Never one to squander too much money on any one problem, vA is fond of flitting from one flower to the next like a busy bee. Addressing everything and nothing simultaneously makes it look like problems have been identified and work is in progress. Thus it would appear homelessness is decreasing in this magic universe. Women’s health issues and access? Done. Veteran suicides? Been there and done that. We hired 1600 more mental health care workers-sort of. The slots are open. If we’d ever advertise, they will come. Everything in vAville is well on its way to being cured.

In this perfect world, we are even treated to a special website – in fact a blog site similar to this one. Everything at this magic site is at your fingertips including soothing tips on how to file. Just because it’s owned and operated by vA is immaterial. It’s that same kind, nonadversarial vA that we’ve all come to know and love. This article caught my eye. It disturbs me that with the new “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” program whereby its okay to be gay, the emphasis is now on HIV testing. Where is the hue and cry for HCV testing? Where is the concern that if you were in SEA  in the 60s-70s, your chances of having HCV are 67% greater than that of your brothers in Germany or stateside and 30% higher than your next door neighbor who isn’t a Vet?  Here’s the skinny on this namby-pamby , not so hearty virus.

So- HIV-dies in minutes outside the body. HCV? Four days minimum. What’s wrong with this picture? Our Matriarch, Patricia Lupole, tries hard to disseminate the latest knowledge on this dichotomy. How can it be both ways?  If a lie is repeated so frequently that it becomes rote memory like “Oh say can you see…”, people-even scientists- tend to zone out when reading it. This applies in spades to those fact finders at the BVA. They have heard it so many times they simply jump to the next sentence.

A proactive, proVet organization that prides itself on its innovative medical approaches cannot even be induced to do a cheap PCR Northern Blot to determine if a Vietnam-era Vet has it? But Holy Gee Wow have you been tested this year for AIDS? This year? Absent a risk factor, it would seem to be a waste of time and money. This is what they try to sell us with HCV. HIV must be “heartier than the lazy, HCV RNA virus”. I expect that’s what I take away from it. That HIV bug must leap from one fellow’s hand to another if this is true. And here I thought it could only be transmitted via blood. No wonder they want us to be checked every six months. Time for us to get serious and start using those toilet seat “masks” to prevent the spread of this disease.

When you Vets assemble your evidence for claims, make sure you ask for or provide extensive evidence concerning exactly how “weak” this HCV bug is. Google HCV transmission and other combinations to rebut vA’s concerted effort to discount the “plausibility” of  jetgun transmittal. One thing that seems to get a pass is vA examiners making statements about HCV that are way out in left field. I stress this frequently but I am beginning to see a new coverup on it coming back like the third remake of War of the Worlds. If, during a BVA remand for a VHA opinion on the etiology of your bug, they happen to come back with some inane remark like “whereas the Vet had an unidentified hepatitis infection in 1970, it is felt that it was HBV rather than HCV because the HBV virus is much heartier than the HCV virus.”, make sure you ask them for this in the form of a cite to a published medical thesis. It is a throwaway line. It gets a pass far too frequently and is glossed over and accepted as fact. It’s not true. HBV lasts a week outside the body- three days longer than HCV is rumored to. So much for that “fact”.

Since this is newer information, some of the older VHA gastrodocs may not be up to speed. More importantly, they are not experts in the minutiae of RNA viruses but have a more generalized knowledge. What was taught in Med school in 1992 is not current. A brief, outdated overview on an infectious disease with no intercurrent updates on newer medical science will yield poor IMOs. We see them all the time and I write up the really bad ones.

This is not something that is going to get your Congressman up in arms. Right now he’s suffering fear of heights at the prospect of having to learn that newfangled winter sport called Fiscal cliff diving. If every Vet who arrived for an appointment at a VAMC went up to the counter and announced loudly that he hasn’t been tested in a year or more for HCV, I wonder what would happen. Would they correct you and say “You mean the HIV test, don’t you?”

Considering Vets as a subset of the population have the highest incidence of HCV of all Americans, this test should be ahead of HIV. If for no other reason, it’s been around longer-albeit unidentified. Granted, if you- Johnny Vet -have a significant other named Ben and hang out in gay bath houses snorting Peru’s number one export, that HIV test would be a good idea every three months at a bare minimum. Conversely, if you’ve been in a monogamous relationship for twenty five years with Cupcake and tested negative on a Western Blot in 1997 for Term Life, chances are 100% that you do not have it. Taking the test every year is a waste of finite medical resources even if you don’t use the toilet doily.

Remove center gasket before use for optimum performance

Brought to you as a public service announcement by that “other” vA-inspired website and written on a vA-issued computer.