Whistleblower: VA Hiding Veteran Health Data

[Jarod]

We all know this type of stuff happens already.....

A former epidemiologist for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs told lawmakers on Wednesday that the agency’s Office of Public Health buries or obscures research findings on veterans exposed to environmental toxins and hazards going as far back as the Persian Gulf War.

"On the rare occasions when embarrassing study results are released, data are manipulated to make them unintelligible,” he told the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Coughlin said his former office never released findings of a $10 million study that produced data on 60,000 Iraq and Afghan war vets – of which up to 30 percent were Gulf War vets – that revealed exposures to pesticides, oil well fires and more.
He said the results of a congressionally mandated study on Gulf War veterans and their family members also was never released, and claims he was advised that “these results have been permanently lost.”
“Anything that supports the position that Gulf War illness is a neurological condition is unlikely to ever be published,” he said.

As with Vietnam veterans before them, large numbers of Gulf War veterans became ill in the years following the 1991 war. Those Gulf War veterans were told their problems were psychological.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/...an-health-data.html?comp=7000023317828&rank=1

 

[SilverbladeTE]

well well well...
One ponders about OUR Weasels then, eh?

 

[Tristen]

Don't know the exact numbers, but a significant number of vets now with GWI, had remained stateside and were never exposed to said chemicals and toxins. Last I knew, the dod preferred the chemical/toxin exposure as a cause of GWI supposedly because it keeps the focus off themselves. Yet this article suggests they want to hide the chemical/toxin exposure issue.....hmmmm.

 

[Esther12]

So far it's just testimony. That's not to say that it should be dismissed, but it's only if his testimony is able to lead on to more findings that we can be confident that has being happening. Probably best not to assume too much either way right now, but I do hope that there's a serious attempt to investigate these (and other similar) claims.