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Study Shows Agent Orange Still Taints Aging C-123s
__roo writes "Herbicides used in Vietnam in the 1970s still pose a threat to servicemen, according to a study published Friday. The U.S. Air Force and Department of Veteran Affairs denied benefits to sick veterans, taking the position that any dioxin or other components of Agent Orange contaminating its fleet of C-123 cargo planes would have been 'dried residues' and unlikely to pose meaningful exposure risks. According to the lead researcher, 'The VA, whether out of ignorance or malice, has denied the entire existence of this entire branch of science. They have this preposterous idea that somehow there is this other kind of state of matter — a dried residue that is completely inert.' To show that such exposures happened, her research team had to be 'very clever.'"
if it was a private company that did not have a fascist relationship with the government you know the EPA would be all up in their asses
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Not saying that dried residues aren't dangerous, but the researcher's quote in the summary comes off as extremely disingenuous.
Of course being exposed to dried residues will result in much lower levels of exposure than being REPEATEDLY DOUSED with liquid herbicide as were field infantry in the Vietnam war.
Toxicology is all about maximum safe dosages - scary sounding toxins like arsenic, radon, dioxin, mercury, and even radionucleotides are pervasive in our environment. The question is whether the level of exposure is biologically significant or not. While the VA's contention that the levels of exposure to Agent Orange residues is safe is a valid matter for debate, they nowhere claim that it has magically transformed into some heretofore unknown state of matter.
I'm a 'Nam vet and I get all of my health care from the VA. With very, very rare exceptions, everybody I've dealt with over the last several decades has understood that if it weren't for people like me, they wouldn't have their government jobs. Once in a while, I'll grant, there's a paper-pusher who's more interested in making sure that the forms are filled out than in giving good service, but almost everybody who is involved in caring for veterans and their dependents gives good, prompt, cheerful service. If the VA has been denying that dioxins in C-123s is a hazard, there are many possible reasons, but malice is the least likely of all. As in everything else, ignorance is always a much more probable reason.
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My father was a service connected disabled (both physical and mental) WW2 Vet and I would strongly disagree with this assessment. I took care of him for many years and struggled with the VA - although they did increase his pension towards the end.
The VA psych doctors were compassionless, unprofessional and bottom of the class grade doctors and I would often have to research the drugs they were prescribing and inform them of the side-effects and suitability to his condition. They eventually killed my father by over prescribing drugs like Haldol and other harsh psychotropics.
Not much information in the linked articles. A Huff Post fluff piece and a summary of the study, which is behind a pay wall. No way to say if the study really says anything important.
Yet *another* reason not to serve in the military.
All I can say is, what I reported is not just my own personal experience, but that of every vet I know who uses the VA. I'm sorry that you ran across a set of bad apples, and that they did your father's condition so much damage. And, I'll agree that the psych departments are probably the worst; I needed help from them at one point and I had to fight with the person doing the original write-up to get her to describe my complaints as I told them to her, instead of re-writing them to fit her own pre-conceived ideas. (She simply couldn't understand that I could be unemployed, broke and depressed without being violent and/or suicidal.)
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no choice? http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=spray%20poisons&sm=3
If the VA has been denying that dioxins in C-123s is a hazard, there are many possible reasons, but malice is the least likely of all. As in everything else, ignorance is always a much more probable reason.
If the person making the statement was simply ignorant of the facts he could look them up before acting. Wilful irresponsibility counts as malice in my books.
Err, those planes have been out of the inventory for thirty years or more, as the abstract confirms. All or damn close to all have been turned back into aluminum ingots - a process that should eliminate dioxin contamination from the metal. You might have the occasional light exposure from moving an old aircraft about, and anyone still using these on the civilian market (there used to be a few) should pay attention to this, but staying 'still contaminating' is a bit alarmist.
I thought the last of the C-123's that were used to spray Agent Orange were destroyed in 2010. I didn't RTFA, so I don't know if the planes in question are still in service.
All I can say is, what I reported is not just my own personal experience, but that of every vet I know who uses the VA. I'm sorry that you ran across a set of bad apples, and that they did your father's condition so much damage. And, I'll agree that the psych departments are probably the worst; I needed help from them at one point and I had to fight with the person doing the original write-up to get her to describe my complaints as I told them to her, instead of re-writing them to fit her own pre-conceived ideas. (She simply couldn't understand that I could be unemployed, broke and depressed without being violent and/or suicidal.)
I understand we each have our experiences. Yes the psych departments are the worst.... I didn't really have a problem with the physical medical care side of things. In fact I would agree that the teams assigned to the general medical side generally do a good job.
People need to understand that wars produce causalities and those causalities need to be taken care... sometimes for the rest of their lives. A war is never over until the last person involved dies.
Unless they are somehow fundamentally different from civilian medical services, I'd be inclined to suspect that the arm of the VA that is doctors and hospitals may have a very different attitude than the arm that is essentially a medical insurance agency...
Especially if the fight is over some relatively large epidemiological class ('Post-Vietnam C-123 crews') potentially being blanket-added or default-denied, that would be where the cost-reduction guys come slithering out from under their rocks.
never a better time to consider ourselves in relation to each other & other living stuff http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=starving%20populations&sm=3
The VA folks you have encountered are all rank-and-file types and none of them top brass, correct? If so then your analogy is misleading, since the people we are discussing here are in fact the decision-makers and the adverse consequences of their decisions. While the rank and file folks may be very humane people, experience has (or should have) taught us that the majority of top brass in every human hierarchy are sociopaths, not humane people. Your anecdote is not representative of those people, and they are the subject here.
All I can say is, what I reported is not just my own personal experience, but that of every vet I know who uses the VA.
Did you all use the same VA hospital?
I know that the quality of the Principal heavily dictates the quality of the school. Maybe the same goes for hospital administrators.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
The last couple of days I've been seeing layout bugs (like right now one of the sidebar boxes is blocking the "Load More Comments" button) and links to stories getting disabled a few seconds after loading the front page.
Has Dice decided to make classic the new beta or something?
Original article title:
Agent Orange Posed A Health Threat To Servicemen Long After Vietnam
Slashdot headline:
Herbicides used in Vietnam in the 1970s still pose a threat to servicemen
These planes were repurposed for other duties during the 70's. They went out of service in 1982. They don't "still" pose a threat because nobody is using them. The issue is for the servicemen who worked on them 40 years ago.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Psychologists everywhere are the worst. It's not the VA that's the problem, it's the profession. It needs to be purged with fire and sword.
But perhaps they could never even understand that's figurative language, because none of them took a class in literature.
Did you all use the same VA hospital?
Not all VA facilities are hospitals. Yes, some of us used the same VA hospital, but others get their care at a clinic that's closer to where they live. Depending on what I need, I use both, giving an overlap and a broader perspective. Although they're both in the Los Angeles area, neither one of them has any authority over the other. What happens in other parts of the country I don't know, but I have no reason to think that my experiences aren't typical.
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I think the mental side is often more difficult than the physical side when it comes to the effects of war on an individual service member. We still don't have a really good understanding of what goes on inside the head due to the events and demands of war, although a much better picture is emerging with modern medicine, research, and the veterans of the current conflicts. When you add to that the difficulties with finding effective treatments and drugs without bad side effects, some veterans have had a very difficult road to walk indeed. In wars past the US hasn't always done well in treating psychological casualties. And the US military's personnel system used in some wars didn't provide the structure and practices that other armies have had that helped provide resilience in soldiers. Hopefully things will improve on all fronts, and there will be a future of greater peace that won't call for such sacrifice.
I'm sorry to hear about your father. I hope he found some peace, and you as well.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The VA folks you have encountered are all rank-and-file types and none of them top brass, correct?
I won't say that I've ever encountered any of the top brass, but I have had a number of interactions with managers of various levels. In one case, a manager apologized to me for slow service, explaining that although he was authorized to have twelve clerks, upper management had only given him five, and he'd not been able to pry the other seven loose from whatever else they were doing. And once, I was complaining about how far behind a department had gotten, I was asked by a suit to discuss the issue. It turned out that this department was under investigation for exactly that, and they needed my testimony to help find out just what was happening and why. I even got a call, once, from the manager in charge of a small community clinic because I'd complained about a complete lack of common sense in their phlebotomist. (He'd insisted on taking blood samples from orders that were several years old but not signed off, even though I had paperwork with me showing exactly what tests I needed.) The next time I came in, the phlebotomist told me how sorry he was and that it wouldn't happen again.
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... the quality of the Principal heavily dictates the quality of the school...
Qualis rex, talis grex.
Nihil mutat.
My father was a service connected disabled (both physical and mental) WW2 Vet and I would strongly disagree with this assessment. I took care of him for many years and struggled with the VA - although they did increase his pension towards the end.
The VA psych doctors were compassionless, unprofessional and bottom of the class grade doctors and I would often have to research the drugs they were prescribing and inform them of the side-effects and suitability to his condition. They eventually killed my father by over prescribing drugs like Haldol and other harsh psychotropics.
And yet, Slashdot in general lauds the takeover of medicine by government.
I'll have to check my jump log.
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
Sigh....In the article: "All but three of the aircraft were smelted down in 2009"
So smelt down the last three.
Dioxin is a real problem but the 34 aircraft involved and their crew is a very small
population. There are vastly more dioxin contaminated transformers and workers
scattered far and wide.
Someone is attempting to make a buck selling instrumentation in most likelihood.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Agreed. And where other hospitals try to provide all the care they think they can bill your insurance for, the VA is trapped between trying to be fiscally responsible and being seen by the public as taking good care of our veterans. It's a tough position to be in. I've had good and bad experiences with the VA, but mostly good. And I'm a priority 7 patient or whatever level it is that means broke as hell but without any service-connected disability.
And that of course is why you received a "-1 flamebait" unjustly. Some moderators believe, mistakenly, that their job is to punish nonconformity in thinking.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
1. Chemicals degrade over time oxygen is great at destroying most compounds.
2. The C-123s have been out of US military service since the early 1980s.The only C-123s left in US military service are in museums.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Ah. I'm now priority six: broke as hell, but with a zero-percent service connected disability. I have hearing problems that can be traced back to being exposed to too much outgoing shore support back on the Gun Line in '72. It's not enough for compensation, but I do get my hearing aids and batteries for free, and get pushed ahead of people like you when I need access to a limited resource. I'm not sure, but I may have gotten a benefit from this once. After I had my first cataract surgery, I was told that they couldn't schedule my second for six months, so they put me on a waiting list. My second eye was taken care of only six weeks later. I can't be sure, of course, that I bumped somebody else, but I've always wondered about it.
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Wars hurt everyone who participates. I don't see why Agent Orange is any more or less worthy of our outrage and horror than the land mines, heroin addiction, PTSD and metal projectiles fired with the purpose of penetrating flesh.
For some reason, we have classified guns and fighter jets as sexy, but Agent Orange as a monstrosity. There must have been less profit in poisonous chemical defoliants.
You are welcome on my lawn.
And that of course is why you received a "-1 flamebait" unjustly. Some moderators believe, mistakenly, that their job is to punish nonconformity in thinking.
Guess I made the mistake of saying something true :)
Anyway, I must have been wrong. I'm sure their government doctors would be skilled, compassionate, etc., nothing like the government doctors we already have and can see. Er, just because.
The problem with government is sometimes the business types get in charge. It's happening in my country, veteran affairs was cut back to close to nothing, no more pensions as they're too expensive. Most all offices closed down because too expensive. Large amount of Afghanistan vets committing suicide, just a cost of business and they should have been tougher. Yet the government has lots of money for PR purposes with record amounts spent on advertising how fiscally responsible they are and what a great job they're doing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
When the US does it, it's herbicides. When anyone else does it, it's chemical weapons.
Despite the flames I'll get for saying it and the vehement disagreement proponents will spew, that's because psychology is not a science. Not even a little bit. The human mind is far too complex a thing for the current state of our understanding to treat scientifically. Psychologists aren't much better than snake oil salesmen.
You may have, at least, a claim for tinnitus-if, of course, you have that. That is 10% and at least is something.
If it's not broken, let's fix it till it is.
As a point, it's not just US VA in the US but Canada, and Europe as well with piss poor psych departments. I've always wondered if the field draws up a special kind of asshole, especially from everything I've seen or heard second hand from friends who've been at their mercies.
Om, nomnomnom...
Despite the flames I'll get for saying it and the vehement disagreement proponents will spew, that's because psychology is not a science. Not even a little bit. The human mind is far too complex a thing for the current state of our understanding to treat scientifically. Psychologists aren't much better than snake oil salesmen.
Simple question is, what scientific test do they perform to diagnose a 'chemical imbalance' before prescribing pills to attempt to 'correct the imbalance'? If it's a chemical imbalance, then there *must* be a test to find it right? Blood workup? MRI/CT scan (with some element that crosses the blood/brain barrier to see maybe)?
In fairness social psychology at least seems to be becoming a real science - it's apparently not nearly so difficult to model the behavior of groups of people as individuals. Just our luck that the only branch of psychology to be an actual science is the one that's really good for manipulating us (as a group) into buying shit we wouldn't otherwise want, and predicting just how far they can push a population before something snaps. Coincidence?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I object the serpentine imagery you're attaching to amoral cost-reduction professionals.
It's deeply insulting to snakes.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
In wars past the US hasn't always done well in treating psychological casualties. And the US military's personnel system used in some wars didn't provide the structure and practices that other armies have had that helped provide resilience in soldiers.
This is a bit of an understatement. Other than to create terms like 'shell shock' and 'combat fatigue', long term psychological problems developed by people (non soldiers as well) in combat areas were actively ignored and swept under the table. The reasons are actually pretty clear - PTSD (the current term of art) is pervasive among combat veterans and very, very dificult to treat. Best if it doesn't happen.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Guess I made the mistake of saying something true :)
No, you made the mistake of thinking a doctor paid by the government is the same thing as a doctor employed by the government. Those of us who live in civilized societies know this to be false, under most (if not all) UHC schemes the government takes the role of medical insurer, not the role of care giver. The doctors and nurses are the same people under both regimes.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Did any Vietnamese people suffer harm from this chemical?
They can sprinkle it on their research and make burritos.
Psychologists everywhere are the worst. It's not the VA that's the problem, it's the profession.
Except he wasn't talking about psychologists. He was talking about psychiatrists. Not at all the same thing.
It is interesting everyone ignores the greater harm agent orange is doing to the Vietnamese servicemen.
No, or at least that's not why I need hearing aids. I have what's called an artillery notch: a loss of hearing acuity at certain frequencies caused by mechanical damage, but the loss isn't high enough for compensation. I get my hearing tested every two years, but it hasn't degraded enough as yet to change my rating.
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I think, as other commenters are saying, that this is strongly related to where you are getting your help.
My uncle, who is also a Vietnam veteran, has just now been getting some level of help from the VA after beating cancer three separate times, which have all been linked to exposure to Agents Orange, Purple and others that I did not know existed. At every chance, the VA is blocking with assistance, often without a smile on their face. Sadly, my brother has been facing similar issues with the VA related to injuries sustained in Afghanistan, and he was in Bethesda, MD (a major VA hospital).
The VA is known for this type of behavior and I have met numerous people with identical experiences from completely different locations.
With that, I have no idea about the dried up chemicals, but I will always be highly suspicious of the VA's side of things based on the above personal experience, and added secondhand experience.
Agreed, and that's why I've been careful to make it clear that it's my own personal experience, and that of my friends. I only know what the quality of service is here in the Los Angeles area, because that's where I live and where I get my care. Yes, there are some bad apples, and possibly the management at some facilities encourages that attitude, but I can't testify to that because I haven't seen it. And, I still find it hard to believe that people are being blocked from getting proper care in this case because of malice, because I've not seen the slightest suggestion as to what reason there'd be for VA management to have such an attitude toward total strangers.
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under most (if not all) UHC schemes the government takes the role of medical insurer, not the role of care giver.
That really depends on the form of government. In some it does, in many it hasn't, historically. You could inquire with the former residents of what was the Soviet bloc, for example.
Those of us who live in civilized societies ...
Which includes the US. The US has a different system with different trade-offs in terms of pricing, wait times, drug and technology availability, and so on. Although there are challenges for the US system, it isn't clear that either the UK's NHS or Canada's current systems are sustainable in their present form either. Australia seems to be in better shape, and might be the best model if the US goes to some form of nationalized healthcare. It is clear that the continuing train wreck that is Obamacare will have to be done away with, reformed, or replaced. It seems unlikely that the Democrats will consent to removing the wreckage having forced it on the country.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Ugh.I know how that selective frequency hearing loss goes.
If it's not broken, let's fix it till it is.
I knew someone in Hawaii who would have died if he didn't have access to the higher quality facilities at a military hospital. YMMV.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
They dump a bag of chicken bones out and get a reading from the way they land. The bones never lie!
Pretty much the same thing. Only real difference is one gets paid more and can prescribe drugs.
Isn't it the same as the one created by a Republican candidate?
That sounds like a description of psychiatry in general, not just a VA thing.
I wonder how many Vets having a shootout in a government department it would take to change their minds...
I find it truly amazing (in a bad way). They claim to know the mechanism for depression and even psychosis yet they just use trial and error with the drugs they prescribe. They have no idea why one 'works' and another doesn't nor why the one that works stops working and another that didn't work starts working. It's about as scientific as slapping the side of the TV until the picture stops rolling.
The so-called double-blind tests of psychiatric drugs are a farce since sugar pills have no side effect but the active drugs they test have clear and obvious side effects. I doubt any patient on the actual drug doesn't know it.
They actually think that if the patient isn't aware of memory loss, there isn't any. According to the best of their reasoning, a powerful seditive cures a broken leg since the patient no longer complains about it (or anything else, naturally) once the dose is high enough.
I get that it's a tough nut to crack, but that doesn't excuse pretending to know things they obviously don't have a clue about.
I don't mean to insult you in any way and I'm sure you did a fine job, but "if it weren't for people like me, they wouldn't have their government jobs" - are you insinuating Vietnam was ever going to realistically invade the USA and wipe out the American people? Sounds a bit ridiculous to me.
Psychologists seem to do a lot less damage and there are at least a few things psychology seems to actually effectively treat. Psychiatry is voodoo with the ability to prescribe really whacky drugs indiscriminately.
The problem with your theory is that the problem he described applies equally to non-VA psychiatry.
Note the many comments lauding the other practices within the VA system.
Based on the horror stories I have seen and heard outside of the VA, I would be prepared to give it a try if I could.
Not really, no. Our system costs twice as much for less effective medicine.
I agree that Obamacare (AKA Romneycare) isn't really the answer but the GOP wouldn't allow an actual comprehensive system to get through the House.
No. I was referring to the fact that most of the veterans using the VA either aren't disabled or are getting treated for conditions that have nothing to do with the service, and if it weren't for us, 90% of the people working for the VA would be out of work.
Somewhere else in this thread I mentioned that I had cataract surgery done by the VA. There's a very small chance that I developed cataracts because I worked on CW radar in the Navy, but if so, there's no way of proving it. I never set foot ashore in 'Nam, so there's very little chance that my Type II diabetes has anything to do with Agent Orange. And yet, I get medical care for these and other conditions from the VA, and because I'm on a very limited income, I'm not charged. If the VA didn't provide that kind of care and only dealt with conditions that were directly related to the service, it would be far, far smaller, and that's what I was talking about.
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If you aren't hearing voices when you show up, they have a drug for that, and another one to cure it.
From the stories I've heard from people that have dealt with psychologists (particularly assigned ones), is that they tend to be fairly dismissive an uncaring in general. Your experience may have been more because it was a psychologist than them being with VA.
I've always had the suspicion that the VA was created to treat veterans to help cover up chronic illnesses caused by the US government's disregard for the troops' safety.
"And yet, Slashdot in general lauds the takeover of medicine by government."
Yes, because what he describes has nothing to do with private/public so what exactly is your point?
As a counter point, in the UK we have had major scandals with private sector care homes for the elderly where people have been abused physically and mentally and generally treated like shit left to sit in their own urine and faeces for days.
Or were you under some deluded impression that private sector is some magical saviour, with a ward against all things that could possibly be bad or go wrong?
Just because someone describes a problem with a particular public sector service doesn't mean the whole concept is faulty and flawed, nor does it mean that it could never possibly happen in private sector as well. The amount of mental gymnastics you must have had to perform to reach that conclusion based on the comment you referred to is astonishing and takes a special kind of stupid to achieve.
You, sir, are the epitome of a douchebag.
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1. There is a tradition in many Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Burma shave?
When will you compensate the millions of Vietnamese that are still suffering from the consequences of your war crimes?
Not really, no. Our system costs twice as much for less effective medicine.
I agree that Obamacare (AKA Romneycare) isn't really the answer but the GOP wouldn't allow an actual comprehensive system to get through the House.
Here's a citation from the peer-reviewed literature that supports your claim.
It's important to realize that when we say that Canada and other health care systems cost half as much as ours with about the same outcomes, that's not an ideological slogan like the Republicans use, but we have science-based facts to back it up.
http://www.openmedicine.ca/art...
Open Medicine, Vol 1, No 1 (2007)
Vol 1, No 1 (2007) > Guyatt
A systematic review of studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the United States
Methods: We identified studies comparing health outcomes of patients in Canada and the United States by searching multiple bibliographic databases and resources. We masked study results before determining study eligibility. We abstracted study characteristics, including methodological quality and generalizability.
Results: We identified 38 studies comparing populations of patients in Canada and the United States. Studies addressed diverse problems, including cancer, coronary artery disease, chronic medical illnesses and surgical procedures. Of 10 studies that included extensive statistical adjustment and enrolled broad populations, 5 favoured Canada, 2 favoured the United States, and 3 showed equivalent or mixed results. Of 28 studies that failed one of these criteria, 9 favoured Canada, 3 favoured the United States, and 16 showed equivalent or mixed results. Overall, results for mortality favoured Canada (relative risk 0.95, 95% confidence interval 0.92–0.98, p = 0.002) but were very heterogeneous, and we failed to find convincing explanations for this heterogeneity. The only condition in which results consistently favoured one country was end-stage renal disease, in which Canadian patients fared better.
Interpretation: Available studies suggest that health outcomes may be superior in patients cared for in Canada versus the United States, but differences are not consistent.
Speaking of ideological slogans from the Republicans:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02...
Health Care Horror Hooey
Paul Krugman
FEB. 23, 2014
(Right-wingers convinced Americans that farms are being broken up to pay "death tax" estate liabilities, but there is not one singe example. Now the Republicans are creating Obamacare horror stories, which don't hold up upon fact checking. In the GOP response to the State of the Union address, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers claimed "Bette in Spokane" had lost hergood insurance and was forced to pay $700 a month more. Local reporters found the real Betty, and found out [Bette Grenier had a catastrophic plan, and she refused to look on the ACA web site.] In Michigan, Americans for Prosperity, funded by the Koch Brothers, is running an ad about Julie Boonstra, who has leukemia, saying that her new policy will have unaffordable out-of-pocket costs. But Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post found that she will be saving more than she will be paying in out-of-pocket costs. [The Obamacare out-of-pocket maximum is $6,350. Her premiums were cut in half, from $1,100/mo to $571/mo.])
the true losers from Obamacare generally aren’t very sympathetic. For the most part, they’re either very affluent people affected by the special taxes that help finance reform, or at least moderately well-off young men in very good health who can no longer buy cheap, minimalist plans. Neither group would play well in tear-jerker ads.
Ignorance and trolling at it's best.
(She simply couldn't understand that I could be unemployed, broke and depressed without being violent and/or suicidal.)
As part of the general descent into fascism, there is a movement within the US to prevent veterans from privately owning guns by declaring them mentally unfit. She couldn't understand that because she was directed not to. Lots of people she reports to have told her that you're potentially very dangerous, and a few high-profile shootings were likely blown out of proportion in order to reinforce this point. The lack of hard science in the field makes psychiatry particularly easy to influence.
The truth is, the more tyrannical a government becomes, the more afraid they are of highly trained men who have a deep sense of honor. It really has nothing to do with public safety, preventing shootings, or giving you the best psychiatric care.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
To show that such exposures happened, her research team had to be 'very clever.'"
So they lied about it then?
Science and real research doesn't need you to be clever to suit your agenda. If you have to 'be clever', you're aren't doing science properly, you're just pushing your own politics and science has nothing to do with it.
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Or were you under some deluded impression that private sector is some magical saviour, with a ward against all things that could possibly be bad or go wrong?
You have accurately summarized the American right-wing faith in a nutshell.
The amount of mental gymnastics you must have had to perform to reach that conclusion based on the comment you referred to is astonishing and takes a special kind of stupid to achieve.
I'm glad you appreciate the hard work, effort and (most of all) money that the Koch brothers have put in to advancing the cause of stupidity for the 21st century. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02...
are busy playing the tiniest violins they can find.
Your unsourced single datapoint anecdote has convinced me.
Yep, my father used the VA medical system for pretty much everything major that happened to him after 65 or so due to very little income during his retirement years. They not only took care of his service related injuries (a land mind went off about 3 feet away from him, killing his buddy and throwing shrapnel into his leg and feet, destroying some of his toe joints) but they also performed cataract surgery, took care of several bits of cancer he had in his lungs, bladder and a couple other places, and then took care of him during his final days when we really couldn't afford to take care of him properly.
The VA took care of my father, and they take care of EVERY former member of the armed services (well, except some dishonorable discharged people). You might have to wait in line, but they will take care of you.
In my personal experience, which has been a lot of time in VA hospitals (At one point, I knew the name of every cafeteria worker working in the Gainsville Florida hospital, and where a couple of them lived thanks to them just being friendly to me in my time there.) its a shitty job they have, but they do it, and they take care of our service men.
And lets be clear, they damn well should take care of all of our service men and women, how we treat our soldiers when they return home says a lot about how we treat people in general.
We take care of our warriors. I'm proud of that fact, even if I'm not always proud of what we send our warriors off to do.
I never served in the military, I'm too much of a coward. Thank you for your service sir, regardless of what your duties entailed, I appreciate your time and dedication to our country.
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And yet, Slashdot in general lauds the takeover of medicine by government.
Medicine was taken over by government decades ago. At this point I'd settle for them doing a better job at it and if that means admitting that the government is in control then so be it.
Personally, though I believe in the power of the purse... let people control the spending of their own healthcare dollars directly and you will get people making better decisions on cost and quality. And if people don't want to make their own decisions then lets pay for healthcare with an equitable income tax instead of taxing health insurance and medical devices and all these insidious taxes that appear to increase prices instead of letting people know what they are actually paying for.
Was about to post this. I've known people who have worked at different VA locations in the same state. Locations vary greatly in terms of care. What one VA clinic is god here, is bad 40 miles away.
Sociology / Social Psychology is largely statistics though, they can't do much experimentation due to ethical reasons.
Corporations don't have these same constraints as they generally have the ample resources and lack of ethics in equal measure.
This is what happens when Sociologists go to the dark side.
It varies from hospital to hospital. Some are so amazing they should be the model on how things are run. Some are so bad the doctors should loose their license to practice. My uncle is a Navy vet who can no longer really take care of himself due to a stroke. My cousin moves him from hospital to hospital as she moves around for work. Her descriptions run from 'very good' to 'do not go in that building'. She sometimes takes him to a hospital 200 miles away simply because the one in town sucks that hard. They are even willing to write the referral to get her (not him) out of there.
Also hospitals are not magic places where people get healed. Many times all they do is drug you up and help you suffer while you are high. If you have a bacterial infection or a broken something they are great places to go. If you have something viral there is not much they can do other than make you comfortable and charge you 5k a day to do it and keep up on the side affects of whatever you have or they gave you. If you want specialty work you will have to travel for it as most likely your local hospital does not do it (unless they happen to be the specialty hospital in the area).
You pay twice as much for a lower overall quality of care. That is a BAD tradeoff
...has denied the entire existence of this entire branch of science, entirely.
There, entirely fixed that entire sentence for you.
Proverbs 21:19
The phrasing used was " psych" with the follow-up words being doctors and departments, depending on the posts, which covers the entire profession.
If you wish to insist on being pedantic, the term "mental health field" could be used, but it would seem excessively wordy.
moderately well-off young men in very good health who can no longer buy cheap, minimalist plans
I'm not one of these, I don't know any of these, but I can't think of any reason why it is moral to force these people (under threat of legitimate violence) to pay other people's personal expenses.
That's not what government is supposed to be for.
I am an analytical chemist, and analyzed Agent Orange while employed by the Dow Chemical Company (one of the manufacturers of Agent Orange). The spraying apparatus in the planes in the C-123 sprayed out a side door, and Agent Orange filled the air inside the plane drenching the men who operated the sprayers, and coated everything in the interior. Agent Orange is not volatile, and evaporates extremely slowly. This combination of circumstances IMHO would cause a residue of Agent Orange inside the planes which could reasonably last for decades.
Welcome to the party, climate change deniers and young Earth yahoos.
Charles Fort pointed out Science's clay feet nearly a century ago.
You realize a hell of a lot of them were drafted, right?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
When I'm President, the VA rules will be simple: did you serve in the Armed Forces? If "yes," then you get full medical coverage at the doctor and hospital of your choice.
I personally oppose our military buildup and oppose war in general, but given that we have a military, and that every person in uniform is theoretically running the risk of being sent to a live-fire zone, I think lifetime medical coverage is the least we can do for them. I don't give a damn whether the illness is service-related or not.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
I was told a few days ago by someone who works at a VA (not someone giving treatment to me) that the VA pays the least and therefore hires people who can't get jobs elsewhere.
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1. There is a tradition in many Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress
::rolls eyes::
Yeah, its called Godwin's Law, douchebag. Its been around for a few decades and it is one of the dumbest fucking things I've ever heard of.
Nazi, Nazi, Nazi, Hitler, SS, luftwaffe. Now go fuck off with that crap.
I gave the VA the benefit of the doubt and tried them out. yes the people there seem to care and I doubt there is any malice. However, I refuse to use them for anything beyond my benefits physical. I'll have to be unconscious and near death before I'll go back to them. The level of care is slightly above active duty health care... which is to say, still not very good. you're just another number in their system waiting to be processed. Just trying to schedule a visit for something simple was painful, as the governmental red tape and group think are absurd and almost amusing, if you can go elsewhere.
I preferred to pay out of pocket and get real care and have my issues taken care of in a timely fashion the first visit. I really feel for those who can't afford to take care of themselves and have to rely on government options.
I can quote wikipedia too:" Godwin's law itself can be abused as a distraction, diversion or even as censorship, fallaciously miscasting an opponent's argument as hyperbole when the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate."
Comparing soldiers of one army administrating lethal doses of poison to humans to soldiers of another army administrating lethal doses of poison to humans, is a valid comparison.
Do you know anything about how Agent Orange specifically degrades?
As a veteran, I have to say...this is not my experience at all. Thanks to a military doctor forgetting to use anaseptic for a minor surgery, I had to deal with infection, nearly amputation, and a follow up surgery that should have been unnecessary. This is only one example of the stunning incompetence of the military medical system(including missing a shattered ankle for eight years, until I finally went to a civilian doctor to get it handled). Being cheerful is no damned good if the person is an unskilled idiot. Yes, it may be ignorance instead of malice, but ignorance is still pretty dangerous.
Support more choices in goverment-Vote 3rd party.
I'm sorry that you had a very bad experience. However, you need to remember that any government department with over 280,000 people in it is going to have a few that don't belong there. I don't want to start an argument, but do you have any evidence that this was more than an isolated case? If so, I'm sure that the people running the department would want to know about it.
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Some psychiatric drugs have noticeable side effects. Not all do. Individual reactions differ, also.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Despite the flames I'll get for saying it and the vehement disagreement proponents will spew, that's because psychology is not a science. Not even a little bit.
Science is about forming hypothesis and testing these by repeatable experiment. The process requires tools for measurement that are impartial.
By this definition, some of psychology is a science. For example, a lot of good work has been done in the area of human sleep by psychologists. Similarly, much of "behavioural psychology" is firmly grounded in experiment.
On the other hand, much of psychology, including much of psychiatry, is not science. The limitation primarily arises from limits on measurement techniques. For example, the ideas of Freud are not measurable: there are no tools that can detect the existence of an id, ego, or superego. Hence, the ideas of Freud can be considered hypothesis, untestable at present, and thus of little scientific value (much like String Theory in physics). It might be better to view these ideas as philosophical in nature. Philosophical thinking can give us ideas for hypothesis, and that's about it.
There are quite a few clever measurement techniques out there, and things are getting better. However, in many cases, all psychologists can do is describe what they think they observe, a process that has a lot of pitfalls.
In some cases, we have psychology experiments that can never be repeated for ethics reasons. Here too, we do not have science: all these experiments can do is suggest hypothesis. Unfortunately, the psychology community has a tendency to instantly promote a hypothesis to a theory on a basis of a single experiment that can never be repeated -- that's definitely NOT science. Much the same thing can be said of "String Theory", which is equally untestable at present, and hence not actually a "theory" in the scientific sense, so it's not just psychologists that are sloppy about this.
The human mind is far too complex a thing for the current state of our understanding to treat scientifically.
There is a big difference between being able to treat the human brain as a legitimate subject of scientific inquiry, and being able to treat the human brain in the sense of healing it.
You are confusing "being able to do science" with "being able to apply science". There is a lot of interesting work going on in psychology that is completely legitimate science, which you can readily confirm for yourself by walking into a college library and flipping through some journals. You'll find discussions of lots of experiments and the measurement techniques used.
Think of this little exercise as an experiment in assessing the status of psychology as a field of science. Can you come up with a way of measuring the contents of psychology journals that sheds light on whether or not psychology is a science (perhaps based on a counting technique)?
In any event, you might want to read up on "shell shock". There are well established statistics on this from WW2 and later conflicts. The efforts of psychologists are one of the reasons the military no longer "does a Patton", i.e. attempts to treat shell shock as cowardice. This is a good thing, since we've got a lot of people with problems coming back from the seemingly endless serious of wars the USA chooses to get into.
Psychologists aren't much better than snake oil salesmen.
Some of the first work on measuring fluids was done by Leonardo Da Vinci. It took centuries to develop the kind of sophisticated measurement techniques we have today. Presumably you wouldn't call Da Vinci a snake oil salesman, simply because his measurement techniques were crude?
Most psychologists of today are MORE scientifically advanced than Da Vinci was. They are no more snake oil salesmen than he was.
Don't confuse what you read in the press or see on TV with reality. The press is even more incompetent at reporting on social science than they are at reporting on physical science.
Further it rings true based on what other Vietnam vets have told me about the VA...
Practically all do. Not all of those effects are terribly noxious, but they exist.
Don't confuse what you read in the press or see on TV with reality. The press is even more incompetent at reporting on social science than they are at reporting on physical science.
True, but even when you yourself read the studies, competent individuals find that they're nowhere near as rigorous as something you'd find in fields like physics and are often based on completely subjective criteria. Not always, but most of the time.
The media is extremely incompetent, though. A study says that video games are harmful/beneficial? The media is all over it, regardless of whether or not the study is garbage (which is always is, in these cases). Ignored are the elite few studies that are scientific in nature, because they're 'less interesting' to viewers.
Good links, thank you.
Malice at the front end of the VA system...Compensation and Pension and Post Deployment Health are clearly against “more pigs at the trough,” veterans claiming service connection for Agent Orange and other exposures. They see it their mission to stop that.
As for medical care, I have been a patient...a mess of a patient, since the last day of the Gulf War. Many different providers from many parts of the health profession, and have had three experiences I wrote the VA about. Bad ones. However, I know that if I’d spent the same decades receiving civilian care I’d probably have as many or more complaints over that timeframe. I bless the people at VA who have cared for me with skill and dedication.
The war is never over until the last disabled child of the disabled veteran dies. We were paying for the Civil War well into World War II and later.
Mental health at VA is a problem. I sought help and was invited to back yard picnics hosted by the VA...went to two, never saw any clinicians and there was no followup, not even with mammoth pain and depression meds. 1992 to 2014...haven’t even been asked if I would like to talk with anybody. Called the 800 number and the service was down for the day, or some other problem getting through, I don’t remember exactly.
Being an apologist for people who hurt members of your tribe is so counter to you and your tribe's best interest that I now think you a fool.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
we flew the Providers, were exposed, and 32 years after they were retired the VA insists the vets were not exposed. This report says otherwise, and because it is a juried article helps validate claims from veterans with Agent Orange-associated illnesses. I think one C-123 is still flying..the Air Heritage Thunder Pig.
VA says no exposure was possible, mostly because in 2012 their Post Deployment Health section redefined exposure to "exposure = contamination field + bioavailability." Vets have to prove dioxin harmed them after entering the body, hard to do given the 7 year half life of TCDD in body fat. The law specifies only exposure, however, not bioavailability. That's why given there was no real argument against the C-123 veterans having been exposed to at least dermal contact, VA redefined the word to exclude such events.
The Director, National Toxicology Center, said the C-123 veterans were exposed. The Director, CDC/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said the veterans were exposed, and experienced a 200-fold greater cancer risk than screening value. This article will help set things right.
No instrumentation sales...we have 2100 men and women (aircrew, maintenance, flight surgeons, flight nurses, aeromedical evacuation technicians, aerial port) who the VA refused to let into their hospitals because VA says we weren't exposed. This article helps establish our proof of having been exposed. Yes, of course others elsewhere are suffering but there is nothing wrong trying to right even the smallest injustice.
Can you help? A little volunteer work instead of an empty "thank you for your service?"
Air Force Press Deception. Deliberate deception of the public to prevent veterans' disability claims.
In June 2010, eighteen multi-engine Air Force transports were shredded, and then smelted, ridding the military of one of its last legacies of the Vietnam War use of Agent Orange.
This story of deception dates back to 2010, but readers must note that complaints about it were submitted to AF Public Affairs in 2011...without response. Complains were completely ignored. Even with proofs attached, it was best buried, thought AF leaders. It is not an old story, but instead a contemporary story about deception which still today harms veterans due to the way in which the Air Force deceived the press.
Years of plans for this destruction of eighteen Fairchild UC-123K cargo planes were firmed up in 2009. Included in those plans were suggestions from the Office of Secretary of Defense Senior Consultant emphasizing the need for minimal public attention. Agent Orange, dioxin, TCDD, Operation Ranch Hand are still attention-grabbing words of great concern to the public, and especially, veterans.
Hill AFB Public Affairs cooperated with leaders at Davis-Monthan AFB in creating the overall plan, which included a unique example of dishonest, unethical public deception. Focused on minimizing public awareness of the destruction process but aware absence of the aircraft might be noticed, the Air Force crafted a press release. As the consultant recommended, the press release was to be readied in the event of inquiries.
But it was to be a press release not released. And in its creative, but misleading wordsmithing, it remains as much a deception of the press and the public as was failure to distribute the document a deception as well. In two areas, therefore, it not only violated Air Force regulations government public affairs, but violated the public trust.
Were there laws broken? No. It turns out that the Executive Branch, even the president, has no constitutional obligation to speak the truth. However, most of us consider that part of his/her job description. And we certainly expect truthfulness from military leaders, whose only excuse for deception would be for reasons of security. Not embarrassment.
This entry will take a bit of patience for our readers...there is a great deal of background, all of it relevant. And like colors of painter's palette, the facts come together to form the complete picture. Please give it your patience as the full story comes into view.
The "colors' we'll use for form our picture of Air Force press deception, and violation of strict Air Force rules about honesty and openness,
The issue begins with the C-123s stored at Davis-Monthan and growing awareness that decades were passing without resolution of the political and environmental problems associated with the warplanes everyone (generals, scientists, attorneys, political leaders) called "the Agent Orange airplanes."
In 2000, base employees filed a complaint with their union, worried about exposure to dioxin on the airplanes which had been moved into HAZMAT quarantine.
Before discussion of the particulars of the C-123 destruction deception, let’s look at what obligations the Air Force sets forth in its public affairs program. While the Executive Branch may not be constitutionally required to be truthful, the military accepts that responsibility...with reservations.
The Air Force regulation governing Public Affairs is AFI 35-101, “Public Affairs Responsibilities and Management.” There we see very interesting statements, including:
a. "The purpose of Air Force PA operations is to communicate timely, accurate, and
useful information.” "The Air Force’s credibility depends on two factors: maintaining professional integrity and communicating timely and truthful information to the public.”
b: "Achieve informed public support for the Air Force and joint operations.”
c. "Information is not withheld merely because it casts criticism on or caus
I'm not one of these, I don't know any of these, but I can't think of any reason why it is moral to force these people (under threat of legitimate violence) to pay other people's personal expenses.
How are they any more personal than expenses incurred when the police investigates a crime that you've been the victim of? Or, perhaps a better example, when the fire department helps put out a fire, that if left to itself would lead to much greater damage?
Answer: That's how society, especially risk management through insurance, works. Put another way. Why should these ingrate people's little pet peeves be allowed to cost society twice as much for a worse outcome? What gives them the right to make other's pay so much more for nothing in return? Their right to selfishness is after all killing people. If they want to live in a society like that, why would it be wrong for the majority to just say "Fine go start one somewhere else, you're not welcome here."?
Stefan Axelsson