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AMY POND

August 30, 2007                                                    (619)
422-5963 or (619) 889-5963

Congressman Filner Announces
Victory for Deceased POWs

Congressman Bob Filner's bill, Honor Our Fallen Prisoners of War, to
present a posthumous Purple Heart to the families of POWs who had
previously been overlooked, has been approved for implementation by the
United States Department of Defense (DoD).

Currently, only POWs who die during their imprisonment, of wounds
inflicted by an instrument of war, are eligible for posthumous Purple
Heart recognition.  Those who die of starvation, disease, abuse or other
causes while imprisoned are not eligible.  Congressman Filner's bill
corrects this injustice. "This distinction is arbitrary, and it does not
make any sense. Every soldier who dies while imprisoned by an enemy of
war should be recognized and honored!" said Congressman Filner.

His bill was included as a section in the National Defense Authorization
Act for 2007, which passed in October of 2006 and directed the President
and the DoD to review the criteria used to determine eligibility for the
award of the Purple Heart for POWs.  The review has been completed, and
the report has been released to Chairman Ike Skelton of the House Armed
Services Committee and to Chairman Carl Levin of the Senate Armed
Services Committee.

"The report says that changing the eligibility criteria for the Purple
Heart has merit for POWs who die while in captivity and who are eligible
for the Prisoner-of-War Medal, which includes virtually all POWs," said
Congressman Filner.

Senator Barbara Boxer introduced the companion bill in the Senate.  The
inspiration for the bill came from Wilbert "Shorty" Estabrook of Selma,
Texas, who was imprisoned during the Korean War for over three years,
and Rick and Brenda Tavares of Campo, California.  Brenda's uncle,
Corporal Melvin Morgan, died of starvation and beatings in 1950 at the
age of 20 in Korea.
#  #  #

As most of you know there is a raging battle since Vietnam of what constitutes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), is it curable, or is it only treatable with minimizing some of the effects of PTSD, is it even recognizable in its infancy, is it a life long disorder, how long does it take to diagnose, how many visits, and what is the proper methodology; and on and on.

 

In addition, there seems to be a battle between the medical doctors and the psychologist and psychiatry in general regarding this issue.

 

I cannot stress enough the lack of taking into consideration the neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric effects of the herbicides used in Vietnam.  That is the first rule of DSM-IV. 

 

Yet, it seems it has been totally ignored because of the Veterans cost and possible incrimination of the toxic chemicals themselves.

 

NEUROLOGICAL AND NEUROPSYCHIATRIC EFFECTS

 

Many times, I have posted findings of Ranch Hand found neuropsychological disorders, Army Chemical Corps findings of increased mental disorders, IARC findings of personality changes when exposed to the dioxin, TCDD, Dow Chemical statements made in 1965 of neuropsychological disorders associated, Harvard medical studies, EPA has reported mental faculties disorders which I would think could be found as PTSD symptoms or at least confused as part of the diagnosis.  If one looks at the reports of mental disorders found significant, not diagnosed as PTSD but found as separate issues such as mood disorders, schizophrenia, anxiety, panic attacks, depression; Ranch Hand alone found statically significant excess in - psychological disorders of depression, somatization, and severity of psychological distress.  Antisocial and paranoid scores were significantly higher along with psychotic delusion.  I would also add in the chemical company workers themselves sent into clean up toxic spills, forest workers, rail road workers and the increase in suicides is also part of this complicated equation.

 

Even the CDC noted:

 

In the 1988 Psychosocial Characteristics part of the Vietnam Experience Study (VES), <172> the CDC
found that among Vietnam veterans, certain psychological problems were significantly more prevalent, including depression (4.5% vs. 2.3%; odds ratio = 2.0; 95% C.I. = 1.3 - 1.8) and generalized anxiety (4.9% vs. 3.2%;
odds ratio = 2.0; 95% C.I. = 1.1 - 2.1).  About 15% of Vietnam, veterans experienced combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder at some time during their military service.  Depression and anxiety were not restricted to the group of veterans having posttraumatic stress disorder. 

 

If you took three or four of these disorders as a sum rather than individual disorders in a report could you not diagnose at PTSD or did you miss PTSD.  I think the answer is obvious and very confusing as what part is trauma and what part is a neurotoxic chemical.  So yes, it is no wonder doctors have a hard time defining what is PTSD in Vietnam Veterans.  Moreover, certainly this why in some cases decades after the trauma our Vietnam Veterans are diagnosed with PTSD as the toxic chemical effects manifest.

 

Nevertheless, assuming there were no toxic chemicals; can we put a time line on as VA has done in the past with the toxic chemical damages?  The answer is no.

 

Many Veterans turned to drugs, many to alcohol or both and some turned into working themselves to death to avoid the confrontations.

 

As they get older, they can no longer work as they once did and finally they have to admit there is an issue and have been in their life since their return from war.  They have to admit that in many cases, they were wrong and it was not the world and their family that was wrong in every case.

 

Most of these men will not have made many friends since returning from Vietnam.  They may have workers at work they have to get along with or in some cases not and they lose their job.  They have a few acquaintances but that is about it as a strong indicator.

 

Now I did not make this up.  This is a result of talking to two VA mental health doctors for at least 16 weeks twice a week that run a very good program on recovery.

 

The one thing that really disturbed me was the one doctor said in 16 years no one from VA benefits had called him to discuss a case.  How VA can deny any case without talking to the treating VA doctor is about out of my capability to rationalize.  Obviously, they can and do more often than not.

 

I think from my experience with these doctors the first thing is to get the Veteran that there is a potential problem early on and his or her life certainly will have better quality.  That he or she is given the tools to recognize the symptoms and then seek treatment in both counseling as well as medication if needed.

 

Below is the article and this continuing saga of PTSD.

 

  

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Controversy Swirls Around PTSD in Vietnam Vets

Military.com | Law & Health Week | August 31, 2007

Controversy Builds About the Prevalence of PTSD in Vietnam Veterans

Newswise — Controversy continues to swirl concerning the findings of a landmark study that estimated the percentage of Vietnam veterans suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

 

Traumatic stress experts have renewed a clash over the results of the 1988 National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS), which originally estimated that 30.9 percent of veterans endure the effects of PTSD during their lifetime, and that 15.2 percent still suffered from PTSD more then ten years after the war.  The actual prevalence of PTSD in veterans is vigorously debated among the field’s leading researchers, with long-lasting public policy implications for veterans of all U.S. wars, including the current conflict in Iraq.

New opinions by several parties involved are reported in the August issue of the Journal of Traumatic Stress, published by the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS).

 

Bruce P. Dohrenwend, PhD, of Columbia University, et al. conducted a recent reanalysis of the NVVRS, which found an 18.7 percent prevalence rate of lifetime war-related PTSD and 9.2 percent of current PTSD at the time of the study.  The authors say that the finding of lower rates is the result only of differences in the definition of the disorder and does not represent a significantly lower total number of soldiers impacted.

 

The key finding of their study, according to Dohrenwend et al., was that the NVVRS confirms a “strong dose/response relationship between severity of exposure to war-zone stressors and PTSD.”  The more soldiers are exposed to the horrors of war, the more likely they are to suffer from posttraumatic stress.

 

Richard J. McNally, PhD, of Harvard University, argues that the original NVVRS and the more recent Dohrenwend reanalysis overestimated the prevalence of PTSD in veterans by using faulty criteria for diagnosing the disorder.  According to McNally, 5.4 percent of Vietnam veterans showed clinically significant functional impairment at the time of the NVVRS study.

 

“Eliminating cases who exhibit no functional impairment is an important way to address a chief concern of the NVVRS’s critics,” said McNally.  “Not all emotional changes wrought by serving in a war zone are symptoms of disease or disorder.”

 

A number of experts disagree with McNally’s interpretation of the data, including the original authors of the NVVRS study.  William E. Schlenger, PhD, of Duke University Medical Center, et al., claim McNally misrepresents the findings of Dohrenwend et al.’s analysis.

 

“[McNally’s] erroneous statements and misrepresentations seem clearly to be not random,” said Schlenger et al. “Instead, they appear to have been crafted to support a specific bias that has significant policy implications, i.e. that PTSD prevalence among Vietnam veterans is a minor problem, and the real problem is veterans faking combat exposure and PTSD symptoms to qualify for service-connected disability.”

 

According to Dean Kilpatrick, PhD, of the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center Medical University, “In my view, the reexamination by Dohrenwend and colleagues is a major contribution to this public policy debate…It confirms that most veterans of the Vietnam War were resilient, but that an important subset continued to have PTSD over a decade after the war was over.”

 

Despite disagreements on numbers and methods, the experts concur that the government has a responsibility to adequately treat veterans with PTSD.  “Regardless of [frequency], the central issue is whether resources are sufficient to meet current demand,” said McNally.  “The key question is, 'If a veteran seeks mental health care, will that be able to obtain prompt access to state-of-the-art, evidence-based [care]?’  If not, then we must increase resources."

 

The International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies is an international multidisciplinary, professional membership organization that promotes advancement and exchange of knowledge about severe stress and trauma.

Copyright 2007 Military.com.  All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com.

 

From the August issue of the Journal of Traumatic Stress, published by the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) via Military.com.

Note the disagreement with these study results by the one of the original authors of the NVVRS study, William E. Schlenger.

 

Here is a bit of the information the interview with the authors of 'An Enormous Crime' had to discuss. This information needs to be reported across this nation, and our concerns sent to this administration and Congress. This info is taken from information about the book on www.Amazon.com:
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Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly

Controversial former North Carolina congressman Bill Hendon and attorney Elizabeth Stewart make the case that the U.S. knowingly left hundreds of POWs in Vietnam and Laos in 1973, and that every presidential administration since then has covered it up. The main reason for the secrecy, say the authors, is the billions in war reparations demanded by the Vietnamese and promised by Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon at the Paris Peace talks. Hendon and Stewart provide a mountain of evidence, mainly intelligence reports of live sightings of American prisoners in Vietnam and Laos that make for less-than-scintillating reading. But riveting sections describe Hendon's crusade on this issue in the early 1980s, including two meetings with President Reagan, pleading his case that the government free the live POWs. Hendon and Stewart directly accuse a long list of government officials of the coverup. Among the most culpable: Kissinger, President George H.W. Bush, Senators John McCain and John Ke rry, Gen. Colin Powell, former secretary of state George Schultz and former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. It's a chore wading through the live-sighting reports and the massive, detailed endnotes, but the descriptions of Hendon's unsuccessful personal mission provide an intriguing story-and carry the ring of truth. 36 b&w photos not seen by PW. (June 1) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description The dramatic history of living American soldiers left in Vietnam, and the first full account of the circumstances that left them there.

An Enormous Crime is nothing less than shocking. Based on thousands of pages of public and previously classified documents, it makes an utterly convincing case that when the American government withdrew its forces from Vietnam, it knowingly abandoned hundreds of POWs to their fate. The product of twenty-five years of research by former Congressman Bill Hendon and attorney Elizabeth A. Stewart, An Enormous Crime brilliantly exposes the reasons why these American soldiers and airmen were held back by the North Vietnamese at Operation Homecoming in
1973 and what these men have endured since.

Despite hundreds of postwar sightings and intelligence reports telling of Americans being held captive throughout Vietnam and Laos, Washington did nothing. And despite numerous secret military signals and codes sent from the desperate POWs themselves, the Pentagon did not act. Even in 1988, a U.S. spy satellite passing over Sam Neua Province, Laos, spotted the twelve-foot-tall letters "USA" and immediately beneath them a huge, highly classified Vietnam War-era USAF/USN Escape & Evasion code in a rice paddy in a narrow mountain valley. The letters "USA" appeared to have been dug out of the ground, while the code appeared to have been fashioned from rice straw (see jacket photograph).

Tragically, the brave men who constructed these codes have not yet come home. Nor have any of the other American POWs who the postwar intelligence shows have laid down similar codes, secret messages, and secret authenticators in rice paddies and fields and garden plots and along trails in both Laos and Vietnam.

An Enormous Crime is based on open-source documents and reports, and thousands of declassified intelligence reports and satellite imagery, as well as author interviews and personal experience. It is a singular work, telling a story unlike any other in our modern history: ugly, harrowing, and true.

From the Bay of Pigs, where John and Robert Kennedy struck a deal with Fidel Castro that led to freedom for the Bay of Pigs prisoners, to the Paris Peace Accords, in which the authors argue Kissinger and Nixon sold American soldiers down the river for political gain, to a continued reluctance to revisit the possibility of reclaiming any men who might still survive, we have a story untold for decades. And with An Enormous Crime we have for the first time a comprehensive history of America's leaders in their worst hour; of life-and-death decision making based on politics, not intelligence; and of men lost to their families and the country they serve, betrayed by their own leaders.

Author Biography

Former U.S. Rep. BILL HENDON (R-NC) served two terms on the U.S. House POW/MIA Task Force (1981-1982 and 1985-1986); as consultant on POW/MIA Affairs with an office in the Pentagon (1983); and as a full-time intelligence investigator assigned to the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs
(1991-1992). He has traveled to South and Southeast Asia thirty-three times on behalf of America's POWs and MIAs. Hendon is considered the nation's foremost authority on intelligence relating to American POWs held after Operation Homecoming and an expert on the Vietnamese and Laotian prison systems. He lives in Washington, D.C.

ELIZABETH STEWART's father, Col. Peter J. Stewart (USAF), is missing in action in North Vietnam. His name appears on Panel 6E, Line 12, of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Elizabeth Stewart has spent more than two decades researching intelligence relating to American POWs and MIAs. Her efforts have taken her from Capitol Hill to Cambodia, from the South China Sea to the presidential palace in Hanoi, and to the most remote regions of northern Vietnam. An attorney, she lives in central Florida.