They rubber stamped the costs, plus no bid contracts for private contractors and a merc private army, for these two wars and now are chipping away at monies in both the Defense and Veterans budgets needed as to the results from both while soldiers are still being sent into the theaters and their supporters stay mum!
A Congress intent on slashing the budget has cut military research money for finding ways to treat damaged eyes, an injury that has affected about 50,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.10 October 2011 - The House reduced research funds from $4 million in 2011 to $3.2 million in 2012 for an injury that ranges from uncoordinated vision to blindness.
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted to include vision-trauma study with 32 other non-combat illnesses to share a $50 million military research fund.
"I think they felt that eye injuries are not as important (as other wounds)," said Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., who joined two other members seeking an increase in vision research funding to $15 million. "There was a general interest in cutting anything they could."
Col. Karl Friedl, a director of advanced research for Army medicine, said there are several highly rated proposals that could produce breakthroughs in saving the vision of wounded troops, but there is not enough money to fund them.
Proponents of research, such as the Blind Veterans of America, argue that researching vision loss from combat isn't being done anywhere outside the military. Other efforts focus on vision loss from aging or disease.
In the Senate, Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Appropriations Committee and a decorated World War II veteran who lost his right arm in combat, said there were many research areas in need of funding.
Vision loss would contend with illnesses such as arthritis, autism and Alzheimer's for military research monies, a Senate Appropriations report says. read more>>>
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