Urgent Call To All Citizens To Help Gulf War Veterans Get Research Funds for FY2013

by Denise Nichols

Calling all concerned Citizens we need all of you calling DC US Representative offices, you can find their phone numbers on www.house.gov click on Representative and you can get listings by state. We are on an urgent Deadline of MARCH 15 next week to get US Representatives to agree and contact REPS Kucinich or Roe’s office to sign on to support our effort and our needs. Gulf War Veterans are becoming the FORGOTTEN VETERANS and we are asking you take the time immediately to help.

WOW This is what we need by the hundreds! Excellent job well done to the spouse that wrote this! Please all Do the Same Now and Call your US Representatives office in DC and get to the Veterans’ Staffer in that office…..Action NOW

A letter to my CongressmanPosted on March 3, 2012by gwichronicles

Dear Representative Manzullo,

I am the proud wife of an Army veteran of the 1991 Gulf War. Mark served as a medic in northern Saudi Arabia during the conflict, caring for wounded coalition personnel and Saudi troops. Unfortunately, Mark’s health has declined sharply in the past several years. He suffers from nearly constant pain (diagnosed as fibromyalgia), crippling fatigue (diagnosed as chronic fatigue syndrome), debilitating digestive issues (diagnosed as irritable bowel syndrome), and other difficult-to-explain symptoms. Over time it has become clear to us that Mark is one of the officially estimated one-quarter million Gulf War veterans experiencing this same bewildering and maddening collection of symptoms, now known as “chronic multi-symptom illness,” or Gulf War Illness (GWI).

It’s not just the illness that’s maddening. It’s the lack of effective treatment. It’s the stark realization, after years of seeing VA doctors, that they have no idea how to help Mark or the other 250,000 veterans also suffering with GWI. Not only is current treatment ineffective, it’s often contradictory, with drugs that actually worsen symptoms, conflict with one another, or are highly addictive. After years of research, we’re aware of just one study that has identified a treatment (Coenzyme Q-10) that successfully lessens symptoms of Gulf War Illness. This study, authored by Dr. Beatrice Golomb, was funded by the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP).

More research into effective treatment is desperately needed. I am asking you today to please sign on to the Kucinich-Roe “Dear Colleague” letter supporting the FY13 Defense Appropriation for the Peer Reviewed Gulf War Illness Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program. You may be aware that Rep. Dennis Kucinich is requesting $25 million for FY13 for the GWI CDMRP, which coincides with the $25 million recommended in an April 2010 letter by the IOM Gulf War and Health committee chair and in the November 2008 report of the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses (RAC-GWVI).

Yes, research is expensive, and it’s another cost in this era of belt-tightening. However, NOT finding successful treatments for these 250,000 veterans would most certainly come at a higher cost. Every day that goes by without effective treatment is another day that these men and women struggle to work, if they have not already lost their jobs due to their illness. Every day that each of these brave individuals suffers from pain, fatigue, brain fog, or diarrhea is yet another day that their families, their communities, and our very nation miss out on the creativity and productivity they might otherwise offer if they were healthy. Every day they don’t get treatment is another day lost, for them and for all of us. Please, please don’t let partisan bickering get in the way of helping these veterans.