Bush Nominates Doc to Head Veteran Affairs

Quiet indoor ceremony honors injured

(NEWSER) - A poignant and little-known ceremony featuring wounded vets is held privately indoors at the Pentagon every six weeks, reports the Wall Street Journal. It's called the "Wounded Warrior March." Hundreds of Defense Department employees line the corridors of the Pentagon to applaud, cheer, shake hands, or hug servicemen wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. More»

Bush pledges massive overhaul, which requires major funding

(NEWSER) - Some 700,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are eligible for VA benefits, and overhauling the overburdened system is firmly in the sights of President Bush and a bipartisan commission. Citing "fundamental system weaknesses," a GAO report last week outlined a huge bureaucracy rife with staffing and training shortfalls, confusing policies, and slow decisions, reports the Christian Science Monitor. The bill will be hefty. More»

Secretary's short tenure long on scandals and other woes

(NEWSER) - The secretary of Veterans Affairs, the head of the second-biggest federal department, is stepping down and will be replaced by October 1, reports the Washington Post. For 2½ turbulent years, Jim Nicholson, a decorated Vietnam vet and former RNC chair, presided over a department beset by criticism and overwhelmed by the flood of service members returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. More»

(NEWSER) - The mess at Walter Reed was detailed in a damning task force report in 2004, obtained by Salon, in which soldiers described their frustrations with outpatient care and bureaucratic nightmares. Not only was the report ignored, but the official who sat on it for three years is now up for a promotion to undersecretary for health at the VA. More»

Cells from his damaged pancreas produce insulin in liver

(NEWSER) - University of Miami doctors spared wounded airman Tre Porfirio a lifetime of severe diabetes with a first-of-its-kind emergency cell transplant from his own bullet-riddled kidney. Porfirio had been shot in the back in Afghanistan, forcing Walter Reed’s doctors to remove much of his stomach and intestines. They had planned to rebuild his abdominal structure, until they realized that his pancreas was completely ruined, and without it he’d face crippling, life-threatening diabetes, reports the Miami Herald . More»