Coco Culhane (VAP) testifies against Intro 914 and on discharge upgrade barriers

Hi.

I'm Coco Colhane, Director of Veteran Advocacy Project.

We provide free legal services to veterans with mental health conditions.

Just to touch on the bill, we are in support and are very happy to hear that there are already so many programs for LGBTQIA plus veterans at DVS.

One thing I just wanted to...

is that there's a State Restoration of Honor Act, and it excludes veterans who have punitive discharges.

And that we see older vets who are charged under a sodomy statute or who were persecuted for their sexual orientation, but under the guise of misconduct.

And so some of them do have these bad conduct discharges.

New York State says, no, that's proper.

And I think that's re-injuring.

At the city level, we include those individuals.

And I think that's terrific and encourage and support anything else that DVS is doing.

Also just wanted to note that right now transgender individuals, there's a court injunction, so they're not being discharged.

They're not allowed to enlist, but it's up in the air what will happen.

And then we just wanted to note the population that we primarily work with has a suicide rate that's three times that of other veterans.

And from what I've been told, three of the largest programs, one of them being NYU, are closed or closing.

And so the mental health care needs are just...

Astounding and alarm bells I think should be going off, but it's against that backdrop that VAP strongly opposes Intro 914 for any number of reasons, which I'll just go through a few.

Of the very small amount of research that's been done, almost all of it has been

conducted by its inventor, its creator, Dr.

Burke.

There was an analysis done of the four studies, and it said that their documentation suggested bias.

They didn't assess symptoms beyond two weeks.

There were insufficient data to draw any conclusions.

The one study that was not led by Dr.

Burke compares veterans who received RTM to veterans on a wait list.

With no treatment.

So not exactly a control group.

And DOD and VA have both cited to a lack of evidence.

Last summer, there was a piece in the Atlantic Magazine about this.

When the journalist asked Dr.

Bork why so many academics say that point to his studies being of such poor quality, he didn't dispute it.

He said in order to attract the interest, support, and funding from prestigious universities and laboratories and researchers.

So I think instead they've attracted some people at city council.

From just going back over the years, my understanding is that this referrals were being made and training was facilitated pre-pandemic under the leadership of Brigadier General Sutton.

And, you know, in a 2023 hearing, she came with Dr.

Bork, a client, and Ed Shulman, and they had, can I?

They had over an hour to present, really sell RTM to the council.

And one of the things that was...

said that there was a 90% success rate.

But if you look again at any of the peer-reviewed, any of the academic reviews and critiques of this, it's one, I'll just quote,

RTM patients were only people who were compared to people receiving no treatment at all.

Any form of treatment would be better than nothing.

That's unsurprising in this context.

Even 90% improvement doesn't mean much.

Then at a 2024 hearing, former chair Holden characterized that

training was being done and RTM was sort of sweeping the nation and that there were doctors in every community, that this was an accepted thing and it was great.

If you go and look on their website, there are 297 providers in the United States and only seven of them are doctors.

That's just going on their own data.

And, you know, I think that it's important for us to look at who is pushing these things, who, you know, in 2022, the American Legion of New York gave a $100,000 grant to study

RTM, and it was given to a nonprofit, which I don't have right in front of me, but the nonprofit.

Turns out is run by Dr.

Bork.

So you're having someone whose trademark therapy is a for-profit entity within, I mean, it's a confusing structure.

There's a nonprofit and a for-profit.

And then last year,

My understanding, if you look at Schedule C, $50,000 was given to Operation Warrior Shield to do a study, to provide treatment and do a study.

So where are the results?

Why don't we look at that before moving forward with anything else?

And I'll leave it there.