Is it clear what Congress opinion is on regarding the Feres Doctrine?

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http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issue...-08.htm#seventh

G. THE FERES DOCTRINE SHOULD NOT BE APPLIED FOR MILITARY PERSONNEL WHO ARE HARMED BY INAPPROPRIATE HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION WHEN INFORMED CONSENT HAS NOT BEEN GIVEN.

The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the Feres Doctrine to mean that soldiers "injured in the course of activity incident to service" may not sue the Government for compensation. (Note 168) However, when inappropriate experimentation has resulted in suffering for military personnel, this interpretation stands in violation of established ethical standards, including the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Helsinki, and the "Common Rule." Congress should not apply the Feres Doctrine for military personnel who are harmed by inappropriate experimentation when informed consent has not been given.

The U.S. Supreme Court mentioned the Nuremberg Code in United States v. Stanley in 1987. James Stanley, an Army serviceman, volunteered to test the effectiveness of protective clothing and equipment against chemical warfare in February 1958. (Note 169) In the process, he unknowingly received LSD as part of an Army study to determine the effects of the drug on humans. Although Stanley suffered from periods of incoherence and memory loss for years, he only learned in 1975 that he had participated in the LSD study when the Army solicited his cooperation in a followup study. Having been denied compensation for injury by the Army, Stanley filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the opinion for the Court, split 5 to 4. (Note 170) Justice Scalia wrote that permitting Stanley to sue the Army would disrupt the Army itself and "would call into question military discipline and decision-making." However, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing for herself as one of the dissenting judges, stated that the Feres doctrine bar

"surely cannot insulate defendants from liability for deliberate and calculated exposure of otherwise healthy military personnel to medical experimentation without their consent, outside of any combat, combat training, or military exigency..." (Note 171)

Justice O'Connor also commented on the Nuremberg Code in her writing, stating that voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential, even for the U.S. military. It was, after all, the U.S. military who played an instrumental role in the criminal prosecution of the Nazi officials who experimented with human beings during World War II.

A new story about the unfairness of the Feres Doctrine from VAwatchdog.org.

http://www.vawatchdog.org/09/nf09/nffeb09/nf021509-2.htm

Scalia has no sense of decency, he is right up there with the Holocaust doctors.

This is a new challenge to the Feres Doctrine.

http://www.vawatchdog.org/09/nf09/nfmar09/nf032509-10.htm

If the military kills its members through negligence they should get sued. The thing is that they do it so often they would be broke if it were allowed. The Marine with the skin cancer is a case that is a shame and disgrace.

The Feres Doctrine won't change for the forseable future. Congress doesn't want it changed, it would cost the government billions every year.

I would not hold my breath waiting for this to change.

United States v. Reynolds. Gov. Secrets that may and may not be protected.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Reynolds

The Justice department has tried everything to get the current lawsuit in the 9th Federal Court tossed out, venue, state secrets, statutue of limitations etc nothing has worked the Edgewood Testvets case is going to trial they spent 90 minutes in court last week and the Judge told the government to get ready for trial it will proceed.....

http://edgewoodtestvets.org/

Vietnam Veterans of America, et al. v. Central Intelligence Agency, et al.
Case No. CV-09-0037-CW, U.S.D.C. (N.D. Cal. 2009)

What This Case Is About
Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief only – no monetary damages – and Plaintiffs seek redress for 25 years of diabolical experiments followed by over 30 years of neglect, including:

the use of troops to test nerve gas, psychochemicals, and thousands of other toxic chemical or biological substances and perhaps most gruesomely, the insertion of septal implants in the brains of subjects in a ghastly series of mind control experiments that went awry;

the failures to secure informed consent and other widespread failures to follow the precepts of U.S. and international law regarding the use of human subjects, including the 1953 Wilson Directive and the Nuremberg Code;

an almost fanatical refusal to satisfy their legal and moral obligations to locate the victims of their gruesome experiments or to provide health care or compensation to them;

the deliberate destruction of evidence and files documenting their illegal actions, actions which were punctuated by fraud, deception, and a callous disregard for the value of human life.

The Complaint asks the Court to determine that Defendants’ actions were illegal and that Defendants have a duty to notify all victims and to provide them with health care going forward.


for enjoyable and boring reading click on court filed documents and read the entire file our lawyers are doing a fantastic job these are the same lawyers that took the VA to court last year over the PTSD and slow claims process the last I heard about it was the Judge told the VA lawyers to work something out with the legal team for the veterans or neither side was really going to be happy with the courts solution to it.

The lawyers are very experienced in beating the government they won the nuclear exposed vets case over a decade ago experience helps and the human experiments ended in 1975 so we are at what nearly 35 years later and 55 years after they began most all of the doctors and researchers and CIA people involved have died and much of it came out during the Church Committee hearings DR Sidney Gottlieb the Nazi's at Edgewood and their is a difference between consent and "informed consent" if they don't tell you everything then it is not informed consent it just means they lied by omission or intentionally

If the Congress actually believed that this doctrine should not stand, it could easily pass a law that states that it does not apply.

It will not even consider passing such a law. It won't pass such a law for a simple reason, the horrible liability that the US Government would face.

The bottom line is that to the Congress, military personnel are expendable. They have no actual respect for us, we are cannon fodder, people too stupid to avoid military service, and frankly they believe that we deserve anything and everything that happens to us.

Not one bill that would establish even the presumption that the Chemical testing done on military personnel causes service connected disability has ever received public discussion in committee, much less a vote. It never will, because the overwhelming feeling in Congress is "screw you you stupid idiots".

The leadership is not behind any bill to offer redress to any of us affected. The administration is not behind any such bill. A few, a very few House and Senate members support such legislation, but any move they make will be immediately buried in a Committee, never to be seen again.

The Feres Doctrine could be overturned by Congress at any time. I predict that it will not be overturned, no matter how outrageous any hidden testing might have been.

That is why Gordon Erspamer has taken them to court to make the government deal with it.....he has been successful so far and right now he is the only game in town