VA policy change: US doctors can question veterans whether they attended Trump's rallies before treatment?
Department of Veterans Affairs
can now refuse to treat Democrats and
unmarried veterans
, reported The Guardian. The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has long had strict anti-discrimination rules and a VA center cannot refuse to treat a veteran because he or she is Black, Jewish, a woman or Latino, for example.
But now an executive order from US President Donald Trump might allow some form of discrimination. The new rules also apply to psychologists, dentists and a host of other occupations and have already gone into effect in at least some
VA medical centers
, The Guardian report said. Experts have also pointed out that under new rules doctors could question veterans about whether they had attended
Trump rallies
or protests.
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Democrats, unmarried veterans to be denied treatment?
Previously, VA hospital bylaws barred medical staff from discriminating against patients 'on the basis of race, age, color, sex, religion, national origin, politics, marital status or disability in any employment matter". But now, in response to Trump's January executive order on 'gender ideology,' 'national origin,' 'politics,' and 'marital status' have been removed from the list.
This allows medical staff to deny treatment based on their personal politics, the report revealed. Language requiring healthcare professionals to care for veterans regardless of their politics and marital status has been explicitly eliminated.
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Doctors and other medical professionals may be prohibited from working at VA hospitals due to their marital status, political party affiliation, or involvement in union activities, according to documents reviewed by The Guardian. The policy changes also extend to chiropractors, nurse practitioners, optometrists, podiatrists, licensed clinical social workers, and speech therapists.
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The updated policies allow doctors, psychologists, dentists and other healthcare workers at VA hospitals to refuse treatment to veterans based on characteristics not explicitly protected by federal law. While veterans are still legally entitled to care, there is now no rule preventing staff from declining service to individuals based on their political beliefs or whether they are unmarried.
Changes already in place
Internal documents reviewed by the outlet show that the changes are already in effect at some VA centers. The VA's press secretary Peter Kasperowicz confirmed the revisions were made to align with Trump's executive order but did not clarify what federal law required such shifts.
"All eligible veterans will always be welcome at VA and will always receive the benefits and services they've earned under the law,' he said in a statement, calling the rule changes a mere 'formality.'
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With more than 170 hospitals and more than 1,000 clinics, the VA is the largest integrated hospital system in the U.S. It employs 26,000 doctors and serves 9 million patients annually. The new rules apply to a wide range of professionals, including psychologists, dentists, optometrists, chiropractors, certified nurse practitioners, podiatrists, social workers, and speech therapists.
VA employees told The Guardian that the new rules were imposed without consulting the system's doctors, which would appear to violate the standards established by the nonprofit organization that accredits hospitals.
Medical ethics experts told The Guardian the new rules are 'extremely disturbing and unethical.'
'It seems on its face an effort to exert political control over the VA medical staff,' said Dr. Arthur Caplan, founding head of the division of medical ethics at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine. 'What we typically tell people in health care is: 'You keep your politics at home and take care of your patients."
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Indian Express
12 minutes ago
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Harvard publisher cancels journal issue on Palestine, cites ‘a number of complex issues'
In the wake of the standoff between United States administration and Harvard University, the Harvard Education Publishing Group, a prestigious American education journal's publisher, last month, abruptly canceled the release of a special issue titled, 'education and Palestine,' The Guardian reported. The special issue, which was set to be published this summer was almost ready, as contracts with most authors were finalized and articles were edited, the report noted. On June 9, in an email to the issue's contributors, the publisher cited 'a number of complex issues', taking authors and editors by surprise, The Guardian learnt. This remarkable move comes amid an escalation of United States' confrontation with Harvard University, where it has warned that the elite institution could lose its accreditation over allegations related to 'antisemitism' on campus. Officials have accused elite universities in the US of fostering leftist ideologies and failing to protect Jewish students amid brewing tensions on campus. What did the special issue entail? The special issue of the journal covered topics such as the annihilation of Gaza's schools to the challenges of teaching about Israel and Palestine in the US. The issue was intended to promote 'scholarly conversation on education and Palestine amid repression, occupation, and genocide,' as per internal emails accessed by The Guardian. It included research articles, essays and other writings on topics ranging from education in Israel-Palestine and among the Palestinian diaspora, to academic freedom in the US. The journal articles explored the evolution of the concept of 'scholasticide', a term describing the systematic annihilation of education, first coined during Israel's 2008 invasion of Gaza; the 'ethical and educational responsibilities' of English language teachers in the West Bank; and the impact of 'crackdowns on dissent' on teaching about Palestine in US higher education institutions, according to finalized abstracts of the articles shared with The Guardian. What did the cancellation email state? The email sent to the body of authors and editors, announcing the cancellation of the issue, did not exactly cite 'antisemitism' as its reason. The executive director of the publishing group, Jessica Fiorillo, wrote that the decision stemmed from an 'inadequate review process' and the need for 'considerable copy editing'. Intimating them that the issue was being pulled altogether, Fiorillo claimed the manuscripts were 'unready for publication', in part due to a copy editor's resignation. She also cited an unspecified 'failure to adhere to an adequate review process', a 'lack of internal alignment' between the authors, editors and the publisher, and 'the lack of a clear and expedient path forward to resolving the myriad issues at play'. 'This difficult situation is exacerbated by very significant lack of agreement about the path forward, including and especially whether to publish such a special issue at this time,' she wrote in her email, as seen by The Guardian. She added that the cancellation was not 'due to censorship of a particular viewpoint nor does it connect to matters of academic freedom'. Chronology of the cancellation The speculations began when Rabea Eghbariah, a Palestinian doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School, and the writer of the afterword for the special issue, requested to amend his contract with the Harvard Educational Review (HER) to add a clause seeking to safeguard his academic freedom, which was later declined by the journal. 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Time of India
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Trump pulls US out of UN cultural agency UNESCO for second time
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China's foreign ministry said Washington's decision was "not the behaviour expected of a responsible major country", and expressed China's staunch support of UNESCO's work, its spokesperson told reporters during a press briefing on Wednesday. UNESCO officials said the U.S. withdrawal would have some limited impact on U.S.-financed programs. Azoulay said UNESCO had diversified funding sources, receiving only about 8% of its budget from Washington. UNESCO was one of several international bodies Trump withdrew from during his first term, along with the World Health Organization, the Paris Agreement climate change accord, and the U.N. Human Rights Council. During his second term, he has largely reinstated those steps. Trump's pick to be his U.N. envoy, Mike Waltz, said this month the United Nations needs reform while expressing confidence that "we can make the U.N. great again." 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Azoulay said the U.S. had given the same reasons for its pullout as it had seven years ago "even though the situation has changed profoundly, political tensions have receded, and UNESCO today constitutes a rare forum for consensus on concrete and action-oriented multilateralism." "These claims also contradict the reality of UNESCO's efforts, particularly in the field of Holocaust education and the fight against antisemitism," she added. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is best known for designating World Heritage Sites, including the U.S. Grand Canyon and Egypt's pyramids. It lists 26 sites in the United States, including the Statue of Liberty, on its World Heritage List which highlights 1,248 global locations of "outstanding universal value." Washington has had a troubled relationship with UNESCO over the years. It was a founding member in 1945 but first withdrew in 1984 to protest alleged financial mismanagement and perceived anti-U.S. bias during the Cold War. It returned in 2003 under President George W. Bush, who said UNESCO had undertaken needed reforms, but in 2011 the Obama administration announced it was stopping funding for the agency following its vote to grant the Palestinians full membership. Trump's first administration announced in 2017 it was quitting after accusing UNESCO of anti-Israeli bias, with Washington owing $542 million in dues, before former President Biden reversed the decision in 2023.
