Kansas’ congressional delegation dives into VA, Native boarding schools, Pfizer lawsuit

Moran, KU cybersecurity conference, April 4, 2024 (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA — U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas says incomprehensible mismanagement of medical care by the federal Department of Veterans Affairs could be illustrated by the cancer treatment of a single veteran living in Manhattan.

Moran, the ranking Republican on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, spoke on the Senate floor about a veteran who had received 58 of 60 planned treatments for cancer through a community provider when the VA sought to deny that option for the two remaining treatments.

The senator said the VA canceled the veteran’s community care option and told him to drive about an hour to and from Topeka so the final chemotherapy treatments would be provided at the VA hospital.

The VA directive was contrary to federal law contained in the six-year-old MISSION Act granting veterans the ability to receive medical care closer to home if the patient and a local provider concluded it was in the best interests of the veteran, Moran said.

“Unfortunately, recently, VA leaders have been taking alarming actions to limit the choices the MISSION Act affords veterans in Kansas and across the country,” Moran said. “It is unfathomable that the VA would consider leaving veterans with fewer options — fewer options — to seek the care they need.”

Moran said intervention by his Senate office led the VA to rescind instructions to the veteran in Manhattan to travel to Topeka for cancer treatment.

He also said challenges for veterans in the VA health care system were made worse after the VA implementing a pause in hiring staff and adopted a strategic plan to reduce the payroll by 10,000 nationwide.

“These actions could cost some veterans their lives and drive other veterans away from the VA healthcare benefits that they’ve earned and deserve,” Moran said. “The VA must do better.”

Boarding school commission

U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, a Democrat serving the 3rd District in the Kansas City area, urged the full House to pass legislation creating a commission to investigate and report on the history of Indian boarding schools and the ongoing influence of those schools on Native communities.

If passed by Congress and signed into law, the 10-member commission of former Indian boarding school students and truth and healing experts would make recommendations on actions the federal government could take to “adequately hold itself accountable for, and redress and heal, the historical and intergenerational trauma inflicted by the Indian boarding school policies.”

The bipartisan Truth and Healing Commission would be appointed by the U.S. president. It would possess subpoena power to obtain private and government records from operators of schools or facilities dedicated to assimilating Native youth. The records would be used to identify and locate individuals who attended boarding schools, their tribal affiliations and unmarked graves.

“I would not be here if not for the resilience of my ancestors and those who came before me — including my grandparents, who are survivors of federal Indian boarding schools,” said Davids, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin.

She said survivors, federal officials and tribal leaders should be brought together to “fully investigate what happened to our relatives and work towards a brighter path.”

The bill pending in the U.S. House was introduced by Davids and U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma. They are co-chairs of the Congressional Native American Caucus. It was recently endorsed by the House Education and the Workforce Committee.

The Pfizer lawsuit

U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican and physician, lauded filing of a lawsuit in Kansas against Pfizer that alleged the company exaggerated claims about the ability of its vaccine to counter COVID-19 and withheld information about health risks of getting the shot.

The lawsuit was initiated by Attorney General Kris Kobach, a Republican who lost a Senate campaign to Marshall in 2020. Kobach’s complaint was filed in northwest Kansas at the Thomas County District Court. It alleged the pharmaceutical company hid evidence that effectiveness of a vaccination diminished over time and was linked to dangerous side effects.

“Very early on, we saw these complications — cardiomyopathy, myocarditis, inflammation of the heart — those types of things going on from the vaccine, typically with young males,” Marshall said on Fox News. “But, once again, the overreach of the federal government, a one-size-fits-all, not even letting doctors out in the communities make some of these decisions with patients.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2021 added a warning to Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines about the rare heart inflammation conditions of myocarditis and pericarditis.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that more than 1.1 million people in the United States died of COVID-19.

Marshall has been critical of public health officials who worked in the administrations of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. The senator has regularly directed his fury at Anthony Fauci, who directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022 and was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008 by President George W. Bush.

Marshall said the lawsuit was a response to the federal government’s overreach during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This vaccine mandate is really what’s driving this,” Marshall said. “This is a rebound because of the vaccine mandate, and really goes back to the propaganda that Anthony Fauci led. From February on, he led a huge propaganda campaign telling us that the vaccine was all things for everybody, that it would take care of all of your woes. And I think that they over promised, and they under-delivered.”

In Kobach’s lawsuit, he alleged Pfizer violated the Kansas Consumer Protection Act. The drugmaker said in a statement the lawsuit brought by the Kansas attorney general had “no merit” and its COVID-19 vaccine saved lives.

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