A great new study that shows nothing....

[VAK]

Now in the public forums, I am incredibly careful not to go off on rants about my personal medical condition. My Brother's who are close to me know my situation and aside from them, I think that my business is my business. However, when we take two steps backwards after we've addressed an issue publically it takes my breath away.

As I sit suffering from Multiple System Atrophy (Shy Drager's Syndrome-A terminal Neurological disorder directly related to my time in service and most certainly one familiar to the VA I am infuriated by this article published in AF Times.) I am furious for many reasons. First and foremost because, I have watched some of my Brother's suffer from similar neurological disorders and diseases. I've watched as they go to the point of active life and then to being on resperators and finally succombing to the clinging fingers of death. I've not seen this just once, but many times of late, too many times.... And when we think we've made strides, often great strides then some backwards announcement is made like this one making it seem as though it's just been discovered today, just this week or this month that there are some ties to Desert Storm and Neuroligical Disorders and diseases which are killing valient soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.

These links are more than one would care to just take a casual glance at. Cancer is not uncommon, ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) is showing up, Multiple Sclerosis is so common that it's a given among the VA that if one is diagnosed within "x" years of discharge it's an automatic award of service connection. But in the Spirit of Good Hope and just making sure that we're all working toward the same hopeful goal of a cure that's only "I’m really confident there will be treatment in the next several years,â€