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The Omnibus Bill and Gulf War Illness Research Fund Status
From multiple reliable staffers on the hill in DC the Gulf War Illness Research Funds current information is that in the FY 2011 Omnibus DOD Appropriations currently under consideration there is funding for Gulf War Illness Research. This measures provides $8 million for the Peer Reviewed Gulf War Illness Research Program and $3.8 million for the ALS Therapy Development Institute Gulf War Research Project. This funding is directed to DOD CDMRP(Department of Defense Congressionally Direct Medical Research Program) .
This amount is going along with the historical record of 5-10 million annually since the initial $5 million that started the first appropriation to the DOD CDMRP Gulf War Illness Research by the efforts of US Representative Dennis Kucinick and US Senator Bernie Sanders in 2005. Supporters have included in the past US Representative Obey and US Senator Robert Byrd(deceased). We are grateful but we continue to push all that this is a critical issue and needs more funding! Please email and write your US Representative, Senator, President, and media contacts at every opportunity you have.
This is the measure that is currently being worked at the US Senate and US House. So you must speak up now and be heard and get your US Representatives and Senators more educated, informed, and have your voice heard in phone calls, emails, faxes, all modes of communication. This is not a done deal yet! DO not give in, do not surrender, do not give up EVER! This is a yearly appropriations and authorization issue. WE need each and every gulf war veteran, veteran advocates, veteran family members and friends, and all concerned to join the battle for health answers, diagnosis, treatment, and appropriate compensation for the ill gulf war veterans that have been battling this for 20 years.
In November 2008 the VA RAC GWI recommended “urges the federal government to allocate no less than 60 million annually in the federal budget for federal Gulf War illness research programs. This is consistent with annual funding levels committed for federal Gulf War research between 1999 and 2001, adjusted for inflation. Their recommendation was that the amount to be a minimum of $40 million annually to the DOD CDMRP” and was very specifically targeted on page 309 of the November 2008 Report from the VA RAC GWI. The full report ran 450 pages and should be read by every Gulf War Veteran, US Representative, US Senator, The President, the Secretary of the VA and all of the health care providers of the VA, every medical research and physician in America and the world . Every citizen and every veteran advocate should be active for voicing and writing their concerns to the legislators in DC.
When a force of roughly 657,000 served directly in Gulf War 1990-91(Desert Storm) and at a minimum one in four of those have reported significantly ill and have sought help at the VA this is astonishing that the media has not stayed on this story because the veterans deserve no less!
The civilians that suffer Chronic Fatigue/ME activities are standing up despite their illnesses demanding finally that effort and attention is needed now nationally and internationally. Just recently an advertisement was published in the Washington Post that spoke directly to the need for attention to be paid now. In the past year plus, research has been published in a flurry of scientific peer reviewed journals concerning a new retrovirus ie XMRV and multiple national and international scientific research meetings and seminars has occurred in an historical landmark effort. The numbers that are ill both civilian and veterans that have not been adequately addressed on their health issues will continue to grow.
The world learned to slowly in the AIDS fiasco and the history of Agent Orange, atomic veterans, and downwinders is still recent history. What does it take to hear clearly an Urgent Medical Issue that begs and pleads for attention? It is up to each of us to do all we can NOW and not to let our guard down.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=67264
Posted by Denise Nichols on Dec 15 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under Agent Orange, Gulf War Illness (GWI), Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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There is nothing worse than to do nothing. We MCWPA members have included GWI in our message that requires more funding not only for XMRV research (did you know it was found in 25% of breast cancer tumors?, but for all NeuroImmune disorders, including GWI.
Our government has a poor history of caring. It will get worse unless we, the patients, make a big noise, somehow. We must embarrass the agencies designed to protect us, to fulfill our human rights. We can start a movement that mushrooms to include autism, FM, Atypical MS, GWI, CFS (in the U.S./ME in the UK), and many other illnesses ignored or neglected by these agencies. If we remain silent, we will be ignored until we die. But then, there’s the next generation, and many of these illnesses have been show to be generational. I don’t want that for any more of our kids and grandkids; I have a grdau already sick with CFS since age 14, I don’t want yours to get any transmissible disease either.
We are fighting from our beds, from our lounge chairs, our sofas. We cannot march in the streets. Maybe you cannot either; however, writing, flooding email boxes and hand written letters demanding our human right to appropriate medical care is what you can do. Besides the committees and agencies specific to GWI, and your own representatives, there is the Senate Health and Labor Pensions oversight committee (HELP), ironically named.
I hope you will join us in our cause, as we want to bring you all into it:
mcwpa.org and on Facebook: causes.com/causes/511536
We have over 1775 members, as you can see on the Cause page. The money reflected as donated there has come from some of us major contributors, and many, many $10, $25, and larger commitments to our cause. Many are beginning to make monthly pledges so we can continue our Ad campaign. I hope you will join us.
The total amount reflected on the Cause page cannot be changed; but subtract the $10,500 we spent on the Washington Post Ad and Press Release (shown in over 100 media markets, and still counting. One can see that we are beginning anew and will need that $10K to do it again, and again, and again, until our governments get the message that we will no longer be invisible, no longer be given lip service and paltry sums of research and treatment funding. I’ll be back to show you something really neat!
See this!
Zoom in to see more clearly…
http://mcwpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Times-Square.jpg
mcwpa.org
http://mcwpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Times-Square.jpg
mcwpa.org
THAT’S getting attention!!!