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Veterans News for Wednesday, April 20, 2011

1.    Changes in Agent Orange benefits impact veterans.  Alexandria Echo Press  This month I would like to address the changes in disabilities that are recognized by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs as presumed disabilities from exposure to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam. The three new disabilities that are ...

2.    City backs services for VA clinic.  Stockton Record  But the veterans who packed into City Hall on Tuesday were wary that the policy discussion could indicate the city was backing away from a commitment it made to the US Department of Veterans Affairs to provide water and sewer services for a regional

3.    Madison Attorney Providing Free Legal Services To Vets June 4th, Weekend After.  Patch.com
“I thought, there is no reason I could not do that for veterans here.” Suerth also has been certified by the US Department of Veterans Affairs to represent veterans with respect to disability benefits. “If they have been denied or want to appeal a ...

4.    Community Wellness and Veterans'/Military Families' Outreach Fair open to all.  Reno Gazette Journal  This year, in partnership with the US Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Rural Health and the VA Sierra Nevada Healthcare System, the task force has invited many groups that will be of special interest to veterans, enlisted, reserve, ...

5.    Veterans relish chance reunion.  9NEWS.com   Tuesday, they agree to meet for breakfast at the US Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Denver. Moyer brought pictures and a yearbook from the ship. "Just to bond with somebody I hadn't seen in a long time," said Moyer. ...

6.    Military Veterans at Private Universities Robbed Of GI Bill Dollars.  Huffington Post  Nationwide, according to the US Department of Veterans Affairs, $9.9 billion has been allocated since the inception of the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Between August of 2009 and July of 2010, 547945 veterans have used the new bill to pay for college. ...

7.    VA spends over $3.4 billion in Georgia during 2010.  Early County News  According to 2010 Fiscal Year figures recently obtained from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, Georgia veterans, surviving spouses and dependents who qualified under federal law benefited in over $3.4 billion that the VA spent in Georgia during ...

8.    JPMorgan Chase appoints five to Military and Veterans Affairs Advisory Council.  WebWire   Mrs. Hall is a US Navy veteran and military spouse, married to a retired Army Command Sergeant Major. She is a graduate of Armstrong State College in Savannah, Georgia, and earned her Master of Healthcare Administration degree from St. Joseph's College ...

9.    Tackling the problem of homelessness among veterans.  The Connecticut Mirror  "We are all dishonored when a veteran sleeps on the same streets that he or she has defended," Duckworth, the assistant secretary for public and intergovernmental affairs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, said in Hartford Monday. ...

10.                       Official assails plight of homeless vets.  TMC Net  L. Tammy Duckworth, assistant secretary of the US Department of Veterans Affairs, boldly spoke during a forum Monday saying that ought not be the condition of America's service men and women. "We are all dishonored when a veteran sleeps on the same ...

11.                       Remembering our veterans.  Rapid City Journal  Unfortunately, I did not receive word of it from the State Department of Veterans Affairs until March 31. It was not advertised by the State nor by the Veterans Administra-tion, that I am aware of. Obviously, the veteran's organizations knew little or ...

12.                       Officials remind U.S. public that the military doesn't charge for joining.  After the arrest last week of a man who allegedly charged immigrants money to join a fake army, U.S. military officials spread the word that that's not how it works.

13.                       Army health team testing for toxins amid tsunami debris in Japan.  In Iwate prefecture, one of the areas badly damaged by the tsunami, the amount of debris is estimated at 6 million tons. To make sure soldiers aren’t being exposed to harmful substances, the Army flew into Ishinomaki to test the soil, air and water in and around places where U.S. personnel are living and working.

14.                       DOD preparing to unveil overarching cyber strategy.  The Pentagon is expected in coming weeks to introduce an overarching cyber strategy that officially declares cyberspace a domain of warfare equal to land, sea and air in importance.

15.                       Army hopes survey will lead to end of ill-fitting uniforms, gear.  The Army aims to make ill-fitting uniforms and protective gear things of the past when it completes a body-measurement survey next year.

16.                       Bill Would Let Older Vets Use Medicare At VA Centers. Army Times "Older veterans could use Medicare benefits to receive" healthcare from Veterans Affairs hospitals under the Medicare Reimbursement Act, which is sponsored by US Rep. Bob Filner of California, the ranking Democrat on the Houser Veterans Affairs Committee. The bill "would require VA to set up a system to bill Medicare for services given to veterans who are enrolled in Medicare part A or B."

17.                       Navy Cross Faker Exposed After Lies Surface In Court. Marine Corps Times

18.                       US Supreme Court Stops Appeal In Murder Plot Case. AP The US Supreme Court "rejected an appeal...in a murder-for-hire plot after the star prosecution witness lied about his military background." A "three-judge panel on the San Francisco-based" 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals earlier ruled that David Hinkson "deserved a new trial because the witness, Elven Joe Swisher, lied about his war record and presented forged documents about it. Swisher later was convicted of defrauding the government of nearly $100,000 in veterans benefits and wearing unauthorized military medals."

19.                       2011 Pulitzer Winners In Journalism And Arts. AP The Washington Post was a finalist for its "exploration of how the military is using trauma surgery, brain science and other techniques both old and new to reduce fatalities among the wounded in warfare, telling the story with words, images and other tools."

20.                       US Experimenting With Armored Underwear As Defense Against IEDs. USA Today "The number of troops wounded by improvised explosive devices (IEDs)" in Afghanistan "has gone from an average of 22 a month in 2008 to 281 a month in 2010," leading the Pentagon to experiment "with new forms of protection, ranging from heavyweight chaps and Kevlar underwear to ground-penetrating radar systems."

21.                       The Cost Of Combat Stress: A Billion Dollars A Year. Wired  "In an effort to quantify the psychological cost of war, a recent report" from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBE) estimates that "lower-bound costs of mental health problems from the global war on terror are between $750 million and $1.35 billion annually."  "Vets from Iraq and Afghanistan, young soldiers between 18 and 34 years old, found themselves unable to deal with their post-war nightmares and insomnia.  Their solution: popping pills with frightening regularity to treat depression, psychosis and anxiety," which "translated to a 42 percent increase in prescription drug use between 2005 and 2009." 

22.                       Doctor Urges US Military To Change Its Approach To Assisting Troubled Vets. FOX News Dr. Keith Ablow noted, "Suicide rates are up across all branches of the military, even the National Guard, where the rate has increased 82 percent since 2009." Ablow concluded, "It is time that the US military, which has focused far too much attention on concepts, actually designed to make soldiers feel less -- like desensitization and learned optimism - begins to join soldiers in the spiritual, moral and emotional journeys that begin when they return home and feel so much more." 

23.                       Taking It To The Next Level. Modern Healthcare The Top 25 Women in Healthcare includes Dr. Tracy Gaudet, who in December was "selected to lead the Veterans Affairs Department's Office of Patient Centered Care and Cultural Transformation. The new office was created last year to redesign the delivery of healthcare to more than 6 million veterans nationwide.

24.                       Plainview VA Closed; Services Moved To East Meadow. Plainview (NY) Patch "Without much advance notice, the Veterans Administration service agency and VA Clinic has left its long-time home in Plainview. The VA center, which had been located at the former Nassau County Office complex on Old Country Road for decades, has been moved to East Meadow, veterans said." The move to the new location, which, among other things, is "is equipped with a modern triage" room, "became official on April 8."

25.                       New National Cemetery In San Diego Rushes To Meet Pent-Up Demand. Los Angeles Times On Thursday, Vietnam vet John A. Smith III was "given the honor" of being the "first casket burial at the new" Miramar National Cemetery. Smith spent years "lobbying in Washington, trying to persuade officials that San Diego, home to one of the country's largest military communities, deserved a second national cemetery." "As veterans from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War and the Vietnam War march toward mortality, the new cemetery next to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar is preparing to satisfy a pent-up demand for casket burials" by arranging things so that it is ready for burials "every 30 minutes during daylight hours Monday through Friday."

26.                       Conference Focuses On Government, Corporate Business For Diverse Suppliers. Ventura County (CA) Star  "Owners of minority-, women- and veteran-owned businesses will have a chance to learn about pursuing contracts with the government and private companies, as well as ways to secure loans and funding," at Power Your Business, a "daylong conference in Thousand Oaks on April 26." The US Department of Veterans Affairs "will be involved" with the event.

27.                       Organizers Hope To Open A Court Dedicated To Veterans In Idaho By End Of Year. AP   "By the end of the year, court officials and veteran advocates in Ada County hope to open the doors to a mental health court geared specifically to veterans and the challenges they face with addiction and mental illness." Such a court "would operate much like Idaho's drug court system, which diverts offenders struggling with addiction through a separate network of the legal system focused on treatment and recovery." The "group of organizers for a veterans court includes the Idaho National Guard, police, officials from the Veterans Administration and the legal community."

28.                       Quality Improvement Program Works Wonders At 150 Veterans Affairs Hospitals. French Tribune  "Recently, a report was published in The New England Journal of Medicine and it suggested that a quality improvement program, initiated several years ago, has brought phenomenal results in controlling infection at more than 150 Veterans Affairs hospitals. The report suggests that these quality improvement efforts have reduced the spread" of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA,) "one of the most deadly bacterial infections, by 62% in intensive care units and 45% in other hospital units.

29.                       Starting HIV Drugs Earlier May Delay AIDS But Not Death.  HealthDay "New research suggests that HIV-infected patients are most likely to stay clear of AIDS longer if they start drug therapy when their immune systems are still relatively strong. However, starting treatment earlier, compared to waiting, didn't affect dying from AIDS."

30.                       Widespread, Risky Use Clotting Drug On Non-Hemophilia Patients Documented In New Studies. Science Daily  "An expensive blood-clotting drug that is intended only for hemophilia patients is being used in hospitals predominantly to treat patients without this disorder, despite evidence suggesting that it could harm them, according to a pair of studies from the Stanford University School of Medicine." The drug is "known as recombinant factor 7a." The "two studies were supported by grants from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute."

31.                       Progress Needed On End-Of-Life Care. Washington Post (4/19, Janice Lynch Schuster, "co-author of the second edition of 'Handbook for Mortals,' to be published by Oxford in May," praises the Department of Veterans Affairs, saying it has "made sweeping changes to ensure that all veterans with a life-limiting illness have access to palliative care and hospice." "When the time comes, we need, at the very least, to have upfront, honest and continuing conversations with our doctors. Beyond that, we" need an "educated and compassionate workforce, and a system that has the incentives and the direction not only to treat symptoms but also to care for patients and families in the context of their pain and suffering."

32.                       Weather Woes Can't Stop VA Golfers. Murfreesboro (TN) Daily News Journal

33.                       More Veterans And Spouses Could Gain From Aid And Attendance Pension Benefit. Washington Post A "little-known benefit called Aid and Attendance (A&A). A need-based, tax-free pension, A&A supports wartime veterans and their spouses who cannot pay for non-service-related medical needs." Veterans Affairs officials "say that many more" than the approximately 182,000 veterans and their spouses currently taking advantage of the A&A benefit are eligible for it.