Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

Veterans!  Here’s your Top 10 News stories of the day compiled from the latest sources

We encourage you to browse our list so that you can take what you want and keep what you need…..

1. Agilex Receives VAi2 Award from the Department of Veterans Affairs to Advance.
   PR Newswire   Headquartered in Chantilly, Virginia, Agilex has delivered significant results for an impressive list of clients throughout federal, state and local government, and within global 2000 corporations. The Washington Business Journal named Agilex the
2. Veterans Journal: VA and HUD issue first-ever report on homeless veterans.  Providence Journal  Coordinators assist homeless veterans, their families, and veterans at risk of becoming homeless with access to the programs and services that are right for them. They also provide guidance for VA Medical Centers, federal, state and local partners,
3. Veteran-opposed bill heads to North Dakota House.  In-Forum  The American Legion’s official response to the bill is that it would make the State Veterans Home Governing Board and the commissioner of veterans affairs “political footballs.” “There is nothing in this bill that tends to support veterans,”
4. WV Senate considers new cabinet position.  West Virginia Public Broadcasting  Up for passage in the senate on Wednesday is Senate Bill 238, to re-designate the Division of Veteran’s Affairs as the Department of Veteran’s Assistance. The director of the division would become a cabinet secretary reporting directly to the governor
5. Agent Orange was tested at Fort Ritchie Army Base.  The Herald-Mail Agent Orange was among the herbicides studied at the former Fort Ritchie Army base in 1963, according to US Department of Defense and US Department of Veterans Affairs documents found online.
6. Special courts help vets regain discipline.  ArmyTimes.com  “It was, wait a minute, there’s something to this … how a veteran responds to another veteran,” Russell said. A year of planning followed, including meetings with the local Veterans Affairs Department advisory board, which ended up producing the
7. Veterans have harder time finding jobs.  The Tennessean  Vocational Rehabilitation: A program of the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ veteran benefits administration that helps people with service-connected disabilities prepare for and land suitable jobs. Contact: 1-800-827-1000 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-800-827-1000 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.
8. US veterans return to old battleground in search of forgiveness and understanding.  Akron Beacon Journal  And, according to the US Department of Veterans Affairs, more than 30 percent of Vietnam veterans in the United States suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It can cause flashbacks, trapping people’s minds in a frightening period of their
9. Postal contractor from Evergreen accused of stealing veterans’ medicine from mail. Press-Register   Derek Reed, a contract postal worker from Evergreen, pleaded not guilty last week to charges of stealing drugs sent through the mail by the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Prosecutors had dropped an earlier charge, theft of mail matter by a postal
10. Quick Facts: Plight of US veterans.  Press TV  UPI The Veterans Administration said in December 2010 that more than 9000 US veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan were homeless. UPI For the first time, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have published …

HAVE YOU HEARD?

An alert employee at the St. Louis VA Medical Center detected stains on surgical instruments during a routine exam prior to a recent OR case. Acting to protect Veterans and ensure the highest quality of care, the medical center immediately halted surgeries and arranged for urgent and emergent surgeries to be performed at local hospitals at VA expense. The local union and AMVETS service officer, among others, praised the action taken to protect Veterans. The St. Louis VAMC has provided a great example of VA’s culture of safety in action – putting Veterans’ care and safety first.

IN OTHER NEWS

• RI veterans tell Secretary of Veterans Affairs they need more information. Providence Journal  US Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki met Friday at the Community College of Rhode Island with Fountaine and other student veterans, who told him that the VA could do a better job communicating what benefits and services are available to
• Addiction recovery brings hope to struggling veterans.  RIC News and Events  The forum’s planning committee, composed of persons from the Rhode Island Department of Behavioral Health, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals, RIC faculty and the US Department of Veteran Affairs, is planning a series of trainings for the
• Letter: Bill not in best interest of state veterans.  Dickinson Press  The bill rewritten with amendments would make the State Veterans Home Governing Board (only three of the seven members must be veterans) and the commissioner of Veterans Affairs a political football. It strips the state veteran’s service organizations
• Northrop Grumman Launches Mobile Electronic Health Record Application for Veterans.  GlobeNewsWire   The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)-developed “Blue Button” capability allows VA patients to download their personal health information through their VA MyHealtheVet account to share with medical providers.

• Shinseki Apologizes For Delays In Caregivers Benefits Program. Stars And Stripes “Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki apologized Thursday for delays in the new caregivers benefits plan, pledging that families of wounded troops remain a top priority for the department.” While he “said at least part of the delay in implementing the program was lawmakers’ decision not to allow the department to simply expand” existing programs, “he also acknowledged that…department officials should have acted more quickly.”

• Legislators Told VA And Defense Will Soon Agree On Single Electronic Health Record. NextGov Veterans Affairs Chief Information Officer Roger Baker told the House Veterans Affairs Committee that the VA “and Defense departments are close to reaching an agreement to use a single electronic health record system.” VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said he met with Defense Secretary Robert “Gates the first week of this month and said they ‘renewed [our] pledge to go after a single electronic record.'”

• VA Debuts Robotic Foot. Houston Chronicle Army Special Forces veteran Randy Tipton “became the first Veterans Affairs patient in the nation to receive the iWalk PowerFoot BiOM,” a robotic foot that “represents a groundbreaking advance in prosthetics technology made possible by tens of millions of dollars the US government has poured into research to ‘rebuild’ service members who’ve lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

• VA Seeking To Shed Male-Centric Attitude. Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times “With more women than ever in the military, the VA is trying to shed its male-centric attitude and make its medical centers more palatable for female veterans” by “working to open more women’s health clinics, adding staff to treat women and spending millions of dollars on gender-specific care.” Additionally, “the VA said it is also changing the mindset of the agency and its staff, including working to ensure a woman walking into a VA is no longer assumed to be a veteran’s wife.” Dr. Patricia Hayes, chief consultant for women veterans health at the VA, said, “No matter where a woman accesses care, there will be a women’s health provider available to see her.”

• Widow Wins Appeal Over VA Benefits From Possible Agent Orange Death. Springfield (MO) News-Leader Sheree Evans “won a battle with the Veterans Administration over her husband’s brain cancer.” Since her husband, Edward T. Evans, died in 2003, she fought for widow’s benefits, arguing that the cancer was due to Agent Orange exposure during the Vietnam War. “The VA denied the claim, saying Edward Evans’ type of brain cancer was not on the VA’s list of Agent Orange-related disabilities.” However, “the VA’s appeals board decided there was as much evidence that Evans’ brain cancer was a result of his exposure to the defoliant as not,” which means the board rules for the family.

• Disclosure Of Chemical Trials May Hurt Efforts To Find New Use For Base. Waynesboro (PA) Herald Record “reuse of the former Fort Ritchie Army base has been dealt another blow with Department of Defense disclosures about chemical testing at the site in the 1950s. On Tuesday, the Army told Corporate Offices Trust — the company redeveloping the 500-acre mountaintop site — about a 2006 Department of Defense publication regarding the ‘tactical defoliants and herbicides’ used at various military installations including Fort Ritchie, according to a news release issued by COPT Friday evening.” Two days later, the Army disclosed another report dealing with defoliant and herbicide use at Fort Ritchie during the mid-1950’s; COPT said that until receiving the reports, it was unaware of use of the chemicals on the property.

• Three Quarters Of Calls To National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Involve Veterans. Medill Reports “Nearly three-fourths of calls made to the” National Suicide Prevention Lifeline “were related to veterans’ issues.” The VA “partnered with the lifeline in 2007 to provide…services for veterans,” and “the VA created an awareness campaign for mass-transit lines in 2008 to help veterans and their families learn about the toll-free crisis lifeline.”

• Study Finds Virtual Reality Therapy Helps Treat Soldiers’ PTSD. PsychCentral In a study in the Journal of Traumatic Stress researchers report “that a new approach called Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy resulted in significant reductions in PTSD symptoms for military service members after an average of just seven treatment sessions.”

• Article On Drug Therapies And Stressed Combat Veterans Draws Reactions. New York Times An anesthesiology professor writes on the need for proper education of returning soldiers on the safe use of such drugs. Former member of Congress Patrick Kennedy notes he has a new nonpartisan group, 1Mind4 Research, to support increased brain research. A research associate at the Drug Policy Alliance writes to advocate that the VA and Defense Departments “adopt comprehensive overdose prevention policies, including dispensing naloxone — an overdose antidote — directly to service people who are prescribed narcotics and to their families.”

• Meditation Practitioners Work With Operation Warrior Wellness. Huffington Post Some teachers of transcendental meditation are “participating in a national outreach to help soldiers with PTSD.” John Zisman, a TM teacher who has a real estate business in Florida, says that the TM program, together with Operation Warrior Wellness, “is making available a personal improvement program called ‘Transcendental Meditation’ to 10,000 vets who suffer from acute PTSD.”

• Actor Gary Sinise To Visit Wounded Warriors In Georgia. WRDW-TV Actor “Gary Sinise will be visiting the Active Duty Rehabilitation Unit at the Charlie Norwood VAMC and the soldiers in Fort Gordon’s Warrior Transition Battalion on April 21,” then “attend the 319th Transportation Company Vietnam Veterans’ dinner honoring wounded warriors.”

• Pennsylvania VA Opens New Pharmacy. WGAL-TV The Lebanon VA Medical Center held a ribbon cutting ceremony for its new pharmacy, which “is much larger than the old one. The facility will allow in-patients and outpatients to get their prescriptions in one place.”

• Omaha VA Opens New Dental Clinic. The website of WOWT-TV Omaha (2/17) reported that on Thursday “the Veterans Affairs Medical Clinic is unveiling its new dental clinic,” which “is three times larger than the previous dental clinic.”