URGENT GULF WAR VETERANS MUST ACT NOW!
ALL VETERANS, VETERAN SUPPORTERS NEED TO TAKE ACTION!
How many times are you all going to remain quiet we need Every Veteran and veteran organization on this NOW!
THIS IS SOS big time!
WE have been losing lately if you have not noticed VA killed UT Southwestern Research on Gulf War Illness, Squalene Antibody test was sabotaged by DOD Cross filing on Patent on Squalene Antibodies- Tulane University Gerry Labs, and DU testing set up by one of the Doctors that served with us in theater has been shut off repeatedly.
Now the hope of finding treatment trials for gulf war veterans thru DOD CDMRP is threatened!
WE need letters and phone calls to Senators now! Call, fax, email and be persistent! To all of the US SENATORS! Pay particular attention to those serving on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
There are more details below but the basic message is we need money appropriated in the SENATE Defense Appropriations Bill for the DOD CDMRP specifically for Gulf War Illness as recommended by the VA RAC GWI or at least to mirror the wording that the House appropriations committee on Defense Appropriations which calls for a set amount for Gulf War Illness Research! WE want minimum of 12 million- 40 million was requested! Amendments are needed to Senate Bill. Senator Sanders is our lead in correcting this problem but we need other senators lined up to help NOW!
NOW Get on the phones let them hear us! Follow up with emails!
Ask for the staffer that deals with Defense issues for each Senator and get their names and email addresses! Keep calling until you get to speak to that staffer! Clue here is to get pass the phone reception clerk!
URGENT ACTION NEEDED to Prevent Congress From Discontinuing Gulf War Illness Research Program
Inexplicably, the members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, chaired by Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), left out funding for this critically important, unique program.
Friends of Gulf War illness treatments research:
I was stunned to learn that the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee report on the 2010 defense appropriations bill includes no dedicated funding for the Gulf War illness research program of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program. I implore your help to preserve this essential program to identify treatments to restore the health of 175,000 ill Gulf War veterans and to protect current and future servicemembers at risk of similar exposures.
The Congressionally-mandated Research Advisory Committee report released in November unanimously concluded that Gulf War illness is real, was caused by wartime toxic exposures, and affects one in four of those who served. A major Department of Veterans Affairs study published in April confirmed this figure. There are currently no effective treatments. The report identified treatment research as the highest research priority and endorsed the CDMRP program. In its first two years of existence, with a total of $15 million, the program has funded nine treatment studies, now underway, compared to three in the entire previous history of federal GWI research. It focuses on small pilot studies of promising treatments already approved for other diseases and is open to all researchers on a competitive basis.
The defense appropriations subcommittee report lumps Gulf War illness with 27 other diseases in a $50 million package for illnesses that generally have no special connection to military service. It is grounded in the erroneous assumption that “this is VA’s problem,” which ignores the facts that DoD has historically provided the majority of GWI research, that VA can only fund VA researchers and thus cannot engage the vast majority of the scientific community, that current and future servicemembers remain at risk. For these reasons, the Senate Armed Services Committee and the full Senate have specifically designated $12 million for GWI research in the 2010 Defense authorization bill.
The subcommittee report approach would fundamentally end the program through minimal funding and the loss of dedicated program support. The termination of the only significant federal GWI treatment research program would be devastating to the hopes of Gulf War veterans for better health. I urgently request you to work with your Senate colleagues to restore GWI funding as a separate program within CDMRP at the $12 million level designated in the Senate Defense Authorization bill.
Sincerely,
James Binns
Chairman, Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans Illnesses
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