Public Comment Period for New VA Gulf War Illness Rules Still Open, Task Force Report comments now closed

Written by Anthony Hardie, 91outcomes Publisher/Editor

(91outcomes.com) – While the public comment period related to the first report of the VA’s internal Task Force on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses is now closed, public comments related to the VA’s proposed rules for Gulf War illness and nine endemic infectious diseases may still be submitted online.

“The extensive body of scientific research now available consistently indicates that ’Gulf War illness’ is real, that it is the result of neurotoxic exposures during Gulf War deployment, and that few veterans have recovered or substantially improved with time,” said VA report released in November 2008 by a government panel of scientists and veterans.

“The excess of unexplained medical symptoms reported by deployed Gulf War veterans cannot be reliably ascribed to any known psychiatric disorder,” said the Institute of Medicine in its comprehensive scientific review last month, which also said that 250,000 veterans of the 1991 Gulf War suffer from chronic multisymptom illness.  This debilitating health condition affecting one third of Gulf War veterans is more commonly called Gulf War Illness or Gulf War Syndrome.

The text of the VA’s proposed rules for Gulf War illnesses, and a tool for easily submitting comments online are available online.  The public comment period related to the VA’s proposed Gulf War illnesses rules remains open until Monday, May 17, 2010.

Public comments submitted online related to this Task Force Report, now closed for public comment, include the following. 

The Task Force chair, VA Chief of Staff John Gingrich, has pledged to carefully review all submitted comments.

Task Force Report comments by members of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses:

1. Joint Submission by:  James H. Binns, Jr., Phoenix, AZ (Chair)
   James P. O’Callaghan, PhD, Morgantown, WV
   Kimberly Sullivan, PhD, Boston, MA
   Roberta F. White, PhD, Boston, MA
2. Beatrice A. Golomb, M.D., PhD
3. Anthony D. Hardie*, Gulf War veteran
4. Lea Steele*, PhD, Past Scientific Director

*Also a committee member of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Gulf War Illness Research Program, part of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program

Comments submitted by Veterans Service Organizations:

1. National Gulf War Resource Center (www.ngwrc.org):  James A. Bunker
2. Veterans for Common Sense (www.veteransforcommonsense.org):  Joint Submission by

   Dan Fahey, President, VCS, Gulf War veteran
   Charles Sheehan-Miles, Director, VCS, Gulf War veteran
   Michael Zacchea, Director, VCS, Iraq War veteran
   Paul Sullivan, Executive Director, VCS, Gulf War veteran
   Thomas Bandzul, Associate Counsel, VCS, Vietnam War veteran
   Chris Kornkven*, Past President, NGWRC, Gulf War veteran
   Michael Blecker, Executive Director, Swords to Plowshares, Vietnam War veteran
   Amy Fairweather, Director of Policy, Swords to Plowshares

   *Also a committee member of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Gulf War Illness Research Program, part of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program

Other formal public comments submitted online:

• Stephen L. Avery (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)
• Robert O. Burks, Jr.
• Michael Chapman
• Linda L. Clipp
• Gary J. Connolly
• Adam R. Gonzalez
• James W. Ishmael
• James E. LaPointe
• Joseph P. Long
• Myron J. Martin
• Longino G. Moreno
• Jack Morgan
• Robin Wraight O’Bannon
• Billy B. Ouber
• William F. Prevatt, Sr.
• Michael Rauh
• Michael A. Richmond
• Norman M. Rinehart
• Laurel M. Sobol
• Steve V. Soza
• Melvina C. Williams

VA also allowed for public comments on the Task Force Report using a new online tool. 

The Task Force Chair has pledged to also fully consider all of these comments, which were divided into sections as follows.

Forums

• Issue 1- Leverage Deployment Health Working Group (44)
• Issue 2A - Training for Regional Office employees (6)
• Issue 2B - Training for Regional Office employees for toxic exposure (5)
• Issue 3A - Clinician training program (4)
• Issue 3B - Create subject matter experts through annual training (3)
• Issue 4A - Need for more Veteran-focused studies to enhance care (2)
• Issue 4B - Improve collaboration with CDC (3)
• Issue 4C - Improve collaboration with DOD (2)
• Issue 4D - Conduct a National Study for a New Generation of U.S. Veterans (5)
• Issue 4E - VA Study the health records of MWDs deployed and non-deployed to the Gulf (3)
• Issue 4F - Extend the Post War Mortality from Neurological Disease in Gulf War Veterans study (6)
• Issue 4G - VA conduct a follow-up study of an established permanent panel of 30,000 Gulf War I deployed and Gulf War I non-deployed Veterans (5)
• Issue 5A - VA provide ongoing medical surveillance to individuals who performed duty at Qarmat Ali, Iraq, where they were potentially exposed to hexavalent chromium (1)
• Issue 5B - VA Continue to provide VA funding in support of the Joint Pathology Center (JPC) and seek out opportunities with the DoD to enhance Toxic embedded fragment analysis (5)
• Issue 6A - VA conduct a multi-pronged approach that balances the urgency of understanding and finding new diagnostic tests and treatments for ill Veterans of the 1990 -1991 Gulf War (short-term) with the need to do new studies on a national group of Gulf (3)
• Issue 6B - VA maintain funding levels for Gulf War research as close as possible to the $15M per year as directed in the FY 2006 appropriation language for VA Medical and Prosthetics Research (3)
• Issue 7A - VA identify Key Stakeholders (both internal and external to VA) required to help better inform Veterans (4)
• Issue 7B - VA engage stakeholders with a survey tool and/or push web-based tool to solicit their ideas and concerns (3)
• Issue 7C - VA recognize Gulf War I Era Veterans though special and targeted outreach events (7)
• Issue 7D - VA streamline its process to distribute the Gulf War Review and update the Gulf War Illnesses’ Webpage, adding interactive New Media features, as well as explore the capability to implement an online inquiry system (3)
• Issue 7E- Engage and obtain feedback on its findings and recommendations from the general public and stakeholders (4)