[1] What is the GWVIS ?
Public Law 102-85, enacted on November 4, 1992, authorized the creation of the Gulf War Registry as well as the Gulf War Veterans Information System (GWVIS). VA began preparing GWVIS reports in 2000, and VA ceased producing the reports in 2008 after VCS observed that VA’s GWVIS reports were incomplete. VA has since confirmed that it failed to update computer programming to identify all disabled Gulf War veterans.

[2] Where is the GWVI-TF and why do they not demand the GWVIS report production in a through and timely manner (like Sept 2010)?

John Gingrich, Chief of Staff for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and Chairman of is the Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses Task Force
(GWVI-TF, or “Task Force”).
the Task Force was designed as a matrix organization within VA that meets regularly to investigate allegations and perceptions, analyze facts and data, coordinate and review findings and proposals, and collaboratively develop recommendations.
The Task Force includes staff from the
Office of the Secretary (OSVA), VHA, VBA,
Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs (OPIA),
Office of Policy and Planning (OPP), and the
Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs (OCLA).

The staff from these offices represented a broad spectrum of subject matter expertise and stakeholder perspectives necessary to ensure success. Members were charged with defining the key areas of review, consulting key experts and relevant stakeholders, and capturing the issues, data, programmatic and performance information necessary to inform their recommendations.

[3] How does the stakeholders organizations and veterans know the VA system is being used in behalf Gulf War Veterans with the data from the GWVIS or meetings/phone numbers/webpage of the Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses Task Force ?
Is this lack of communication with the Taskforce valuable for gulf war era vets?
Will service connection for veterans Sunset?

Experiments on our Military

This a Study that a VA proform on Gulf War Veterans

FRIDAY, April 9 (HealthDay News) -- The cluster of symptoms experienced by some veterans of the 1991 Gulf War is a real disease, but its causes, treatment and potential cure remain unknown, concludes a new report from U।S। experts at the Institute of Medicine (IOM)।
However, newer medical technology, including the ability examine genetic mutations, may hold the key to finally unraveling the mystery of an illness that has plagued one-third of Gulf War veterans for two decades, the experts said.

The panel "identified chronic multi-symptom illnesses, sometimes referred to as Gulf War illness, as a group of illnesses that is clearly associated with deployment," said report committee chair Dr. Stephen L. Hauser, professor and chair of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.

According to the report, released April 9, service in the Gulf War has long been linked with gastrointestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome, as well as substance abuse, particularly alcoholism, and psychiatric problems such as anxiety disorder.

In addition, service during the Gulf War is associated with fibromyalgia and chronic widespread pain, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (the neurological disorder also known as "Lou Gehrig's disease") and sexual difficulties.

However, more research is needed to understand the biological underpinnings of these illnesses, Hauser said. That information is vital to developing better treatments, cures and "one day to prevent this from happening in the future," he added.

In 2008, a Congressionally mandated report from the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses did point to wartime exposures to "certain chemicals," including pesticides and a drug used to shield soldiers against nerve gas, as the likely cause of veterans' symptoms.

But Hauser said the IOM panel could not confirm that. "We have been unable to identify any particular drug, toxin, immunization or exposure that we feel confident is responsible for these symptoms, which are clearly highly prevalent even 19 years later in our returning veterans," he said.

"We do not understand the etiology and do not fully understand whether this is a single medical problem, or several interrelated problems," Hauser added. "We don't understand the relationship between Gulf War illness and other multi-symptom problems."

Gulf War-linked illnesses affect not only U.S. veterans, but veterans from the United Kingdom, Denmark, Canada and Australia, Hauser noted.

This is the latest in a series of reports on Gulf War illness from the IOM.

According to Hauser, the latest medical technologies may open a door to finding the connection between deployment and Gulf War illnesses. "Modern science gives us a way to explore the underlying cause in a way that was unimaginable five years ago," he said.

Unlocking the secret of Gulf War illness is possible, Hauser said. Not only will this lead to better treatment for veterans, but for civilians who suffer from similar problems, he said.

Moreover, some of these same problems are being seen in soldiers fighting today in Iraq and Afghanistan and even among those not deployed.

"One of the interesting things that we see are the symptoms we have been focused on in the Gulf War, are experienced also by soldiers in current Mid-East wars, but the frequency of these symptoms is high even in those soldiers who are not deployed," Hauser said. "This seems to be an increasing problem in the military population at large."

IOM Committee member Dr. Ezra S. Susser, a professor of epidemiology at Mailman School of Public Health and professor of psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York City, noted that symptoms observed among Gulf War veterans are "clearly deployment-related."

"This doesn't mean that only people in the Gulf War get these symptoms, but they are at much higher risk than people who were not deployed to the Gulf War," Susser said.

The members of the IOM committee hope the report will spur a new effort to understand Gulf War illness.

"There is a silver lining in the gray cloud," said committee member Dr. Robert Brown Jr., chair and professor of neurology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He believes that researchers now have "both the structure and the numbers of cases at hand to enable a frontal assault on this."

Dr. Nancy G. Klimas, a professor of medicine, psychology microbiology and immunology and director of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Gulf War Injuries Research Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and the Miami VA Medical Center, noted that her own studies have already identified genetic dispositions to Gulf War syndrome.

Among veterans with Gulf War disease, stress activates genetic pathways that are inflammatory, Klimas said. "There is something about an autonomic challenge that triggers an inflammatory response," she said. "There are about 700 genes that activate in a way in these guys that have Gulf War illness that is different from the control population."

This is only one way genes can be used to understand Gulf War illness. "What we hope is that we will be designing studies that are 'virtual' clinical trials," Klimas said. In this way, researchers can change variables in key genes and see what the response is.

Klimas said that, as each year goes by, the search for the causes of Gulf War syndrome gets tougher. "To start 10 years after someone's been ill, it's harder to unravel the confounds," she said. "So you get these overlays of confusing things on top of whatever was there to begin with -- it makes it a very difficult thing to try to untangle."

As a doctor who treats veterans with Gulf War illness, Klimas is looking for research that will find better treatments. "I am interested in studies that will result in therapies," she said. "These guys have been sick for 20 years."

"Now is the time to do more," Hauser added.


Copyright © 2010 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

SOURCES: Stephen L. Hauser, M.D., professor and chair of neurology, University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine; Robert Brown, Jr., M.D., chair and professor of neurology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Ma.; Ezra S. Susser, M.D., Ph.D., professor of epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health and professor of psychiatry, College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, New York City; Nancy G. Klimas, M.D., professor of medicine, psychology, microbiology and immunology, director, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Gulf War Injuries Research Center, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and Miami VA Medical Center; April 9, 2010, Institute of Medicine report, Gulf War and Health

Will VA continue Gulf War Health Survey Cohort ?

This notice could be the Deconstruction of Gulf War Programs/Regulations.
Gulf war illness—better, worse, or just the same? Annual cohort study
First, to describe changes in the health of Gulf war veterans studied in a previous occupational cohort study
and to compare outcome with comparable non-deployed military personnel.

Secondly, to determine whether differences in prevalence between Gulf veterans and controls at follow up can be explained by greater persistence or greater incidence of disorders.

Third, Gulf War Veterans have previously been shown to have, in the short-term, an excess risk of death from ‘external’(i.e. non-disease) causes of death.

Fourth, study aims to determine whether there remains an excess of non-disease-related deaths in Gulf Veterans, years after deployment, and, for long as GW vets/stakers use the VA System,(this study) needed to determine whether there is a relationship between experiences reported in the Gulf, post-war symptoms, and subsequent mortality experience.

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
>
> [OMB Control No. 2900-New (VA Form 10-0488)]
>
> Proposed Information Collection (Follow-Up Study of a National
> Cohort of Gulf War and Gulf Era Veterans) Activity: Comment Request
> AGENCY: Veterans Health Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs.
> ACTION: Notice.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------->
With respect to the following collection of information, VHA invites comments on:
(1) Whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of VHA's functions, including whether the information will have practical utility;

(2) the accuracy of VHA's estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of information;

(3) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and

(4) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents, including through the use of automated collection techniques or the use of other forms of information technology.

Jagmedic said
Seeing Federal Registry Notices like this makes me wonder if the "don't Look - don't Find" Doctrine is being reactivated?