Veterans To Create World's Largest Medical Database

Does this sound like a good idea to you? It did to me at first until I read one sentence.

"The VA is now turning that information into a gold mine for medical research."

The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. This sounds more like a way for "researchers" to make more money and that usually means private companies getting their hands on more veterans to use as lab rats.

We've already read reports about veterans personal data getting into the hands of someone when the laptops were lost. We've already read reports on veterans being used in research. I'd like to think that all that damage is in the past, but on this one, I'll go with the hairs on my neck.

Veterans To Create World's Largest Medical Database
by AMY STANDEN
November 14, 2011
What haunts Carl Schuler about his two tours in Iraq is the fact that he came out of them largely unscathed.

This was not the case for his best friend, who was badly injured when his truck was hit by a roadside bomb.

"You start thinking about, well, how fair is that? You know, here's my best friend, this is how he ends up, 80 percent burns, two members in the vehicle were killed, and here I am in a similar situation, and all of us ended up being OK," Schuler says. "It's a tough thing to deal with."

Back in the States, Schuler has struggled with problems that will sound familiar to a lot of veterans. He's had to tame his road rage. And sometimes he can be a bit withdrawn.

What's gotten him through all of this is helping other returning soldiers. He's a counselor for veterans who are having financial problems. And it was that same impulse — to help veterans — that brought him to a VA Medical Center in Palo Alto, Calif., on a recent morning.

Schuler came to take part in something called the Million Veteran Program, or MVP. The idea is to build a huge database, with both medical histories and blood samples from 1 million U.S. veterans.

What makes this possible is that the Department of Veterans Affairs has been keeping computerized medical records for more than two decades. This puts the VA way ahead of the curve, compared with most hospitals and doctors' offices. The VA is now turning that information into a gold mine for medical research.
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