In September 2024, VA researchers will be reaching out to Gulf War-era Veterans for the fourth time since the 1990-1991 Gulf War. This is a part of a long-term health study called the Gulf War Era Cohort Study. VA will send invitations to pre-selected Veterans for this study.
“Now, more than 30 years since the 1990-1991 Gulf War, we want to learn about how the health of Gulf War-era Veterans has changed over time and about chronic conditions such as Gulf War Illness, neurological issues, cancers and long COVID,” said Dr. Erin K. Dursa. “This current survey will help VA better understand the health of Veterans who did and did not deploy to the 1990-1991 Gulf War theatre of operations.”
Dursa is director of Surveillance Military Environmental Exposures within VA’s Health Outcomes Military Exposures and principal investigator on this study.
More than two dozen scientific articles come from earlier surveys
Like survey efforts in 1995, 2005 and 2012, this latest survey measures the current health and well-being of Veterans who served in the military between 1990-1991. This study includes 15,000 pre-selected Veterans who went to the Gulf War and 15,000 who were in the military at that time but did not go to the Gulf region.
If you were invited to participate in a past survey, researchers encourage you to respond in 2024 even if you did not participate before. Participants can choose to complete the survey on paper, online or over the phone. This study does not take volunteers. Only pre-selected Veterans will be contacted.
More than two dozen scientific articles discussing research findings have come from the earlier surveys in the study. Researchers have studied multi-symptom illnesses, chronic diseases and environmental exposures linked to military service in this group of Veterans.
For example, a 2021 study showed that Gulf War Veterans’ health declined earlier than the health of Gulf War-era Veterans who did not serve in the Gulf War. Veterans who served during the 1990-1991 Gulf War reported higher rates of chronic fatigue syndrome, PTSD, gastrointestinal illness and skin conditions at a younger age compared to Veterans who did not serve in the Gulf War.
These findings, along with ongoing and future research, will help VA understand the long-term health effects of deployment and improve VA health care.
A team from VA’s Health Outcomes and Military Exposures Epidemiology Program is conducting this study. Get more information about this study, including information on research findings.
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With the hundreds, if not thousands of Medics and Hospital Corpsman that have been discharged from the military, why not hire them into the VA and utilize them to run “Sick Call” at the Hospitals and Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOC’s) nuch like we did in the military. It would be a good way to see veterans and screen them, if they need to be sent on to see providers then that too can be done, Immunizations can be given, basic labs can be performed, etc.
It would allow for same day care. It could also allow for mobile services that could afford care and basic exams for homeless veterans. I am a former Hospital Corpsman that provided care to Navy and Marine Corps personnel in the field and afloat, so why not utilize my experience to provide care for my fellow veterans. There may be an issue with the fact that I am not licensed to practice medicine, I am not a MD, DO, nurse or a PA. But yet I have knowledge, I can take a blood pressure and temp, I can do a basic assessment and listen to you asking for care, We were good enough in the military to operate without Doctors, Nurses and PAs to do these things, why not now? Yes there is a program in the VA now that uses former Corpsman and Medics of certain MOS’s and NEC’s and use them in ER’s. But i am advocating utilizing us for Sick calls that will see you anytime you walk in.
Hopefully my last comment goes through but the truth hurts so doubtful.
What used to be considered clinical detachment is now cold indifference
of the doctors, nurses, all the way to executive staff. So much burn out.
Attrition, lack of internal loyalty, resentment of the system and the damn
economy. Covid wiped out the medical community of experienced people,
and left it a gutted burned out infrastructure. Those that did stay tend to
be people who have no where else to go, and show it daily.
In VISN 17 of Texas, appointments are being driven out as far as 8 months
because of skeleton crews. Doctors bail suddenly, and leave the clinics
grasping at straws. The phone support system has to play musical chairs
with patients telling them to keep calling back. That maybe someone will
cancel. Because its one on one, people dont rally to complain.
You end up taking a survey, its not geared to report this. Its not asking these
types of questions directly. The surveys tend to be steering veterans to
complain about self image as well as personality impulses. Having taken
so many just these last few years I can safely say that VA wants to blame
the veteran of personality disorders, imply self inflicted injuries. Then
antagonize a veteran to be red flagged by the system as hostile. Send out
law enforcement for health and welfare spot checks. Imply the need for
suicide prevention as a way of cornering complainers. Only to discourage
the veteran from coming in. Its not sympathetic because the care given
ends up going back to 15 minutes clinic time every 6 months.
You cant create a true medical baseline with a survey. You dont build a
repore or long term connection that allows you to find subtle issues. VA
has this thing about bandaid medical care – patch and go. Nurses tend
to nod there heads when vets complain, and the vista system only builds
a fractured image of the patient with minimal labs, imaging. Its really
not designed to find complex issues.
Veterans are so burned out that they generally dont care about anyone.
Not interested in hearing or reading about others. What about them now.
VA is feeding that. Adding to the hostility. So that communication systems
in regions have shut down. Executive staff have shut out complaints and
ran off complainers. Nice quiet system. One sided, top down. It was too easy
with current economic hardships. A brick wall created over 20 years.
Made it so its easy to ignore veterans like me right here in plain sight.
The veterans who resent everyone, and the VA employees pretending
all is well. Stalemate. Every person out there is cutting themselves off
other than internal good ole boys. This cant and wont last.
Survey wont fix all that. The complete lack of trust. The assorted personalities
that do not follow protocol. A wildly different level of care from region
to region. Till you have a homeless epidemic like in Los Angeles. How
does a survey reach those folks out in tents? Cherry picked survey is looking
for vets with homes and jobs, not a wider picture of the suffering.
VA is goading millions of vets with substandard care. Your creating a tidal
wave of anger that is coming your way. They rally, it wont be something
you can run off. Survey wont fix what is building. Your creating mob rules
when the moment breaks. Snobbery created this, and you will find that
lack of sympathy goes both ways. This is not the way to do business.
Facts and they never listen
This is where the real problem with VA medical care is now days.
Surveys. Specially designed to support the worst kinds of conclusions
based on DOD 1995 agendas. Dr. Dursa is no friend of Gulf war vets
out there. The is Deployment Health in action, somatization. I would
know dealing with them these last 26 years.
What we need is a specialty clinical program other than standard
clinical care to find answers. Someone not trying to force us out the
door after 15 minutes twice a year. Especially after VA got rid of walk-in
visits for those of us just trying to get labs drawn. PL 105-368 set this
up, and VA turned it into the WRIISC. Which no longer takes walk-ins and
refuses to answer phones. Turned me down when I surfaced with a
massive lung tumor that needs advanced imaging.
If we had a Toxic Exposure Pathology Center, we could have procedures
like adipose fatty tissue resection which could be run through mass spec
and gas chromatograph looking for forever compounds. Like doing a
autopsy before you die. VA does NOT want this. Fighting me for years
over this concept. Same thing with my pre – post genetic sequencing to
show when the genome was altered using the DOSR serum repository.
In 2018 I had a CT scan done, the lung tumor was there. Lab tech missed it.
2022 I ran the gambit of the VA programs. Gulf war registry, Burn Pit Registry,
Toxic exposure exam, WRIISC exam, and PACT act claim. They all missed it
and at that point it was big. VA did not diagnose it till 2024, 6 years later when
most tumors would have killed someone. Even now, I cant get a multiphasic
MRI or a biopsy to prove its not a low grade liposarcoma. VA plants to wait
me out. That includes Peter Rumm in charge of the programs I mentioned.
He could not get squat done, and bailed when I wasnt fun to play with.
Gulf war veterans dont need surveys, we need advanced cutting edge
diagnostics that VA refuses to do. Yes, refuses. Because ignoring my suggestions
to research committees means VA wants this to fail. As I do understand the
science of this quite well. Have over 20 years now. It all failed me.
Public Law 105-368 is being abused by VA. Massive funding diverted to the
WRIISC which has nothing to do with GWI vets for a long time now. There idea
of research is highly biased in favor of VA Deployment Health. Static, and
dysfunctional. Designed to miss even basic blood lab issues because they
dont request FULL panels when examining vets. Simple things like B12,
vitamin D, Amylase, Thyroid, and such. Geriatric at least. Common stuff.
We need a specialty clinical program that does not run us away, that follows
a complex condition with the intent to diagnose. Establishes a consecutive
medical baseline suitable for Title 38 ICD’s of chronic conditions. Builds a
possible consensus of medical trends separate from general population.
Then publishes biannual public reports of there progress.
What you will see here is, VA dictating to you. Top down articles. They refuse
to show both sides. People like me they vilify so they dont have to answer
any questions. As Sec of VA Denis McDonough knows who I am. Pictures with
him. Man is a coward. Especially over 2022 and all that. VA wants to pretend that
people like me dont exist until the tumor kills me. Problem solved. Wait me out.
What you wont see are critics of VA being given a even platform. They want us
gone so they can claim whatever they want. Paper thin reactions to criticism.
All is well at VA, the survey said so.
Facts and they never listen just as my first comment never posted and this one is “awaiting for moderation approval.”
When will the VA investigate and compensate Camp Pendleton VETS for Burn Pit and Contaminated Water Like Camp Lejeune?
Trust in the entire industrial medico-pharma complex has been lost due to medical freedom and informed consent related to decreased medical care being sought as evidenced by (aeb) mandates, (masks & shots) fewer health care providers, willingness to just die, rather than go in there. The evidence is the vaers (vaccine adverse event reporting system).
Surveys and statistics can easily be manipulated to the one doing such, advantage. Ridiculous. How about just listening and implementing what’s said above and what many say daily.
They signed a blank check with their lives yet are continuously treated like mere human doings, not human beings. No veteran should be homeless and yet the powers that be (ptb) would rather flood with immigrants and give them, what veterans have earned.
A survey is a joke and frankly a slap in the face. The military is where much of the research takes place. They are lab rats. No one still knows the impacts of the chemicals in the gas chamber were not the anti-nerve agent pills they were ordered to take. Never mind the experimental mRNA products you all ordered them too take.
Psych care is a joke related to c-ptsd. You have female counselors mostly who’ve never seen combat. The majority of veterans are male, why all the females? The entire DSM-5 is gynocentric and cookie cutter approach. Treat them as much individuals men who gave it all. The males are all treated as toxic and a threat. No Thier are just tired of no one really addressing male issues. Society at large wants female reproductive rights, correct? So why not male rights. Get more male counselors. I know of men who call the suicide hotline to get a dry, frigid female on the other end. What does that do to help?
I for one hope males, refuse to continue sacrificing it all, until there is mandatory female selective service as well. It’s time. They are unchecked flashing everything on vids, half naked because they know there’s no consequences. The want the same rights as men yet have little if any responsibility for their actions. Maybe selective service will decrease much of that dry, frigid degeneracy. I know of a female, who works for the VA who
is literally a prostitute, on the side. Seriously. It was reported and I doubt anything was done. Just a thought.
My vote is to dismantle the whole system and allow veterans to seek local care, in their communities, having the VA cover it.
Thanking them for their service with people like mentioned above working there is a disgrace.