Chemical and Biological Defense: DOD and VA Need to Improve Efforts to Identify and Notify Individuals Potentially Exposed during Chemical and Biological Tests

DOD rewrote the task order's statement of work in July 2008, the concept of operations plan in October 2008, and the implementation plan in February 2009. We believe these corrective actions meet the intent of our recommendations, and DOD is better positioned to know whether it has accomplished the project's goals and produced its desired results.

In a September 2010 update on the status of the recommendation, DOD stated that the contractor was now providing the office overseeing the task order with monthly reports of its efforts. DOD also stated that a representative from the DOD office overseeing the contractor attends monthly meetings between the contractor and the DOD office that maintains the database as an additional quality control over the information that the contractor provides. In addition, DOD stated that it was now conducting quarterly site visits to the locations where the contractor was conducting its work. We believe these corrective actions meets the intent of our recommendation, and DOD is better positioned to determine (1) that resources spent on the contractor's research are more effectively and efficiently used, (2) the accuracy of the information provided by the contractor, and (3) whether the task order needs to be modified to focus DOD's resources and the contractor's research efforts to those tasks that will best meet its objectives. For example, the contractor has changed some of the locations where it plans on conducting its research because some of the initial sites were showing no benefits to DOD's efforts.

In our February 2008 report, Chemical and Biological Defense: DOD and VA Need to Improve Efforts to Identify and Notify Individuals Potentially Exposed during Chemical and Biological Tests (GAO-08-366), we stated that the DOD chemical and biological defense office that was responsible for overseeing the department's effort at that time did not fully leverage the work of other entities, including the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (OUSD (P&R)), which had led a joint DOD-Department of Veterans Affairs effort to find exposed service members during the 1990s. During this period, OUSD (P&R) personnel involved with the research became very knowledgeable about the issues, collected boxes of information, and issued various reports. According to OUSD (P&R) officials, however, officials in OUSD (AT&L)'s chemical and biological defense office had not met with any of the personnel with institutional knowledge or examined any of the documents that OUSD (P&R) still maintained. Since OUSD (P&R)'s reports identified locations of exposures, officials in OUSD (AT&L)'s chemical and biological defense office could have used this information as another source to help validate and prioritize the repository sites proposed by the contractor for its current effort, and to eliminate potential redundancy. As such, we recommended and DOD agreed that the chemical and biological defense office should coordinate and communicate with other entities that previously identified exposed individuals to leverage existing information. Based on this recommendation, the chemical and biological office has met with the OUSD (P&R) office several times since the winter of 2009. During the meetings, the chemical and biological office found between 12 to 19 file boxes of records that OUSD (P&R) gleaned and gathered in the early 1990s. We believe this corrective action meets the intent of our recommendation, and that the DOD chemical and biological office overseeing DOD's efforts is able to leverage this information to make more informed decisions and assure the Congress and other concerned individuals that the department is trying to identify potentially exposed service members.

In response to this recommendation, DOD took a series of actions to make its efforts more transparent. For example, in September 2008, DOD launched an updated internet site that provides interested persons with information on what happened during Project 112 and other chemical and biological tests. We believe this action addresses the finding identified in our report and that the internet site will provide more current information to veterans and other interested individuals. In addition, according to an August 2010 DOD inspector general report on the status of the GAO report's recommendations, DOD has distributed fact sheets to congressional committees, veterans service organizations, and the Department of Veterans Affairs; participated in a series of interviews; posted a two-minute informational video on DOD's health affairs web site; and briefed veterans service organizations. We believe these corrective actions meet the intent of our recommendation, and they have made DOD's research efforts more transparent to Congress, the public, and veterans service organizations.

In an August 2010 DOD inspector general report on the status of the GAO report's recommendations, DOD stated that it is providing updated information to VA on a quarterly basis. We believe this corrective action meets the intent of our recommendation, and that this action should lead to VA obtaining the names and exposure information of potentially exposed service members in a timelier manner.

In August 2010, the Department of Veterans Affairs told us that the department's "Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) had begun requesting contact information from IRS for Veterans who were identified by DoD as chemical and biological test participants. In June 2010, VBA provided IRS a list of Veterans' names and Social Security numbers and requested any known mailing addresses. VBA received the requested IRS data in July 2010. VBA will continue to request information from IRS as needed to reach test participants."