VA Withholds Vital Documents During C-123 Agent Orange Institute of Medicine Investigation - Refuses FOIA Requests

Last week C-123 Veterans Association received notice that the VA will not release documents

requested by the veterans, needed for the Institute of Medicine study now underway in a special C-123 Agent Orange committee.

The IOM's first public meeting, at which both VA and C-123 veterans presented, was last Thursday, May 15. The next meeting, at which the C-123 veterans are the principal speaker, is June 16.

Little wonder why VA denies access to materials of such interest to the veterans and the IOM, or at least seeks to withhold it until the committee's report to Secretary Shinseki is submitted...incomplete.

As separate FOIA request submitted long ago by the C-123 veterans was ignored and forced legal action through the US District Court of Washington, D.C. VA applied several stalls but now has agreed to try...not to actually do...releasing some...not all...of the ordered documents with the final release set by VA as two weeks after the IOM concludes.

Clever, clever timing to prevent anything disturbing to VHA. These people know how to game their own system. While they'd never wish us ill, or fail to help us on the street or shake hands in church, they show us that veterans are not in their value set. Last week, I was shocked at the vitriol spewed by leaders of other veterans organizations when we met...so many veterans in leadership positions see VA executives in a profoundly negative light (and used very, very nasty words to convey that thought.) For most, they've lost all hope of cooperation.

Veterans find it amazing that requests for public information...even information about veterans' own health records... are denied by VA's Veterans Health Administration Chief FOIA officer on the artificial basis of "no significant public interest" in the subject, nor any ability of veterans to share the requested information with the public.

Perhaps, a moment spent with Google would illustrate the intense interest our fellow citizens have in why VA prohibits access to vital medical care, and does this by gaming their own system, reinventing fundamental scientific terms, refusing input from other federal agencies, cherry-picking among its consultants for views already agreeable to the Department in denying Agent Orange's harm, and other VA missteps.

"We have to draw the line somewhere, " AP quoted VHA. Veterans access to documents in secret VA file cabinets (or what the heck they store stuff in) will help the nation understand why the heck such a line has been drawn over our bodies, and why VA has shown heroic determination in preventing C-123 veterans' claims.

If there is going to be one lesson this spring and summer, it will be that the people in the Department of Veterans Affairs, with exceptions, are not like us. And do not like us.

Institute of Medicine Begins C-123 Study; Results Anticipated Late September

Acting on an important work project contracted from the Veterans Affairs, the National Academy of Sciences, through its Institute of Medicine, is beginning the initial organizational efforts for an intensive focus on the C-123 Agent Orange contamination and the exposures of aircrews and maintenance personnel.

According to information received yesterday from committee director Dr. Mary Paxton, the format will be a workshop and the goal to complete their response to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs by lat September. The work will be done in Washington, D.C. rather than the IOM conference center at UC Irvine.

Details:
1. Title of Assignment: Committee to Evaluate the Potential Exposure to Agent Orange/TCDD Residue and Level of Risk of Adverse Health Effects for Aircrew of Post-Vietnam C-123 Aircraft
2. Format: workshop. Invitations to presenters, but there will be an open session for public comment
3. Good Manners: best to submit all materials and conversations to the committee through the staff director
4. Charge to the Committee by the VA:

– The IOM committee will also determine whether there is an excess risk of adverse health among crew members who, after the Vietnam War ended in 1975, flew and/or maintained C-123 aircraft that had been used to spray Agent Orange in Vietnam. The committee will:

Report Available September

·         Evaluate the reliability (including representativeness, consistency, methods used) of the available information for establishing exposure; and,·         Address (qualitatively as a degree of certainty, rather than in a quantitative fashion) whether any documented residues represent potentially harmful exposure (i.e., consider biological availability of dioxin), by characterizing the amounts available and the degree to which absorption might be expected, and, place in context.The possible health effects would be assumed to be those characterized in prior Veterans & Agent Orange reports, and would not be re-assessed for this report. VAO activities to date have found the information concerning the exposure of Vietnam Veterans inadequate to establish dose-response relationships for individual health outcomes or to quantify the risk of a particular Veteran experiencing any adverse effect.