OpDD conclusions were so unfounded that AWP’s analytic research partner, the University of Alabama, distanced itself from the interim report. “We were not consulted on the released figures,” Dr. Karl Hamner, the University of Alabama principal investigator on the study, told me. “We did not make any conclusions and we don’t endorse the reported findings about national rates or numbers per day. Nor did we make any statements about the VA’s data.”
As it happens, the VA’s 2022 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report was issued the same week as the OpDD report. VA found that veteran suicides decreased by 9.7% over the last 2 years, nearly twice the decrease for nonveterans. Yet, in a contemporaneous hearing of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, AWP’s President and CEO Jim Lorraine testified that the progress preventing veteran suicide was “a disgrace” and “a failure.” He misattributed that it was VA (not AWP) that “must be more open and transparent about their data.”
Unsupported denigration of the VA tarnishes its reputation, undermining veterans’ trust in the health care system and increasing barriers to seeking needed services. More broadly, it fortifies those forces who wish to redirect allocations away from VA and towards non-VA veterans’ entities like AWP. The media and other stakeholders must take a lesson about getting the story straight before reflexively amplifying false accusations about the VA. Veterans deserve better.