Veterans Study

[Harper]

The Veterans Administration is conducting an ALS study of living veterans through a current enrollment process. They're collecting medical data and also will inform enrolled veterans about clinical trials of medications.

If you're an interested veteran with ALS you can contact them at 1-877-342-5257 or via e-mail at [email protected].

This information's available at www.alsa.org/patient/drug.cfm.

 

[lunarruna]

My husband Shannon is taking part in this study too....they conduct it mostly all through phone and/or written interviewing, on both your background as Veteran and then they follow your ALS progression through phone interviews. They also like to get DNA samples from as many veterans as possible but it not a required part of the study. It is very simple to work with them and they need as big a sample size as possible to try and get at why vets or some vets have higher rates of ALS. So we encourage any other vets to sign and help us figure this out.
Beth and Shannon

 

[hboyajian]

Do you know if this study is including World War II vets? My dad got ALS 2 years ago, about 60 years after getting out of the military, but I heard somewhere that all vets have a higher incidence of it than the general population. It would be interesting to know if this is why more men than women have this disease, and see if the statistics are changing now that there are more women in the military.

 

[Harper]

WW2 Veterans and ALS Study

The information I have states ... all living veterans who have been diagnosed with ALS, so, yes -- WW2 veterans would be included.