Veterans and Military Service Organization Roundtable Meeting, January 10, 2003

The focus of the January meeting was deployment occupational and environmental health surveillance. John Resta, director of health risk management for the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, provided military and service organization representatives an historical overview of the program. In his presentation, he explained that changes in policy and doctrine are based on a number of factors including lessons learned and new equipment and technology. He discussed the importance of risk communication and shared some of the educational materials distributed to deploying service members.

Attendees also received an update of the Deseret Test Center Project 112/Project SHAD investigation. In addition to the update, Mrs. Dee Morris discussed corrections made in December to the fact sheet for a test known as "High Low." In early December several veterans contacted the DHSD office regarding the test. They were concerned that the test dates identified in the published fact sheet were incorrect.

Morris explained DoD investigators used the information provided by the veterans and reviewed additional documentation and confirmed the sailors' recollections. The USS Berkeley was in fact in the Gulf of Tonkin in January and February 1966. The four ships' logs (the USS Berkeley, USS Fechteler, USS Okanogan, and USS Wexford County) showed that High Low test was actually done in January and February 1965. The 1966 date in the Deseret Test Center's final test report appears to have been a clerical error. Deployment Health Support staff contacted the veterans who called and informed them that their information was officially confirmed. DHSD staff also mailed copies of the corrected fact sheet.

The next meeting is scheduled for February 27th.