Military Service Organizations and Veterans Service Organizations
2003
December 2,2003
In his opening remarks, Dr. Michael E. Kilpatrick told attendees that the new issue of Deployment Quarterly, the Force Health Protection vision document and six revised Project SHAD/Project 112 fact sheets are now available on DeploymentLINK. The revised fact sheets include an explanation of what has been updated. Two fact sheets - Copper Head and Shady Grove - have been completely rewritten and incorporate greater detail as requested by veterans.
October 23,2003
Three presentations were provided to attendees of the October roundtable meeting. Captain Bernard Winkel from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs provided an overview of medical readiness and programs in place for members of the Reserve Component.
September 9,2003
Ms. Ellen Embrey, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Affairs (Force Health Protection and Readiness) presented a new organizational chart for her office, which includes the Deployment Health Support Directorate and a policy division. She stressed her goal to provide world class medical care and integrate Force Health Protection with the policy side of her office. She also emphasized how pleased she is with these ongoing roundtable meetings and encouraged attendees to continue to bring up areas of concern and interest at the meetings.
July 24,2003
Mr. Thomas Tower, a representative from DoD's Personnel and Readiness office, provided an update of the Combat Related Special Compensation Program. The new program was authorized by the FY 2003 National Defense Authorization Act for certain retirees with combat or operations-related disabilities and became effective May 31, 2003, for qualified combat-related disabled retirees.
June 30,2003
The primary topic at the June roundtable meeting was the announcement that the Department of Defense completed its nearly three-year investigation of the operational biological and chemical warfare testing done from 1962 - 1973 by the Deseret Test Center under Project 112.
May 22,2003
The May VSO/MSO roundtable meeting focused entirely on Force Health Protection. A number of experts provided information on various aspects of our work.
April 24,2003
Military and veterans service organization representatives received an advanced copy of the final Gulf War Environmental Exposure Report on Pesticides and an overview of the investigation. The lead investigator explained that analysts concluded that some servicemembers may have been potentially overexposed to pesticides during the 1990-1991 Gulf War.
January 10,2003
The focus of the January meeting was deployment occupational and environmental health surveillance. John Resta, director of health risk management for the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, provided military and service organization representatives an historical overview of the program. In his presentation, he explained that changes in policy and doctrine are based on a number of factors including lessons learned and new equipment and technology. He discussed the importance of risk communication and shared some of the educational materials distributed to deploying service members.
