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MILITARY MEDICAL PATIENTS REPLY TO ALABAMA’S MEN OF MANY OPINIONS: “THAT DOG DON’T HUNT”

Veterans of the former Fort McClellan Army base, issue a reply to the outsiders who are permitted to comment in the news about their federal science review.

Now more than ever, the Health Registry Act is left behind as water under the bridge”
— Sue Frasier, Activist For The Fort McClellan Veterans

ALBANY, NEW YORK, USA, October 20, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- In June of this year, the Anniston Star newspaper in Alabama posted a couple of feature articles on the former environmental contamination zone that was discovered in later years at the federalized version of Fort McClellan, Alabama. Those articles were then picked up later by Yahoo news and Stars and Stripes Magazine. All the articles failed to interview the national medical patient group of former service veterans who were actually stationed at the base. However, people who are well outside of the Fort McClellan activism issue, WERE interviewed instead. The veterans would now like to have their say on their very own issues that they alone are working on and not the Anniston Star.

The Fort McClellan Veterans are, and have always been, the activism premise for any official meetings in Washington DC or Georgia regarding the environmental contamination zone at the former Army base. Nearly 85% of the original language for the former Fort McClellan Health Registry Act legislation (which is now defunct), was written by the group’s national activist Sue Frasier of Albany, NY. So, when it comes to knowing the innermost details of how the original legislation actually came into existence, then the veterans group points to themselves. Frasier said, “I was in the room when this bill was born, so let’s not work to keep me out of the press conversation about it now!”

“The original Fort McClellan Health Registry Act was only written for the exclusive purpose at the time to cover soldiers and their families who had travelled into downtown Anniston, Alabama using authorized gate passes while the district was engulfed in a PCB air cloud stemming from a nearby Monsanto Factory”, said Sue Frasier who is the activist for the group. “It ran as a docketed bill in the Congress from 2010 to 2014, and then I halted the submissions and walked away.” “Following that in 2015, we did a full year long review at the VA in Washington DC, which is called a “duty to assist” review. That included the topic of doing a possible health registry for the McClellan Vets. That review ended badly as they were not capable at that time to process the idea of multiple toxic sources all in one place and during the same set of service years at a base. The entire VA review was a failure”, Frasier continued.

Between the years of 2014 to 2021, the veterans group repeatedly notified Congressman Paul Tonko’s office to stop resubmitting the obsolete Health Registry Act in their name. Frasier went on to say “It was determined during the VA review that a health registry was the wrong medical tool for our patient group. It was, and it still is.” She said, “We have discovered since that time, other new engineering source papers that are far more complete than what we had originally thought about the environmental spill situation that was either at or near Fort McClellan”. “Now more than ever, the Health Registry Act is left behind as water under the bridge” she said. “It’s like trying to use a crescent wrench as a drill bit to do a repair. There is no match to the pieces at hand.”

The group has particularly been put off by remarks that were allowed to be made in the few times that press has come out in Alabama. She said, “We say to them: that dog don’t hunt when it comes to all the foolish statements that they were allowed to say into those press articles. Nobody is talking about the sciences getting revised after the original onset of air releases that were made. Nobody is talking about the slew of remedial cleanup projects that were ordered on the base, one after another of them in the years after we all left. They all talk in Alabama as if no toxic spill cleanup projects were ever done. But it’s a lie. And then nobody is talking about the cumulative implications of several different toxic sources all mixed together as a combination during the same set of years. This is a new science practice in the environmental medicine industry, and I would certainly not expect Congressman Mike Rogers to know anything at all about THAT!” She said, “We have made the right move here. We have made our case to the science experts of the country and not to the many man-opinions of Alabama!”

The McClellan Vets have successfully launched a federal agency science review and site investigation into the former McClellan Army base at the two agencies of the Center for Disease Control and the Environmental Protection Agency in Atlanta. The ATSDR agency is conducting a review for “combinations and mixtures” as a toxic source. They are considering a national cumulative risk assessment for the veterans and not a health registry of any kind. The VA and Paul Tonko are not even on the group's radar.

The group says the federal decision is expected to come between October 1st and December 30th this year, according to the agency letter. The veterans have also gone on to say that family members and extended relatives are not covered by the very first round of reviews that may be coming from the ATSDR agency. They have pointed out this will also be a departure from the original Health Registry Act language by Tonko. “We need to resolve the toxic exposure issues of the veterans first who were actually in the field contamination sites at McClellan, before we can even begin to rationally address the less likely scenario of family members who had no known soil contact with the sites”, said Frasier. “I don’t know of any family members who would have been up on Howitzer Hill, as an example.”

The veterans are expecting a significant public announcement to be made on the federal agency findings just as soon as it’s posted with their group.

Sue Frasier, Army Veteran & Activist
Toxic Exposure Army Veterans of Fort McClellan
ft_mcclellan_vets1@yahoo.com
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