TESTIMONY
OF
VIETNAM VETERANS OF AMERICA
PRESENTED BY
RICHARD F. WEIDMAN
DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT RELATIONS
AND
DR. LINDA SPOONSTER
SCHWARTZ
CHAIR, VVA HEALTHCARE COMMITTEE
BEFORE THE
SENATE
VETERANS AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
REGARDING
MILITARY EXPOSURES: THE CONTINUING CHALLENGES OF CARE
AND COMPENSATION
JULY 10, 2002
|
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Specter, distinguished members of the
committee, Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) is very pleased to have the opportunity to
share our views with you today on a topic that has been at the very core of VVA’s
mission from day one: investigating toxic exposures among America’s veterans. On
behalf of Tom Corey, VVA National President, and all of us in VVA, we thank and
congratulate you and your colleagues for demonstrating strong leadership on these vital
veterans issues.
First, let us briefly summarize the 60-year history of the
Pentagon’s use of American military personnel as human guinea pigs:
·
Mustard gas testing on servicemembers during
WW II
·
Atomic testing on servicemembers during the
early Cold War period
·
LSD experiments on servicemembers during the
1960’s
·
Herbicide use and concomitant exposures among
troops in Vietnam, Panama, and stateside
·
Chemical exposures during and immediately
after the Gulf War.
·
The use of investigation chemical/biological
warfare drugs and biologics during the Gulf War
·
The ongoing use of the controversial (and
likely unsafe) anthrax vaccine
The most recent revelations about Project 112—the
Pentagon’s master chemical/biological warfare agent testing program from the
1960’s—have only added to our sense of legitimate moral outrage over the
permanent bureaucracy in the executive branch’s cavalier approach to troop health and
safety.
Two days
after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Department of Defense (DoD)
officials invited representatives of the veterans service organization’s (VSOs) to a
briefing on what has since become known as Project Shipboard Hazard and Defense (SHAD).
Rather than provide the VSO’s with declassified documents, officials from what was
once known as the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses (OSAGWI) provided
sanitized, derivative documents labeled “Fact Sheets” regarding three test
series: AUTUMN GOLD, COPPERHEAD, and SHADY GROVE.
As VVA
began doing our own research into this issue, we uncovered a number of important
facts:
·
SHAD was only part of a much larger testing initiative, known as Project
112. According to the U.S. Army’s unclassified history of its biological warfare
program, Project 112 was initiated by then-Secretary of Defense McNamara in September 1961
at a funding level of $4 billion. When Pentagon officials originally briefed us on Project
SHAD, we were told that as many as 113 tests may have been conducted. We have recently
learned that Pentagon officials are now backing off of that figure, claiming that 113
total Project 112 tests were planned but that SHAD only accounted for 34 of the tests.
·
Testing activities were coordinated through a
headquarters established at the Desert Test Center at Ft. Douglas Utah in 1962. The
overall program was governed by National Security Action Memoranda 235, signed by
President Kennedy on April 17, 1963. Testing allegedly began in 1962 and continued through
at least early 1969.
·
Our research indicates that Project 112 tests
took place off the east and west coasts of the United States, in Alaska, and in Panama.
VVA believes that additional test sites were used but because of the Pentagon’s
refusal thus far to declassify the records neither we nor the affected veterans have a
full understanding of the true number and scope of the tests nor the potential health
risks that may have resulted from their participation in Project 112 testing
activities.
Without the
original documentation before us, we are being asked to trust the Pentagon’s good
word about the scope, duration, and potential hazards associated with the tests. Based on
the 60+ year history of the Pentagon’s role in other such tests, we have good reason
and ample precedent to believe that the “Fact Sheets” were and are an exercise
in risk-minimization and public relations, and the odds are that said “Fact”
sheets may not be a legitimate effort to come clean on the potential consequences of the
tests. We have recently obtained a document that fully validates our concerns as to the
lack of a corporate culture that promotes and rewards organizational integrity and
veracity of OSAGWI and its activities.
“PRSA
Bronze Anvil Entry,” a partial copy of which is attached for your review, was (and
probably remains) OSAGWI’s media battle plan for minimizing the damaging impact of
Gulf War illness-related exposure issues, and, now, Project 112. Let me quote a passage
from the page of this document that I think showcases DoD’s approach to military
toxic exposure-related episodes:
“Following the war, many veterans began to complain of health
problems they associated with their service in the Gulf. They clamored for health care and
answers, and the news media and some legislators picked up the battle cry. The President
ordered a thorough review and finally, DoD conceded that America’s finest might have
been exposed to low levels of chemical warfare agent.
For five years, the DoD had denied the possibility of chemical
warfare exposure during the Gulf War. With this new information in the news, the DoD faced
charges of a cover-up and conspiracy. Finally, in late 1996, a special office was created
and charged to ‘turn over every stone’ and find out what was making Gulf War
veterans sick.
The Gulf War lasted only 100 hours. The public relations battle
is still on-going.”
“Bronze
Anvil Entry” is rife with such language, Mr. Chairman: talk about “tactics”
and “strategy” for dealing with the media, the veterans, the Congress. By their
own admission, the [Bronze Anvil Entry] “communications plan is the basis, guide, and
baseline for almost everything the organization does, from investigating what happened in
the Gulf War, to media relations and responding to veterans concerns.”
In other
words, everything OSAGWI has done has been guided not by a quest for the
facts and the truth but by a media-driven PR-strategy designed to absolve the department
of any and all responsibility for the illnesses reported by the veterans. Some might well
maintain that this is a self-serving bureaucratic protectionism strategy that has
absolutely nothing to do with either true national security concerns nor with the health
and welfare of the many decent Americans serving in the Armed services at the time who may
well have been affected.
What has
this exercise apparently driven by public relations concern cost the American taxpayer?
Over $150 million since FY1996. For this amount of money, not one single peer reviewed
scientific article has been produced, making all of the “materials” and
so-called “case studies not worth the paper they are written on. The American tax
payers have decidedly NOT gotten their money’s worth from this exercise in appearing
to do something.
What has it
cost the veteran? Continued pain and suffering, compounded by a relentless less than
forthcoming, forthright, and honest Pentagon spin-machine that has effectively obstructed
genuine scientific inquiry and debate over Gulf War illnesses.
How
effective was the OSAGWI “spin machine”? The document boasts that “Media
relations have matured with national press calling to ask if controversial issues are
‘news’ before determining level of coverage.”
Earlier
this year, Secretary Rumsfeld said that the proposed Office of Strategic Influence had
been abolished. In fact, it has been operating since 1996 and continues operating to this
day. Once known as the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illness, it now
masquerades under the title of “Deployment Health Support Directorate.”
VVA
believes that the permanent bureaucrats and seemingly permanent agents of contractors that
staff this “Deployment Health Support Directorate” continue to deliberately
mislead the Secretary and his office as to the truth about this operation, as it is in
their immediate pecuniary interest to do so, and they appear to be unfettered by sense of
duty and loyalty to the good American men and women who honorably served our Nation in
military service who may have be harmed by this course of action/inaction.
In the near
term, Congress can best serve ill veterans by striking the Deployment Health Support
Directorate’s funding from the TRICARE Management Activity (where it is currently
funded) and prohibiting the Pentagon from any further expenditures on this office,
pending GAO’s examination of this office and its activities over the past several
years. VVA believes that any such GAO investigation should be spearheaded by GAO’s
Strategic Issues or Applied Research Methodologies divisions, which have very good track
records in investigating DoD activities.
To restore
the trust and confidence of the American people, and particularly American veterans in the
federal government’s response to these kinds of exposure-related controversies, more
sweeping changes will be required.
There are
four common themes that run through nearly all of the historical examples I’ve
enumerated thus far:
1. In
nearly every case, servicemembers who were test subjects rarely if ever were informed of
the potential health consequences of the exposures;
2. The
tests were almost invariably deemed “secret” or a “national security
issue” by the Pentagon bureaucracy, which routinely classified the tests and
prohibited affected personnel from discussing the tests or seeking medical treatment for
symptoms associated with exposures;
3. Medical
record keeping and follow up of the affected personnel was nonexistent;
4. When
evidence of a nexus between potential service-connected toxic exposures and subsequent
illnesses veterans emerges, the Pentagon (and Department of Veterans Affairs) immediately
seeks to denigrate or minimize any such connection.
At VVA, we
have a phrase to describe this phenomenon: the disposable soldier syndrome.
In our
view, the Pentagon has always viewed us—the soldiers, sailors, airman, Marines, Coast
Guardsmen—as nothing more than disposable cogs in the giant military machine. In
reality, we are the most critical component of the machine: the literal flesh-and-blood
that gives this machine its ability to defend America, her citizens, and her interests. We
will not be treated as one more consumable, disposable, National Stock Number item. We
never did, and would hope the distinguished Senators on this Committee will disavow this
latter day version of Robert McNamara’s “spare parts” theory of American
military personnel.
Mr.
Chairman, you and other distinguished colleagues in the Congress have begun to recognize
the need for fundamental reform in this area. We applaud Representative Thompson and
Senator Nelson for offering the “Veterans Right to Know Act of 2002,” which
addresses the Project 112/Project SHAD controversy by charging GAO to thoroughly
investigate and oversee the declassification and dissemination of the test records. The
Congress must do much more, however, if we are to ensure that no such episodes occur in
the future.
Because DoD
and VA bureaucrats have politicized the medical research arena and monopolized control
over research funding decisions, it is completely impossible for most non-federal
researchers with unconventional or controversial theories about the origins of Gulf War
illnesses to receive federal funding. Moreover, both DoD and VA have an inherent conflict
of interest when it comes to investigating these kinds of issues.
Consider
the following analogy. When the Bridgestone/Firestone “exploding tire” scandal
erupted, the Congress did not tell the manufacturer, “We trust you: go investigate
yourself, make recommendations for change, then implement those changes…you have our
blessing!” Congress held hearings and monitored the National Highway Transportation
Safety Administration’s investigation of Bridgestone/Firestone. The same model
applies to airline crashes. Congress does not rely on the aircraft manufacturers crash
report; it listens to the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigators, who
are independent of both the manufacturer and the aviation industry as a whole. Congress
set up this system to ensure that no conflict of interest would compromise safety
investigations, a wise and sensible approach to transportation safety policy.
Yet for the
last decade, the Congress has allowed the agency that most likely created the Gulf War
illness problem (DoD), and the agency charged with paying for the problem (i.e., the VA,
through health care and disability payments to sick veterans), to both investigate Gulf
War illnesses and their own role in responding to sick Desert Storm veterans. This is an
obvious conflict of interest, one that has prolonged the suffering of the veterans,
destroyed their trust in the federal government, and resulted in the waste of at least
$150 million over the past five years through OSAGWI, as the Defense Department has
“investigated” its own response to Gulf War illnesses. It is also how the
Pentagon and the Air Force have managed to spend over $180 million on Agent Orange-related
Ranch Hand research that has produced less than half-a-dozen peer-reviewed scientific
papers over the last 15 years. Even those few peer reviewed articles were produced just
recently under extreme pressure by the Congress to produce tangible scientifically valid
results.
To end this
conflict of interest and restore integrity to the process of investigating and treating
veteran’s medical conditions, last year VVA called for the creation of a National
Institute of Veterans Health (NIVH) within NIH. This notional NIVH would not only
eliminate the conflict of interest problem outlined above, it would provide a vehicle for
establishing a medical research corporate culture focused on veteran health care,
in contrast to the current VA medical corporate culture of “health care that happens
to be for veterans.”
VVA
recognizes that the VA has established a reputation for providing advanced care for
blinded veterans or those with severe ambulatory impairments. However, the
VA has never truly developed a corporate culture focused on the diagnosis and treatment of
the full range of environmental and occupational hazards that are unique to military
service. This is especially true of the VA’s Research and Development Office,
where the overwhelming majority of VA-funded research programs are geared towards medical
problems found in the general population, not those specific to the veteran patient
population or those with military service. Even though it is possible at virtually no
additional cost to collect veteran specific variable information on all the studies funded
though this section, the current leadership of VA Research & Development refuses to do
so.
By
establishing a new NIVH with veteran advocates serving on the peer-review panels that make
research funding decisions, the Congress would be creating a research institute that would
be truly focused on the unique medical needs of veterans. Locating the NIVH within NIH
would ensure that the full medical resources of the federal government and private sector
could be marshaled in a rational, veteran-friendly environment, free of the politicizing
and conflict-ridden influences that have for more than 20 years precluded effective
research into the unique environmental and occupational hazards that have impacted the
health of American veterans.
One of the
first lines of inquiry that should be pursued by this proposed entity is what we term
“the in-country effect,” the idea that the totality of the military experience
in a theater of operation has a cumulative effect on the health of the veteran. We believe
that more than enough epidemiological research exists to show that both Vietnam and Gulf
War veterans display higher rates of illness than their nondeployed counterparts.
Researching the mechanisms that produce these higher morbidity rates among those who serve
in theater should be a top research priority for the notional NIVH.
Additionally,
this proposed NIVH must be supplemented by the creation of a Congressionally directed
mandatory declassification review panel, whose purpose would be to screen (on both a
historical and an ongoing basis) and declassify any operational or
intelligence records for evidence of data that would have an impact on the health and
welfare of American veterans. The need for such an entity—completely independent from
the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community—is obvious.
Even today,
thousands of pages of Gulf War-related records remain classified. In January 1998, the CIA
admitted that its own internal review had identified over 1 million
classified documents with potential relevance to Gulf War illnesses. Virtually no
documents associated with the 1960’s era SHAD program have been declassified, and DoD
has thus far rebuffed VVA’s FOIA requests that the documents be made public. Through
the experience of the Kennedy Assassination Review Commission and the Nazi War Crimes
Declassification Review panel, we have learned that such specialized declassification
panels work well. If we are to be certain that all data that may effect the
health of American veterans is to be available for the veterans and their physicians, the
Congress must create such a standing declassification review panel immediately. Such a
move would also help to restore trust and confidence among veterans in the federal
government and its response to veteran’s health issues.
VVA
believes that the VA should remain in the veteran health care business, but only if there
is a dramatic change in the corporate culture of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA).
During his
tenure as Undersecretary for Health, Dr. Thomas Garthwaite put forward a proposal known as
the Veterans Health Initiative (VHI). The purpose of the VHI was to put veteran patient
care at the core the VHA’s corporate culture. As Dr. Garthwaite testified before
Congress in April 2001,
“The Veterans Health Initiative was established in September
1999 to recognize the connection between certain health effects and military service,
prepare health care providers to better serve veteran patients, and to provide a data base
for further study
The components of the initiative will be a provider education
program leading to certification in veterans’ health; a comprehensive military
history that will be coded in a registry and be available for education, outcomes
analysis, and research; a database for any veteran to register his military history and to
automatically receive updated and relevant information on issues of concern to him/her
(only as requested); and a Web site where any veteran or health care provider can access
the latest scientific evidence on the health effects of military service.”
VVA’s experience is that while some progress has been made in
development of curricula by the Office of Public Health and Environmental Hazards,
virtually no one at the service delivery level, or at the researcher level know that these
exist. After three years, there is still not visible effort to train or enlighten staff at
the hospital level or actually doing research of the importance of taking a complete
military history and testing for various natural and man-made risk factors that a veteran
may have been exposed to based on when, where. branch of service, and what the veteran
actually did in the military. VVA maintains that this is what Veterans Health Care
(and hence VA) should be all about, not just general health care that happens to be for
veterans.
We note that to date, comprehensive clinical practice guidelines
and continuing medical education courses in dealing with Gulf War illnesses have yet to be
distributed throughout the VA medical system. The visualized cash awards for clinicians
passing competency exams in veteran specific health issues has not materialized. We know
from internal VA emails obtained via FOIA that senior officials in Public Health and
Environmental Hazards resisted creating a registry for Vietnam era SHAD veterans. As many
members of this committee may recall, there was tremendous resistance by VHA to the idea
of creating a Gulf War registry in the early 1990’s; it took an act of Congress to
get that effort off the ground. Given this institutional resistance to identifying
environmental hazards and their impact on the health of veterans from multiple eras, how
can we trust these same office with no apparent change in corporate culture to implement
Dr. Garthwaite’s well-conceived vision for veterans’ health care?
We have communicated these concerns to Secretary Principi, urging
him to recognize that changing the existing VHA corporate culture immediately is
imperative, and we look forward to working with him towards that end. VVA believes that
this committee can play a key role in this process by offering comprehensive legislation
to create NIVH and an affiliated declassification body. The VA’s Gulf War Research
Advisory Committee has already sent such a recommendation to Secretary Principi. VVA hopes
the committee will use the Research Advisory Committee’s recommendations as a
blueprint for changing the way veterans exposure-related health issues are
addressed.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my written statement. On behalf of
our national president, Tom Corey, please accept my thanks for allowing VVA the
opportunity to share our views on this very important topic.
Appendix I:
SUMMARY
RESEARCH
At the time, the Gulf War appeared to be an overwhelming public
relations success. The American public gave whole-hearted support to their military
sons and daughters, sending them off to fight the world’s largest army. The
media provided minute-by-minute coverage from the good-by kisses through the daily
military victories to the tearful reunions. Cheering crowds across the nation lined
graffiti-filled streets to honor the returning victor.
Following the war, many veterans began to complain of health
problems they associated with their service in the Gulf. They clamored for health
care and answers, and the news media and some legislators
picked up the battle cry. The President ordered a thorough review and finally, DoD
conceded that America’s finest might have been exposed to low levels of chemical
warfare agent.
For five years, the DoD had denied the poss
Project SHAD, an acronym for Shipboard Hazard and Defense,
was part of the joint service chemical and biological warfare test program conducted
during the 1960s. Project SHAD encompassed tests designed to identify US warships'
vulnerabilities to attacks with chemical or biological warfare agents and to develop
procedures to respond to such attacks while maintaining a war-fighting capability.
Although classified, the Department of Defense has been actively pursuing declassification
of relevant medical information. To date twelve SHAD projects have been evaluated and
released for your review. 
