Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. PERRY. Madam Chairman, I thank the chairman for his hard work on the bill. None of this is easy.

This amendment addresses a potential solution for our Nation's veterans and servicemembers suffering with PTSD and PTSI. Estimates from the VA paint a harsh picture that 7 percent of veterans will have PTSD, with about 29 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans having PTSD at some point in their lives.

Unfortunately, far too few of these brave men and women find relief from currently available treatment in the VA, and failure here can mean suicide. The average number of veteran suicides per day was 17.5 in 2021. I shudder to think that, every single day, 17 to 20 of our fellow brothers and sisters in arms take their lives.

These numbers, quite honestly, are unacceptable. They are unacceptable to this side of the aisle. I think they are unacceptable to the other side of the aisle, and they are unacceptable to America.

That is why I am offering this amendment, which would increase and decrease Veterans Health Administration funding by $1 million for the purpose of furnishing stellate ganglion blocker, or SGB, treatment therapy to veterans suffering from PTSD.

Already approved by the VA as a safe and effective alternative, the stellate ganglion block procedure injects an anesthetic agent into or onto a collection of nerves in the neck, and it is proven to alleviate common PTSD symptoms.

In PTSD and some other anxiety conditions, the fight-or-flight nervous system gets stuck in the on position. By precisely placing anesthetic around the stellate ganglion, the unproductive and chronic fight-or-flight response is turned off. This allows neurotransmitters in the brain to reset back to a nonanxiety state and results in long- term relief of the anxiety itself and the PTSD symptoms.

This procedure has already improved many lives while showing up to 85 percent efficacy at a fraction of the cost of other treatments that are far less effective. Madam Chair, that is 85 percent.

Having this life-changing option for our veterans would give them a chance to live more free from the effects of PTSD and its symptoms. Our Nation's veterans should be the top priority, and they deserve to have this treatment and this therapy when they need it.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

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Mr. PERRY. Madam Chair, the treatment is not dangerous at all. As a matter of fact, it is offered in at least 11 VA facilities, but only that many, and not all of the VA facilities. It has been around since the 1920s. It is not dangerous at all.

As a matter of fact, there are no known side-effects. There aren't any known side-effects. The people that get the treatment walk away 85 percent of the time without suffering the effects of PTSD.

As I sat there and watched the treatment being given, Madam Chair, the patients have told me that they feel like a weight is lifted off of them while the treatment is occurring. Those are specious claims.

The bureaucracy at the VA wants to conduct another study. Meanwhile, it is allowed in some of their facilities, but not all of their facilities. Meanwhile, while they are conducting another study, 17 to 22 of our veterans take their lives every day while they are conducting another study. While offering this at some places but not other places, servicemembers in Alabama are scraping up their last dollars to get on a van with some of their other buddies to drive up here to get the treatment because they can't get it down at the VA in Alabama.

It is absurd. It is ridiculous. While they are conducting studies, our servicemembers are taking their lives needlessly.

What I am asking is, instead of the current protocol, which says that members of the military services who have earned this treatment, who have earned the care, don't have to fail every single other thing that the VA gives them before they can get this and, in the meantime, take their lives because that is what happens, Madam Chair.

The VA requires, except in those other facilities, that the veteran do all these other things, take all these other treatments that don't work and have to fail every single one of them before they can say, oh, please, VA, can you give me something that works, the stellate ganglion block, the SGB, which is done in the private sector, which is done at the VA.

I am just saying, instead of making veterans suffer and take their lives before they can get the treatment, let them have the treatment like the veterans in those 11 facilities that do offer it.

Why can't we do that? You can keep studying it. If you find some side effect, well, God bless you, but right now, there aren't any and right now, veterans are killing themselves.

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