Dr. who cheated government on taxes helps decide which Camp Lejeune Marines get benefits
WFLA
By: Steve Andrews
Updated: May 04, 2018
HOMOSASSA, Fla. (WFLA) - A Florida doctor, convicted of cheating the government, is now working with the Department of Veterans Affairs, helping to determine if sick and dying Marines deserve benefits.
Dr. Sheila Mohammed, from the Pensacola area, pleaded guilty to seven counts of tax fraud in 2015. A federal judge sent her to prison. Dr. Mohammed was also placed on supervised release for two years.
She is now reviewing medical records of veterans exposed to toxic water at Camp Lejeune for the VA.
"The idea of a convicted felon reviewing a veteran's claim. I mean, I'm just at a loss for words," said Mike Partain, a Camp Lejeune survivor and spokesman for The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten, a Camp Lejeune support group.
Over the course of decades, nearly one million Marines, sailors, their families and civilian employees unknowingly drank, cooked and bathed in contaminated water at Camp Lejeune.
The water contained four known cancer causing chemicals, creating a health disaster.
Mike Partain was conceived and born at Camp Lejeune. He developed breast cancer.
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Tulsa veteran creates mural to discuss suicide, an issue 'too big to ignore'
Tulsa World
By Reece Ristau
13 hrs ago
“I want people to know that these real heavy emotions are (OK),” Butts said Friday morning. “You can talk to people about it. You don’t have to be scared of it. When you take off your mask and I take off my mask, it’s, ‘Oh, you’ve got stuff, too.’ We all have stuff.”
As a chaplain’s assistant during the Iraq War, Josh Butts tended to the emotional health of his battalion members, some of whom have since died by suicide.
As a graphic designer in Tulsa, Butts is now using art to bring awareness to the scope of that public health issue.
On Friday, Butts used chalk to create an elaborate mural of an airliner. The mural, called “Too Big to Ignore,” comprises phrases used by those affected by suicide and images representing the pain of such loss. Drawn on the side of the Hardesty Arts Center (AHHA) in the Tulsa Arts District, the airplane represents the 123 people who die in the United States each day by suicide.
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Veteran running for office runs from history
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
May 5, 2018
Kevin Nicholson is running for the Senate in Wisconsin. He's a veteran. The problem is, he seems to have forgotten what this country actually means to the "Democrats" he served with, as well as the other citizens of this country.
I stay out of politics because I do not think any of them have actually lived up to their promises to our veterans, especially after getting their votes for the simple reason they are also a veteran.
Considering veterans have had to protest the way this country repaid them after war since the Revolution itself, things need to be said. The following should be a glowing example of someone thinking history is something that only began when he decided to pay attention to it.
This is what the man thinks.
The letter from the veterans, all of whom support Vukmir, came a day after Nicholson, in a radio interview, questioned the “cognitive thought process” of Democratic military veterans. Nicholson also said the Democratic Party had “wholesale rejected the Constitution and the values that it was founded upon.”
Nicholson, whose campaign slogan is “Send in the Marine,” refused to back down or apologize, telling supporters in an email Thursday that “liberals can try to twist this all they want, but I stand by what I said: The Democrat Party has LONG lied to vets.”
Between my husband and I, we have had 7 WWII veterans and 1 KIA (and he was a 19 year old Marine), 1 Korean War veteran, 2 Vietnam veterans. Sorry so few, but considering we are only second generation American. All of them were Democrats! I am standing up for them against what a flat out lie this is. Guess he does not know that the majority of voters are registered Independents.
It was not a Democrat who betrayed senior veterans and wanted to cut their benefits because they were too old to work and no longer needed to receive the permanent and total disability compensation they were promised. That was a Republican.
It was not a Democrat who thought that cutting the VA budget after staring 2 wars was not just OK, but allowed his Secretary of the VA, (also with the same last name) to return money, unspent, because he believed they'd only need dental appointments. And was not a Democrat who thought a budget shortfall was OK.
It was not a Democrat who sent men and women into 2 foreign countries to risk their lives without making sure the VA was ready to "care for him/her" afterwards.
As for the veterans being neglected, then you would have to factor in both parties, since neither party has managed to live up to the debt owed to our veterans. Both sides have lied to veterans!
We had a backlog of claims before OEF and OIF veterans had to get in line. We had long waits to have claims approved for disabled veterans unable to pay their bills because they were unable to work in the civilian world. We had veterans committing suicide, ending up homeless and suffering long before Twitter and Facebook.
History does not begin when someone acknowledges it "is" but some pretend it does. When a person seeks office, it is usually very telling about how they will lead because of how little they learned as to how the mess they say they can fix, got that way in the first place.
Kevin Nicholson did not just slam Democrats he seems to hate. He slammed all those who came before him because, apparently they just do not merit the same respect as his side of the divide. He served next to others without putting politics above their lives. Why can't he remember that?
Giving up is not an option
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
May 3, 2018
Trying to explain why I do what still do after 36 years, gets frustrating. It is not about any kind of reward that you can see. Money? Hell no! If it was about money I would have quit a long time ago. It is for sure I wouldn't be getting up at 4:00 am to go to a job where I get paid to work.
It isn't about fame. It took 10 years to break 3 million hits, and that is with almost 29,000 posts. I have three books hardly no one reads. There are over 300 videos on my Youtube channel, that get so few hits, they do not even merit mentioning.
So why do I do it? Why spend so much time doing this? Because the rewards cannot be replaced by anything.
When I see a veteran taking back his life from PTSD and then spreading the hope out to all who will listen, that is worth every second.
When I see the truth suddenly taking over slogans of misery, that is vindication of my work.
That happened today. Quite a shocker on top of it. I was getting ready to slam another news report on the nausiating fictional number of "22" when I came across something that made me glad I had stopped to read it.
22 Warriors Foundation a resource for veterans and first responders
Las Vegas Sun
May 3, 2018
WADE VANDERVORT
22 Warriors Foundation Chairman Bill Emmel, left, his service dog Ranger and Vice Chairman Dave Austin in their office. 22 Warriors Foundation is a veteran-founded, -operated and -governed nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating veteran suicides.
When and why was it established? A 2011 survey reported that 22 veterans commit suicide daily—this is where the name 22 Warriors Foundation came from—however the number is wrong and extremely low. This survey only included 21 states—California was not one of them—and it did not include alcohol and drug overdose deaths, homeless and unidentified veterans who commit suicide, less-than-honorably discharged veterans and older generations. read more here
And that is when I smiled. They actually paid attention to what was in the report, as well as what was not in it.
The simple fact out of the veterans the VA does know about, 65% of the veterans committing suicide are over the age of 50, that is the group I tend to focus on the most. After all, they are the ones who started all of what I do. Giving up was and still is not an option.
I fell in love with a Vietnam veteran and the rest, they say, is history. We saw it all. We saw what it was like when no one wanted to hear what they had to say, yet they had to stop and pay attention to what PTSD was because giving up was not an option.
For most researchers I learned from, giving up was not an option. Most of them are long gone and you'll never know how much they invested in finding a way to help veterans heal. They did not want fame. They just wanted to make a difference and if they are no longer doing it, old age had more to do with stopping the work. Giving up was not an option for them.
Over and over again, after all these years, I have been blessed with more than you, or anyone else will ever know. It with words of encouragement when I needed to hear them the most.
More so, it came when I was ready to give up so many times and then faced the fact that if I do, I would not be able to live with myself if I did. It is not just "something I do" because it has become a part of who I am.
Do not let what is hard to do, stop you from doing the right thing, for the right reason. Giving up should not be an option for you either!
Mefloquine or Medusa and where is Perseus?
Veterans allege devastating side effects from anti-malaria drug they were ordered to take
WHAS ABC 11 News
Author: Andrea McCarren
May 3, 2018
More than a million Americans are believed to have taken the anti-malaria drug called mefloquine. But veterans, former Peace Corps volunteers, government employees and world travelers say they've suffered acute side effects that are getting progressively worse.
For decades, the Department of Defense ordered tens of thousands of American service members to take a drug intended to prevent malaria, a mosquito-borne disease that can kill. And now, veterans, former Peace Corps volunteers, federal employees and world travelers believe mefloquine caused some acute psychiatric and physical conditions that they say are getting progressively worse.
Mefloquine was sold under the brand name Lariam until its manufacturer stopped producing the drug in 2008. Generic versions are still available in the United States, but only by prescription. Common side effects attributed to the drug include paranoia, anxiety, depression and neurological issues, including vertigo and tinnitus, which is the perception of noise or ringing in the ears.
"We have a hidden epidemic of veterans who are suffering the chronic neuropsychiatric effects of mefloquine poisoning," said Dr. Remington Nevin, widely considered the world's expert in the potential side effects of mefloquine. "And in many cases, they’re being misdiagnosed. Misdiagnosed with conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder."
read more here
We have been reading about this since 2008. Why are we still reading about it now?
VA issued a warning about Lariam in 2004. By 2012 after Staff Sgt. Robert Bales shot 17 in Afghanistan, later found guilty, the military "scrambled" to limit it. By 2013, the Green Berets and other Special Forces units stopped using it.
BY 2015, reports were coming out from Australia and a veteran said, "At various times it was like living in a heavily armed lunatic asylum" after taking it. In 2017, Canada was also faced with problems.
So why after all these years are we still talking about it and who is responsible for what it did to the men and women the military gave it to?
