Veterans’ Affairs Department
Veterans urge FDA to approve ecstasy for PTSD treatment in clinical settings
Veterans, including lawmakers who are also veterans, attended a two-hour outdoor news conference in Washington D.C. They shared their experiences with dealing with PTSD and with other effects of serving in a combat environment. Some of these veterans pointed to ecstasy as helping them beyond what traditional medications for their conditions were able to do. […]
Disabled Veterans calling on Congress to move on bill related to concurrent benefits
Veterans with less than 20 years of service, and having less than a 50% disability rating, are not able to receive both their military retirement and disability compensation. There is a dollar for dollar offset, reducing retirement pay by the amount of disability pay. Veterans groups are calling on Congress to get the bill moving […]
Veteran charged for strangling his roommate to death at a VA medical center
Christopher Schweikart murdered another veteran at the acute mental health unit at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. This medical center is located at Riviera Beach, Florida. Schweikart admitted, to a nurse, to killing the other veteran including how he did it. He also informed the nurse that he wanted to die. Federal VA agents arrived […]
Transgender veterans suing the Department of Veterans Affairs
The Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA) initiated a lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs. The lawsuit involves the delay in providing gender affirming surgery. This delay in providing this type of service keeps transgender veterans in “limbo.” Bekky Eshler, the organization’s president, implied that transgendered veterans not feeling “at home” with their natural gender […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs says it is not paying for illegal alien healthcare
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) clarified a payment process involving healthcare provided to illegal aliens. The VA pointed to an agreement that has been in place since 2002. This policy/rule allows the VA to process and pay claims related to ICE, but with funding provided by ICE. Care was provided via ICE, the VA […]
Employees with the VA facing additional mandatory overtime
The passage of the PACT Act opened the door for veterans to file additional claims, or for veterans to file claims for the first time. The number of claims submitted to the VA exceeded what the VA normally receives. Over the past 13 months, the VA saw over 750,000 new claims. From the Military Times: […]
Friday footnotes
Nothing big and urgent that I can see today, so here are a few quickies. First off, the House Veteran’s Affairs Committee held a hearing on the use of psychedelics like MDMA or psilocybin in treating trauma like PTS(D). Researchers for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS, have studied the safety and effectiveness […]
Senators ask the VA to stop needless foreclosures on veterans
During the pandemic, many took a COVID forbearance to defer paying mortgages in order to keep their homes despite their loss of income. Many homeowners understood that they would simply have their owed payments placed at the end of their payment timeline. Veterans were among those who took advantage of this program. However, many of […]
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