Veterans

WASHINGTON – There are 72,000 hearings for veteran claims now pending before the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, an official for a federal watchdog agency told House lawmakers on Wednesday.

The large caseload is driven by repeat cases sent back to the appeals board after a higher court determined the board’s findings were inadequate or incomplete, said Elizabeth Curda, the director of Education, Workforce and Income Security at the Government Accountability Office.

As the opioid epidemic continues to grip our nation, claiming lives, destroying families, and burdening communities, it is imperative that we explore every viable solution. Among these potential solutions is a powerful, natural, non-addictive substance known as ibogaine. As voices that have served in political and military capacities, we unite in our appeal to the Kentucky Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission (KYOAAC): Allocate $42 million for ibogaine research.

More than twice as many U.S. service members may have been injured in recent attacks in Iraq and Syria than the Pentagon previously disclosed, U.S. defense officials said on Monday. At least 45 Americans are reporting minor injuries or potential traumatic brain injuries.

Experts and advocates—including a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) official and a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—recently convened for a Harvard University panel to discuss efforts to expand veteran access to psychedelic-assisted therapy. Speakers broadly agreed that psychedelic substances like MDMA and psilocybin hold powerful potential to help treat PTSD and curb suicide rates in service members, but they cautioned against hasty, unsupervised use of psychedelics given the possibility for further harms.

The fentanyl crisis continues to rage across the United States. Families from Alaska to Maine have felt the impact of this crisis driven by a manufactured opioid shake them to their core. Unfortunately, this crisis has reached our service members. In the U.S. Army and Navy, our two largest branches, we’ve learned that fentanyl deaths are on the rise. As a veteran, I recognize firsthand that this is a dangerous threat to our national security and the Biden administration must be held accountable for its policies that have played a central role in the crisis.