The Importance of Voting and ALS Advocacy

Our friends over at ALSAdvocacy blog have a great post about voting. Head over and take a look and make sure to watch the video.

http://als-advocacy.blogspot.com/2008/09/on-importance-of-voting-and-als.html

S. 1382 ALS Registry Act

I read an article online yesterday that simply boggles my mind. The article was from The Washington Post and had this headline U.S. to Grant $1 Billion Aid Package to Georgia. Foreign policy is not my strong suit so I won't even stipulate on the pros and cons of this whole situation. I do believe that we should help those less fortunate and will leave it at that. As I read through the article there were a few things that simply don't make sense to me.

The aid will be divided into two phases, Rice told reporters at the State Department: $570 million from fiscal 2008 and 2009 funds, and $430 million she said she hopes the next administration will approve.

Looking at the text of S. 1382 on the Library of Congress you can find the following:

There are authorized to be appropriated to carry out this section, $2,000,000 for fiscal year 2008, $25,000,000 for fiscal year 2009, and $16,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2010 through 2012.'.

Now doing some quick math shows us that the entire ALS Registry over a 5 year period costs a total of $75 million. The complaints I've heard from that idiot in Oklahoma are about the money. It seems to me that $570 million in a single year would fully fund the ALS Registry for a five year period several times over.

Further on in that same article I found this:

The assistance plan, assuming it is fully funded by this administration and the next, would exponentially increase U.S. aid to Georgia, which totaled about $64 million in fiscal 2008. Before last month's hostilities, Georgia's economic growth rate was among the highest in the region, with a gross domestic product of $10 billion last year, compared with $4 billion in 2003.

About a third of the U.S. assistance in 2008 was spent on training and equipping the Georgian military to meet NATO standards and to allow Georgia to continue contributing troops to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.

We spent $20 million to train and equip Georgian troops but we can't fund the ALS Registry? That got me wondering. I found this website called U.S. Overseas Loans and Grant [Greenbook]. Using this site you can see the amount spent in foreign aid by country and program through 2006. Considering we spent $20 million to train and equip soldiers in Georgia I thought I'd take a look at some of the other countries. Below is a list of the countries and the amount of money we provided (for military assistance only) in millions of dollars as of 2006 which could fully fund the ALS Registry over a five year period.

Remember this was as of 2006 so there may be some changes here but isn't it astonishing that we can spend a total of $11.5 billion in 2006 on military aid to 8 countries which live in the news yet we can't afford $0.13 per taxpayer per year for 5 years. Isn't it astonishing that we can spend $11.5 billion to equip and train foreign soldiers yet we can't spare $75 million to aid our own in their fight for their lives.

Please contact your Senators and urge them to get S. 1382 ALS Registry Act to the floor for a vote. Contact your Representatives and urge them to cosponsor H.R. 5454.

ALS Service Connection

On June 12th this year I had the honor of testifying before the House Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs concerning H.R. 5454. My testimony is available here. The purpose of H.R. 5454 is to make ALS a presumptive service connected disease for all veterans. This means that any veteran diagnosed with ALS would be granted service connection and all benefits.

Shortly after that hearing there were rumblings that Dr. James Peake the Secretary of Veterans Affairs was going to add ALS to the presumptive conditions. Then on July 14th it was released by Representative Henry Brown and Senator Lindsey Graham that his was in fact true. That release also stated that the changes would take effect August 1st. Well August 1st came and went and there was no news concerning service connection and the rumor mill took off.

Although I can't claim first hand information I can say that my sources are reliable. As such I would like to help in dispelling some of the rumors. The movement to make ALS a condition warranting presumptive service connection are still ongoing. The intention is to make this a regulatory statement meaning that it will be included in United States Code and as such it will be binding. It is due to that in part that the August 1st date passed us by with no word. Making regulatory changes requires approvals and time. Although no dates have been given the process is still moving along.