Addressing Toxic Exposure
The Veterans Health Project is a FASE program established to bring understanding and solutions to the problems faced by military personnel exposed to toxic chemicals during their service.
- It is a new addition to the Foundation’s decades long “Unpolluting of Man” initiative.
Its main objectives are: - Helping to create agreement that this is a real problem – I.e., that service-related exposures really do cause illness. Their effects are not “all in the mind.”
- Bringing relief to those affected by their exposures, including raising funds to support detoxification delivery to veterans and current military personnel.
- Adding to the body of data about service-related exposures and their health effects.
Project Activities will include:
- Fundraising to support humanitarian delivery to military personnel.
- Overseeing the implementation of our Routine Outcome Monitoring system at projects where we have funded delivery.
- Collecting and analyzing this data, and maintaining it all in a single database.
- Publishing reports on the data collected.
- Collaborating with other scientists to publish reports or papers based on this data.
- Facilitating or funding research projects.
- Reporting on the work of others in this field.
- Collecting and organizing scientific literature relevant to this field.
- Publishing “white papers” about the problem.
- Organizing scientific meetings or conferences that address this problem.
- Developing working relationships with others who work in this field.
The project has been launched at the request of veterans and military caregivers concerned about the well being of soldiers, and the emerging body of evidence that connects post-service health problems with exposure to a range of toxic substances. It aims to end the current pattern of men and women suffering for decades while their symptoms and exposures are studied, with few or not options for relief.
It is built on a certainty that there are things that can be done now to improve their quality of life, a confidence based on three decades of experience with a detoxification program that has brought relief to thousands of individuals with the same kinds of exposures and symptoms that are affecting veterans.
