War Mycoplasma Study showed that nearly all the Gulf War veterans

who tested positive for mycoplasma infections were positive for Mycoplasma

fermentans. Mycoplasma genitalium was also found and a very small percentage

tested

positive for Mycoplasma pneumoniae.

 

Gulf War veterans also test positive for the infectious diseaseViscerotropic

Leishmaniasis from desert sand flies and other oligoparasitic diseases. (*New

PCR test for Leishmania, see Diagnostic Leishmania Laboratory listed below.)

 

We recommend that all Gulf War veterans also get tested for: uranium

poisoning from exposure to depleted uranium, antibodies to experimental vaccine

adjuvants such as squalene, and if there has been any exposure to

organophosphate

pesticides or

sarin nerve gas get tested for the blood enzyme, paraoxonase.

 

In addition, Veterans have experience long term side effects from

prescription drugs such as: pyridostigmine bromide, given to troops to protect

against

nerve gas, and the antimalarial drug Lariam (mefloquine).

 

 

• NEW PCR TEST THAT DETECTS LEISHMANIA

Leishmania Diagnostic Laboratory

Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR)

Department of Entomology

503 Robert Grant Ave.

Silver Spring, Maryland 20910-7500

Tel.: Dr. Pete Weina: 301.319.7155/9956 or DSN 285.7155/9956

(WRAIR mails diagnostic kits with instructions upon request,

limited to CONUS facilities and Landstuhl for selected cases.)

For more information:

Leishmania Treatment Center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center

LTC Glenn Wortmann, COL Naomi Aronson, COL Charles Oster

Commercial: 202.782.1663/8695/8691DSN: 662.663/8695/8691

Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR)

Tel.: 301.319.0056 DSN 285.9956DoD

Deployment Health Clinical Center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center

Tel.: 866.559.1627 (USA) European Toll-Free Tell: 0800.8666.8666

Website: URL: http://www.pdhealth.mil/

Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Leishmaniasis web page

at: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/leishmania/default/htm

 

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Test for Mycoplasmal and Other Infections-with a List of International

Laboratories " © 2006 by Sean and Leslee Dudley is sent automatically and

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