Institute of Medicine Dismisses Claims of Project SHAD Medical Injuries

In the January 8 2016 release of its second review of the Navy's Project SHAD, the Institute of Medicine has not identified any health risks associated with the tests conducted on vessels between 1962-1973. The Navy sprayed a variety of agents on its ships to assess their ability to withstand chemical, nuclear and biological threats.

VA Expands Homeless Programs, Agent Orange Listed Ships

VA News and Notes By Jud Powell Little River County Veteran's Service Officer Published: Wednesday, July 17, 2013 11:56 AM CDT We learned last week that the Veterans Administration has updated the list of U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships that operated in Vietnam, adding more ships and expanding i nformation for others. There are now 285 ships on the list. The list can help Vietnam-era Veterans find out if  they qualify for presumption of Agent Orange exposure when seeking disability compensation for related diseases. Last Friday, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced the award of nearly $300 million in grants that will help approximately 120,000 homeless and at-risk Veterans and their families.  The grants have been awarded to 319 community agencies in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Under the Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program, VA is awarding grants to private non-profit organizations and consumer cooperatives that provide services to very low-income Veteran families living in -- or transitioning to -- permanent housing. The SSVF program supports VA’s efforts to prevent at-risk Veterans from becoming homeless and rapidly re-house those who have recently fallen into homelessness. Thanks to the SSVF grants, those community organizations will provide a range of services that  promote housing stability and play a key role in connecting Veterans and their family members  to VA services such as mental health care and other benefits. Community-based groups can  offer temporary financial assistance on behalf of Veterans for rent payments, utility payments,  security deposits and moving costs. This is the third year SSVF grants have helped Veterans and their families find or remain in their  homes. Last year, VA provided about $100 million to assist approximately 50,000 Veterans and  family members. In 2009, President Obama and Secretary Shinseki announced the federal government’s goal to end  Veterans’ homelessness in 2015. The grants are intended to help accomplish that goal.  According to  the 2012 Point-in-Time Estimates of Homelessness, homelessness among Veterans has declined 17.2  percent since 2009. Through the homeless Veterans initiative, VA committed over $1 billion in fiscal year 2013 to strengthen programs that prevent and end homelessness among Veterans. VA provides a range of services to  homeless Veterans, including health care, job training, and education. More information about VA’s homeless programs is available at www.va.gov/homeless.  Details about  the Supportive Services for Veteran Families program are online at www.va.gov/homeless/ssvf.asp.

State of Arizona Deceived During Boneyard Inspection

Dioxin-contaminated UC-123 Quarantine Area

In 2010 the State of Arizona Department of Environmental Quality conducted a site inspection of the famous Boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Prior to the inspection, base officials had been notified of the scope of what needed to be covered. In particular, hazardous materials needed to be identified to the inspectors.

Sign on Dioxin Contaminated UC-1232K

So it came as a bit of a surprise when in July 2011, one of the same officials who conducted the on-site inspection learned about the dioxin-contaminated UC-123K aircraft, all 21 of them stored in a special fenced areas within the already-fenced Boneyard, and with signs restricting entry. Base employees had been required to wear hazmat protection around the stored Agent Orange spray airplanes ever since 1998 to protect themselves from the contamination. Base employees had even filed an IG complaint about the dioxin contamination they'd been exposed to around the airplanes, a complaint which went all the way up to the Surgeon General of the Air Force for resolution.

Davis-Monthan officials conducted the Arizona DEQ officials around the Boneyard, but in July of this year this inspector found it quite surprising (enough to be taking to his boss) that they were never driven past the UC-123K...they were never told about or shown the largest collection of dioxin-contaminated aircraft in the world.


This inspector, careful of his departmental manners, didn't want to say that they'd been deceived or mislead, but in early August 2011 Arizona DEQ officials confirmed that the base was required to reveal the storage of exactly this type of threat to the environment but failed to do so. No note was made of the 21 planes at all in the written materials the base provided nor during the drive through the Boneyard which avoided them...the inspectors never even realized that the special UC-123 "quarantine area" (as the Boneyard officials themselves labeled it) had existed for many years!

Smelting UC-123 Planes - "the Navy Way...the Quiet Way!

Seems the efforts of AFMC, the 75th Air Base Wing and Davis-Monthan were successful over the years in keeping things low-key. All the way up to the dramatic destruction of the airplanes last year via an unrelated Navy disposal contract which, as Mr. Boor described it, was the "Navy way....the quiet way." Was that because of the possibility of a $3.4 billion fine as various AFMC memoranda point out?