During the Department of Veterans Affairs Gulf War Illness Research Advisory Committee meeting held at the Oahu Vet Center in Hawaii members were presented with Challenge coins by the VISN8 LPOP Veteran Advocate who was present. This was given for the hard work and dedication of the advisory members. The Hawaiian Islands are home to 112,000 Military Veterans, 50,000+ Active Duty Service Members, and 9,600 Hawaii State Guard members.
Johnny Morris Thanks Founder Bill for his service and for supporting Bass Pro Shops at their events and the Veterans.
Did you know?
Lung cancer is the most common cancer worldwide, accounting for 2.1 million new cases and 1.8 million deaths in a single year.* However, if found early, lung cancer can be treated.
November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month. A low-dose CT scan only takes a few minutes. Speak to your doctor to find out if lung cancer screening is right for you.
VA Lung Precision Oncology Program (LPOP)
*American Lung Association.
Did you know?
Early detection, by low-dose CT screening, can decrease lung cancer mortality by up to 20 percent among high-risk populations
November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month. A low-dose CT scan only takes a few minutes. Speak to your doctor to find out if lung cancer screening is right for you.
VA Lung Precision Oncology Program (LPOP)
*American Lung Association.
Did you know?
There are new guidelines regarding screening and about 8 million Americans qualify as high risk for lung cancer and are recommended to receive annual screening with low-dose CT scans
November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month. A low-dose CT scan only takes a few minutes. Speak to your doctor to find out if lung cancer screening is right for you.
VA Lung Precision Oncology Program (LPOP)
*American Lung Association.
Did you know?
An estimated 900,000 veterans are at risk for lung cancer due to age, smoking, and environmental exposures during and after military service.
November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month. A low-dose CT scan only takes a few minutes. Speak to your doctor to find out if lung cancer screening is right for you.
VA Lung Precision Oncology Program (LPOP)
Did you know?
In the United States, cigarette smoking is linked to about 80% to 90% of lung cancer deaths. The VA has programs that can help with smoking cessation.
November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month. A low-dose CT scan only takes a few minutes. Speak to your doctor to find out if lung cancer screening is right for you.
VA Lung Precision Oncology Program (LPOP)
Hello All, If you are in South Florida and interested in participating in a New Covid-19 Vaccine Study here you go. They are looking for Adults whoAge 18 or older and those particularly over the age of 65Represent one of the Racial and ethnic groups that have been greatly impacted. ( See Flyer )Under Lying medical conditions such as Diabetes or ObesityHigh risks of exposures through work like a First Responder, Healthcare worker, or delivery person.Live or work in an elder-care facilityretired or active military If you decide to join a Covid-19 prevention study you may be compensated for your participation. There are 4 contacts listed but just in case Precious Leaks 305-575-7000 ext – 17648 email precious.leaks-gutierrez@va.gov Info – Provided by Vet Info – #vetinfo4vets
Today Veterans from all over South Florida came to the city of Doral in a somber ceremony celebrating our Nation’s Hero’s. Key Note Speaker Admiral Faller took the time to Thank all the Veterans Past and Present for their Service.
by John Waggoner, AARP, October 13, 2020
En español | The Social Security Administration (SSA) announced on Oct. 13 that its annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) will be 1.3 percent, an average boost to retirement benefits of about $20 per month for individuals starting in January.
The modest gain for monthly benefits is the latest in a decade of meager COLA increases. Social Security COLAs have averaged a 1.65 percent increase annually the past decade, with no increase at all to benefits in 2016. The increase that went into effect in January 2020 was 1.6 percent.
“Today’s announcement of a 1.3 percent COLA increase — while modest — is needed to help Social Security beneficiaries and their families try to keep up with rising costs,” says AARP Chief Executive Officer Jo Ann Jenkins. “The guaranteed benefits provided by Social Security and the COLA increase are more crucial than ever as millions of Americans continue to face the one-two punch of the coronavirus’s health and economic consequences. In fact, thanks to recently enacted changes supported by AARP to lower the Medicare premium for next year, more seniors will at least see a small monthly COLA.”
COLAs have been low because inflation has been tame. The annual COLA is based on the change in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) from the third quarter of the previous year to the third quarter of the current year. The CPI-W represents the prices paid by workers for a basket of goods and services. It is not based on a market basket that reflects what retirees purchase — the CPI-E — which represents a market basket that better reflects retiree spending, such as higher costs for health care.
This year’s COLA calculation looks at the average CPI-W index numbers for July, August and September of 2019 and compares them with the numbers for the same three-month span in 2020. The percentage change between the two quarterly averages is the COLA for the following year starting in January. If there’s no change, or if there’s a decline in the CPI-W, there’s no increase in Social Security benefits.
Since Congress initiated automatic annual COLAs in 1975, there have been three years in which benefits didn’t increase at all: 2010, 2011 and 2016. The single biggest increase, 14.3 percent, went into effect in January 1981.
Social Security is funded by a payroll tax of 12.4 percent on eligible wages — employees pay 6.2 percent and employers pay the other 6.2 percent (with self-employed workers paying the entire 12.4 percent). Next year, the maximum amount of earnings subject to the Social Security tax will increase to $142,800 from $137,700. The money paid in by today’s workers goes to cover current benefits, with any excess going into the Social Security trust fund.
Because of the growing number of Social Security beneficiaries — and, in part, a decrease in payroll taxes collected because of pandemic-driven job losses — the Social Security system is facing increased stress. In their annual report, Social Security’s trustees estimated that the trust fund for retired workers and their survivors will run short of money in 2034. A more pessimistic forecast from the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the reserves in the trust fund for retired workers and their survivors will be depleted in 2031. Even at that point, over three-quarters of benefits could still be paid out from incoming payroll taxes.
See the Rest of the Story at AARP WEBSITE
Veterans Helping Veterans. – Numerous Groups coming together. See Flyer for information.
News Release | September 11, 2020
By: The National Academies of Sciences Engineering Medicine
WASHINGTON — Limitations in existing health studies have resulted in insufficient evidence to determine whether U.S. troops’ exposure to burn pit emissions and other airborne hazards in Southwest Asia are linked to adverse respiratory health outcomes, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Through partnerships with other agencies, and the use of emerging exposure assessment technologies, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) could conduct or support well-designed studies that would yield more definitive answers.
Respiratory Health Effects of Airborne Hazards Exposures in the Southwest Asia Theater of Military Operations reviewed 27 respiratory health outcomes, including respiratory cancers, asthma, chronic bronchitis, sinusitis, and constrictive bronchiolitis. Of these 27 outcomes, none met the criteria for sufficient evidence of an association with service in the Southwest Asia theater, which comprises the Persian Gulf countries and Afghanistan. The evidence for respiratory symptoms — which included chronic persistent cough, shortness of breath, and wheezing — met the criteria for limited or suggestive evidence of an association for both veterans who served in the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War and those who served in the military operations after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“New approaches are needed to better answer whether respiratory health issues are associated with deployment. The current uncertainty should not be interpreted as meaning that there is no association — rather, the issue is that the available data are of insufficient quality to draw definitive conclusions,” said Mark Utell, a physician and professor of medicine and environmental medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and chair of the committee that wrote the report. “However, the committee believes it is possible today to conduct well-designed studies that will provide more clarity to veterans who are seeking to understand the respiratory problems they are experiencing.”
More than 3.7 million U.S. service members have served in the Southwest Asia theater of military operations since 1990. These operations include the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War, a post-war stabilization period (1992-2001), and the post-9/11 conflicts. Deployment to the region exposed service members to airborne hazards including oil-well fire smoke, emissions from open burn pits, dust suspended in the air, exhaust from military vehicles, and local industrial emissions. Temperature extremes, stress, and noise encountered by service members may have increased their vulnerability to these exposures.
Existing studies on respiratory health and deployment to Southwest Asia have a number of limitations, says the report. For example, many studies implicitly assume that deployed veterans had the same exposures to airborne hazards, overlooking that burn pit emissions and other pollutants differed by conflict and varied by location and over time. Several studies failed to adequately account for cigarette smoking — a known cause of respiratory health problems — in their analyses of outcomes. Further, mortality reports have not consistently broken out deaths from respiratory disease, making it difficult to assess the extent of harm caused by airborne exposures.
Addressing Knowledge Gaps
The committee observed that there are several ways to address the knowledge gaps they found. To identify subpopulations that may be susceptible to respiratory health problems, future studies of theater veterans should evaluate how factors such as race, gender, and the location and timing of deployments and military service could modify the effects of airborne exposures.
Deployed service members are often at the peak of their lung function, which occurs in their early 20s, the report notes. The effects of exposures, including burn pits, related to deployment may take time to manifest. Longitudinal studies are therefore needed to record baseline lung function and examine changes over time. Other retrospective studies can feasibly be done using imaging and biomarkers.
The report also recommends that VA conduct an updated analysis of mortality among Southwest Asia theater veterans, since the last analysis was done in 2011. Future mortality studies should compare veterans exposed to higher and lower levels of airborne agents, rather than comparing all veterans to the general population.
Potential Partners for VA
VA already partners extensively with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), and the two agencies have been working toward a modernized and interoperable electronic health record system that is expected to roll out in late 2020. As part of this effort, VA and DOD should explicitly integrate research access considerations into the planning and implementation of their electronic health record system. They should exchange information on exposures that personnel encounter during military service; and their impact on health before, during, and after deployment and after transition to veteran status.
Other agencies hold data and manage technologies that could aid in the VA’s research efforts. They include NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
Emerging Technologies to Aid Future Research
The report also identifies several emerging technologies that could address knowledge gaps. New discoveries in biomarkers — characteristics of the body that can be measured — could provide more information on environmental exposures, effects, and susceptibility. Recent advances in the analysis of satellite data may also enable more accurate estimates of past airborne pollutants levels and burn pit emissions. Other potential technologies include silicone wristbands for exposure detection; low-cost wearable devices that measure changes in health in real time; and, further in the future, portable “readers” that could map changes to the human genome resulting from certain hazardous exposures.
The study — undertaken by the Committee on the Respiratory Health Effects of Airborne Hazards Exposures in the Southwest Asia Theater of Military Operations — was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The National Academies are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, technology, and medicine. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln.
Contact:
Stephanie Miceli, Media Officer
Office of News and Public Information
202-334-2138; e-mail news@nas.edu
