The Common Ills: If it was your son, your brother, your husband, your Dad?

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

If it was your son, your brother, your husband, your Dad?

Ginger Gilbert Ravella tells Brian New (KENS 5 -- link has text and video), "Someday my five kids are going to ask me, 'Did you do everything, did the government do everything to bring Daddy home?' I want to be able answer I did and they did absolutely everything." She is the widow of Maj Troy Gilbert, "During a 2006 mission near Baghdad, Maj.Gilbert was credited with saving twenty Americans under fire when he destroyed a gun truck from his F-16 jet. The Air Force pilot then turned around to attack another truck when the tail of his plane hit the ground."

Those attacking the US service members then took Gilbert's body from the plane. His widow remembers seeing photos of his body and an unopened parachute released by the enemy. In 2007, those who took Maj Gilbert's body released a video using his body for propaganda purposes. How did the US military walk away from this issue? A small amount of tissue was in the crashed plane and this tissue was identified as belonging to Troy Gilbert so the government has declared him found.

KSAT (link has text and video) explains, "However, the military was able to confirm Gilbert's identity using the tissue so his death was listed as 'accounted for.' Gilbert said that meant there is no active search to recover his body. His family says that's simply unacceptable."

Jim Douglas (WFAA -- link is text and video) reported on the issue by speaking to the fallen's parents, Ronnie and Kaye Gilbert, and they explained that they meet with the Defense Dept later this month where they will attempt to convince the military to change the qualification from "body accounted for." Unless such a change takes place, the US government insists that there is no need for a search, that the tissue counts as "found" and, apparently, that the body of Troy Gilbert can be carted all over the world and back and it's of no concern to the US government.

Next week, the first ever Burn Pit Symposium takes place:

1st Annual Scientific Symposium on
Lung Health after Deplyoment to Iraq & Afghanistan
February 13, 2012

sponsored by
Office of Continuing Medical Education
School of Medicine
Stony Brook University

Location
Health Sciences Center, Level 3, Lecture Hall 5

Anthony M. Szema, M.D., Program Chair
Stony Brook
University
Medical Center

This program is made possible by support from the Sergeant Thomas Joseph Sullivan Center, Washington, D.C.

2 WAYS TO REGISTER FOR THE CONFERENCE

* Register with your credit card online at: http://www.stonybrookmedicalcenter.org/education/cme.cfm

* Download the registration form from:
http://www.stonybrookmedicalcenter.org/education/cme.cfm and
fax form to (631) 638-1211

For Information Email: cmeoffice@stonybrook.edu

1st Annual Scientific Symposium on
Lung Health after Deployment to Iraq & Afghanistan
Monday, February 13, 2012
Health Sciences Center
Level 3, Lecture Hall 5

Program Objective: Upon completion, participants should be able to recognize new-onset of lung disease after deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan.

8:00 - 9:00 a.m. Registration & Continental Breakfast (Honored Guest, Congressman
Tim Bishop

9:00 - 9:30 Peter Sullivan, J.D., Father of Marine from The Sergeant Thomas Joseph
Sullivan Center, Washington, D.C.

9:40 - 10:10 Overview of Exposures in Iraq, Anthony Szema, M.D., (Assistant
Professor of Medicine and Surgery, Stony Brook University)

10:10 - 10:40 Constrictive Bronchiolitis among Soldiers after Deployment, Matt
King, M.D. (Assistant Professor of Medicine, Meharry Medical College,
Nashville, TN)

10:40 - 11:10 BREAK

11:10 - 11:40 Denver Working Group Recommendations and Spirometry Study in
Iraq/Afghanistan, Richard Meehan, M.D., (Chief of Rheumatology and
Professor of Medicine, National Jewish Health, Denver, CO)

11:40 a.m. - Microbiological Analyses of Dust from Iraq and Afghanistan, Captain Mark

12:10 p.m. Lyles, D.M.D., Ph. D., (Vice Admiral Joel T. Boone Endowed Chair of
Health and Security Studies, U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI)

12:10 - 12:20 Health Care Resource Utilization among Deployed Veterans at the White
River Junction VA, James Geiling, M.D., (Professor and Chief of Medicine,
Dartmouth Medical School, VA White River Junction, VT)

12:20 - 1:20 LUNCH AND EXHIBITS
Graduate students Millicent Schmidt and Andrea Harrington (Stony Brook
University) present Posters from Lung Studies Analyzed for Spatial
Resolution of Metals at Brookhaven National Laboratory's National
Synchrotron Light Source

1:20 - 1:40 Epidemiologic Survey Instrument on Exposures in Iraq and Afghanistan,
Joseph Abraham, Sc.D., Ph.D., (U.S. Army Public Health Command,
Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD)

1:40 - 2:10 Overview of the Issue Raised during Roundtable on Pulmonary Issues
and Deployment, Coleen Baird, M.D., M.P.H., (Program Manager
Environmental Medicine, U.S. Army Public Health Command)

2:10 - 2: 40 Reactive Oxygen Species from Iraqi Dust, Martin Schoonen, Ph.D.
(Director Sustainability Studies and Professor of Geochemistry, Stony
Brook University)

2:40 - 2:50 BREAK

2:50 - 3:15 Dust Wind Tunnel Studies, Terrence Sobecki, Ph.D. (Chief Environmental
Studies Branch, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research
and Engineering Laboratory, Manchester, NH)

3:15 - 3:45 Toxicologically Relevant Characteristics of Desert Dust and Other
Atmospheric Particulate Matter, Geoffrey S. Plumlee, Ph.D. (Research
Geochemist, U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, CO)

3:44 - 4:15 In-situ Mineralogy of the Lung and Lymph Nodes, Gregory Meeker, M.S.
(Research Geochemist, U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, CO)

Continuing Medical Education Credits

The school of Medicine, State University of New York at Stony Brook, is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The School of Medicine, State University of New York at Stony Brooke designates this live activity for a maximum of 6 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)TM. Physicians should only claim the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

The following community sites -- plus Adam Kokesh, NPR, Susan's On Edge, On The Wilder Side, NYT's At War and Antiwar.com -- updated last night and this morning: