The VA is Radioactive for Too Many Veterans

Over eighty years ago, the U.S. made what some would call a Faustian bargain: help us get to the atomic bomb before Germany and we’ll live with the consequences. Well, the Japanese were forced to swallow the medicine we brewed for the Germans, but the world is living with the consequences.

Similarly, Veterans made a deal with the US Government: we signed a blank check payable with our lives and health; in return, you will take care of us and our families. The check has come due: 7,000 combat deaths, over 53,000 visibly wounded, and 875,000 invisibly brain-wounded service members. Parallels between the nuclear weapons and health care industries are stark. And the distrust levels among victims of each industry continue to mount.

Investigative reporter Duane Pohlman has created a searing documentary on one aspect of the Nuclear Weapons Industry, FALLOUT: Contamination, Cancer, and Death. Pohlman’s 5-year award-winning reporting highlights several aspects of an 80+ year saga:

• people in the town surrounding the Portsmouth Ohio Gaseous Diffusion/PORTS plant are dying from cancers at rates exceeding the norm for the US
• the government covers up facts and misreports scientific evidence, substituting questionable reports for unbiased statistics
• national security secrets and actions continue to take lives long after the plant has closed
• cleaning up the contamination may never happen, passing along genetic and environmental risks and alterations for generations
• Recent data (2021–2023) showed that premature death rates (under age 74) were 107% higher than the national average. In a population of just over 27,000, this corresponds to over 750 premature deaths during that period. Some studies indicate nearly 10,000 lives negatively affected by PORTS.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) originally had 107 major nuclear weapons and research sites requiring cleanup, but only 15 sites in 11 states remain active today.

Aside from “Atoms for War,” the companion “Atoms for Peace” program gave us radioactive substances which are widely used in medicine — particularly in diagnosis and treatment — and many of them are safe when used properly in controlled clinical environments. “Good” radiation is benign when properly used, and is safely used hundreds of thousands of times per day worldwide.

The “bad” radiation is essentially with us forever. Some radioactive substances are extremely dangerous to human health, especially when inhaled, ingested, or when there is prolonged or high-dose exposure. The most dangerous are Polonium, Plutonium, Cesium, Strontium, Iodine, Radon, Americium, Uranium, Tritium, and Cobalt. Well known accidents include: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. The few deaths caused by commercial accidents pale in comparison to Nagasaki and Hiroshima (>250,000) and nuclear fallout . Atmospheric nuclear testing appears to have killed hundreds of thousands—possibly into the millions—globally. Hundreds of thousands to nearly a million Americans were affected in varying ways. Over 568,000 additional infant deaths probably occurred in U.S., and possibly several million globally.

So, hundreds of thousands had their lives cut short due to nuclear weapons work, and damage continues. What’s the relationship to Veterans? And what about the VA is toxic and life threatening, if not radioactive? And how are the parallels significant for a “cure” that these institutions won’t provide for casualties?

TreatNOW has feet in both worlds. The author has a long and deep history with the nuclear industry and has been fighting pro bono with a Coalition of Veterans and others for justice and Veteran brain wound healing for seventeen years. Duane Pohlman’s expose threw us together again on national issues that affect millions of lives. There can be no justice and return to health and more normal lives for Veterans or civilians while DOE and the VA continue to mask central truths about the damage already done. Facts, science, and a plan for cleanup, treatment, and accountability are what Veterans with brain wounds and citizens suffering from toxins and radioactive contamination need, NOW.

DOE and the VA are two giants in the US Government. The VA is the sixth largest Department in the government with a budget of $369.3 Billion. The DOE is the 12th largest with a budget of $52 Billion. They embody what some see a “the deep state”, wielding several central attributes related to power, structure, belief, and control:

1. “Priesthoods” operating out of hierarchical structure.
2. Centralized, culture-dependent decision-making by an ideology espoused by their intellectual elite.
3. Social control: With little accountability — augmented by lack of independent oversight — neither the VA nor the DOE deviate from subtle control and reversion to rules and regulations that effectively prevent challenge.
4. Common purpose or goals: For the VA, “Veterans come first.” For the DOE, “Safety, national security, research and innovation.” Any change in leadership doesn’t touch the protective shell the bureaucracy has built to fend off disturbing facts and law suits.
5. A justifying narrative: Each entity operates with a foundational set of ideas, or an ideology, that justifies its structure, authority, and goals. “Trust us” is the mantra to Veterans and citizens alike, despite decades of scandals and mismanagement.
6. Resistance to change: The narratives from both DOE and the VA are relatively unchanged after decades of increasing deaths, neglect, statistical sleight-of-hand, and ignoring scientific facts and progress.
7. Commitment and loyalty. This is the closed self-serving network of contractors, researchers, Foundations, academia, Congress, military, and the chain of command. This fosters an in-group versus out-group antagonism. 

Here is the crux of why so many Veterans consider the VA toxic and “radioactive.” They stay away or abandon the VA because the culture and practice of the VA — medicine in general — is to treat brain wounds like they do mental health symptoms. No brain wound healing is possible in the current system. Pills and talk therapy rule.

The Interventions/Treatments for PTSD/TBI/Concussion supported by the NICoE, Warrior Transition Units, Intrepid Spirit Centers, Defense Veterans Brain Injury Centers, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and across DOD/VA/military medical treatment and contractor facilities are administered without an overall Protocol. The Department of Veterans Affairs claims that the four most impressive and effective interventions are:

· Psychopharmacology

· Prolonged Exposure (PE), AKA Trauma-Focused Psychotherapy

· Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)

· Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

The next BLOG will dig deeper into this flawed and unsuccessful approach. We will explore the fundamental misapprehension in current approaches to TBI/PTSD, including why they won’t even talk about brain wounds or mention HBOT to Veterans.

Like the citizens around PORTS in Ohio who have been reduced to resignation, depression and anger over being ignored by DOE, Veterans can’t get simple truths about what’s really behind their symptoms, much less a prescription for the only treatment backed by worldwide peer-reviewed science to heal brain wounds, stop suicidal ideation, and restore Quality of Life.

HBOT. Heal Brains. Stop Suicides. Restore Lives. TreatNOW.

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The TreatNOW Mission is ending service member suicides. Along the way, we have learned that we can end suicidal ideation, help end symptoms of PTSD, get patients off most of their drugs, and heal brain wounds to end the effects of Concussion, BLAST injury, mild TBI, Persistent Post Concussive Syndrome, and polytrauma from AHI, Burn Pits, and COVID. No Veteran or civilian has ever been killed while undergoing HBOT treatment for TBI/PTSD. For a video Summary, see: https://www.youtube.com/@treatnowdotorg/videos  

Information provided by TreatNOW.org does not constitute a medical recommendation. It is intended for informational purposes only, and no claims, either real or implied, are being made.