Political Quotes

“6 years after the Persian Gulf war, 70,000 veterans of that war, including hundreds in my State of Vermont, continue to suffer. Six years after the Persian Gulf war, the Department of Defense and the Veterans' Administration acknowledge that they do not know the cause of that illness and have not developed an effective treatment protocol. Six years after that war, the General Accounting Office and the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Illness have discussed at length the ineptitude of the DOD and the VA in addressing that issue. Mr. Chairman, I am delighted that within the Labor-HHS bill there is now an appropriation of $7 million over a 5-year period to go to an outside agency, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, so that they can begin to study the cause of the chemical impact on gulf war illness and hopefully develop a treatment. It is about time we went outside of the DOD and the VA. It is a major step forward, and I thank the chairman of that committee for his effort in this direction.”