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Vets of Bush's Wars Sue the VA: "More than Half of Wounded Troops Slipping Through the Cracks" •
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VA Hid Suicide Risk, Internal Emails Show
CBS News
Monday 21 April 2008
CBS - The Department of Veterans Affairs came under fire again Monday, this
time in California federal court where its facing a national lawsuit by veterans
rights groups accusing the agency of not doing enough to stem a looming mental
health crisis among veterans. As part of the lawsuit, internal e-mails raise
questions as to whether top officials deliberately deceived the American public
about the number of veterans attempting and committing suicide. CBS News chief
investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports.
In San Francisco federal court Monday, attorneys for veterans' rights groups
accused the VA of nothing less than a cover-up - deliberately concealing the
real risk of suicide among veterans.
"The system is in crisis and unfortunately the VA is in denial,"
said Veterans Rights Attorney Gordon Erspamer.
The charges were backed by internal emails written by Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's
head of Mental Health.
In the past, Katz has repeatedly insisted while the risk of suicide among veterans
is serious, it's not outside the norm.
"There is no epidemic in suicide in VA," Katz told Keteyian in November.
But in this e-mail to his top media advisor, written two months ago, Katz appears
to be saying something very different, stating: "Our suicide prevention
coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among veterans
we see in our metical facilities."
Katz's email was written shortly after the VA provided CBS News data showing
there were only 790 attempted suicides in all 2007 - a fraction of Katz's estimate.
"This 12,000 attempted suicides per year shows clearly, without a doubt,
that there is an epidemic of suicide among veterans," said Paul Sullivan
of Veterans for Common Sense.
And it appears that Katz went out of his way to conceal these numbers.
First, he titled his e-mail: "Not for the CBS News Interview Request."
He opened it with "Shh!" - as in keep it quiet - before ending with
"Is this something we should (carefully) address ... before someone
stumbles on it?"
Today we showed the e-mail to Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., who chairs the House
Committee on Veterans Affairs.
"This is disgraceful. This is a crime against our nation, our nation's
veterans," Filner told CBS News. "They do not want to come to grips
with the reality, with the truth."
And that's not all.
Last November when CBS Newsexposed an epidemic of more than 6,200 suicides
in 2005 among those who had served in the military, Katz attacked our report.
"Their number is not, in fact, an accurate reflection of the rate,"
he said last November.
But it turns out they were, as Katz admitted in this e-mail, just three days
later.
He wrote: there "are about 18 suicides per day among America's 25 million
veterans."
That works out to about 6,570 per year, which Katz admits in the same e-mail,
"is supported by the CBS numbers."
In an e-mail late Monday to CBS News, Katz wrote that the reason the numbers
were not released was due to questions about the consistency and reliability
of the findings - and that there was no public cover-up involved.
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Vets of Bush's Wars Sue the VA: "More than Half of Wounded Troops
Slipping Through the Cracks"
By Aaron Glantz
AlterNet
Tuesday 22 April 2008
"If you're suicidal you can't wait
a month ... People placed on waiting lists have killed themselves."
A national class action lawsuit brought by Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans
went to trial on April 21. The suit, known as Veterans for Common Sense vs.
Peake was brought by two veterans organizations who argue the Department of
Veterans Affairs is systematically denying hundreds of thousands of wounded
veterans needed medical treatment, while forcing them to wait months or even
years for the disability benefits they've earned.
"We're dealing with people who are almost totally disabled; people who
have lost arms, lost legs in these wars, people who have come home with Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder or physical brain injury," explained Gordan Erspamer,
an attorney with the law firm Morrison and Forrester who is handling the case
pro bono. "We can't have these people waiting for months and years for
the treatment they need."
According to a study released last week by the Rand Corporation, an estimated
300,000 veterans among the nearly 1.7 million who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan
are battling depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. Another 320,000 veterans
suffer from Traumatic Brain Injury, physical brain damage which is often caused
by roadside bombs.
However, the VA reports only about 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans
have received health care from the VA system - about 120,000 for mental injuries.
That means more than half the American service personnel wounded in Iraq and
Afghanistan have slipped through the cracks.
"The VA needs aggressive, pro-veteran leaders, for more additional funding
for staff, office space and for screening and treatment equipment," said
Paul Sullivan of Veterans for Common Sense. "The VA needs more streamlined
policies so that veterans don't need to fill out a 20 page form in order to
get care."
Sullivan said his organization decided to file suit when it became clear the
agency wouldn't take action on its own. Before helping to found Veterans for
Common Sense, Sullivan monitored disability claims for the VA. In 2006, he resigned
in protest.
"In 2005, while working at VA, I briefed senior VA political leaders that
VA was in a crisis of a surge of disability claims of Iraq and Afghanistan war
veterans," he said. "I recommended in writing that the VA hire more
claims processors to make sure the veterans get their benefits faster instead
of facing six month delays or even longer."
"The VA didn't do anything to help the veterans. What the VA actually
did was several things to lock the doors and block veterans from getting mental
health assistance from VA," Sullivan added.
The groups filed their claim in the Federal District Court in San Francisco
in July 2007. In their lawsuit, the veterans groups asked the federal courts
to force the VA to clear the backlog of disability claims and make sure returning
veterans receive immediate medical and psychological help. They also want the
judge to force the VA to screen all vets returning from combat to identify those
at greatest risk for PTSD and suicide.
Since then, the Bush Administration has tried multiple times to get the case
dismissed. In court papers last year, the Justice Department argued that Veterans
for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth did not have standing to sue
because they were not individual veterans but associations. The Bush Administration
also argued that the entire notion of a veterans' class action law-suit was
illegal, declaring that all veterans are required to petition individually.
The Judge, an 86 year-old Nixon appointee and World War II veteran named Samuel
Conti, rejected each of those claims.
"It is within the court's power to insist that veterans be granted a level
of due process that is commensurate with the adjudication procedures with which
they are confronted," Conti ruled in January.
Representatives of the Department of Veterans Affairs refused to be interviewed
for this story and also declined to provide a statement.
Across the country, veterans are watching the case with great interest.
Five years ago, US Army Specialist Corey Gibson was at the "tip of the
spear" of the US invasion of Iraq. A year later, the Indiana native finds
himself battling an enemy that's harder to engage than the Iraqi Army: the United
States Department of Veterans Affairs.
"I've been thrown around from several psychologists, and can't see the
same person at the same place for very long," the 27 year-old told me.
"Most of the veterans that I know don't even go to seek care from the VA,
because dealing with that system has been a major added stressor. Me, I try
to keep my mind busy. My mind is going 90 miles a minute anyway so I might as
well keep it focused on something that's going to help me.
In 2004, the VA diagnosed Gibson with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and rated
him 100 percent disabled, meaning his mental state is too damaged for him to
hold down a job.
His room-mate, 22 year old Andrew Whitt knows Gibson suffers from flashbacks
and other demons from his wartime experience.
"When I come home I have to yell 'Hey, it's me!' so he doesn't pull a
gun and go ballistic," Whitt said. "When he hears a loud noise outside
he peeks through the blinds, he doesn't sit with his back toward doors in classrooms
and restaurants. Every now and then it comes out with road rage. He's afraid
of going out in public, fearful of what might happen."
Last week, Gibson called Veterans for Common Sense and offered to testify at
trial if necessary. Lawyer Gordon Erspamer says his office has been deluged
by similar calls.
"There are waiting lists to see a doctor that usually go for at least
a month," he said. "Well, if you're suicidal you can't wait a month.
You can't wait three months. People placed on waiting lists have killed themselves.
It's a documented fact."
A recent CBS News investigation revealed 1,758 VA patients killed themselves
in 2005. All told, the network estimated that more than 120 veterans commit
suicide every week in the United States.
"There are more suicides every week than there are battlefield deaths,"
Erspamer noted. "We have got to deal with this problem and if it costs
more money we've got to divert more money so we take care of these people."
The trial is expected to last a week.
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Aaron Glantz is the author of two upcoming books on Iraq: "The
War Comes Home: Washington's Battle Against America's Veterans" (UC Press) and
"Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations"
(Haymarket). He edits the website © 2008 Independent Media Institute.
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