RAVENSWOOD – In West Virginia, we’re proud of the patriotic men and women who have served in our country’s armed forces.
The Mountain State is home to the highest number of veterans per capita, and nearly one in 10 West Virginians have served in the military.
Unfortunately, our brave veterans often return home with physical and mental wounds, and while the government is supposed to protect and care for our veterans, a government agency in Washington, D.C. is threatening to take healthcare options away from servicemen and women in West Virginia.
Casey
| Courtesy photo
Each year, statistics show more and more veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a mental health condition that's triggered by scarring events experienced in combat. Sadly, PTSD is strongly linked with an increased suicide rate for veterans, and one recent study found that 30,000 post-9/11 veterans suffering from mental health conditions have taken their own life.
Unfortunately, in West Virginia, there are few healthcare options for veterans suffering from PTSD – across the entire state, veterans only have access to four VA medical centers. Thankfully, some companies have developed tools to give veterans quicker, easier access to care to treat PTSD.
GammaCore, for example, is an FDA-approved handheld device that treats the underlying symptoms of PTSD with the help of mild electric stimulation. NightWare, another product that’s been proven to help veterans suffering from PTSD, is a software installed on the Apple Watch that uses the watch’s heart-monitoring technology to detect nightmares triggered by PTSD and delivers gentle pulses to disrupt the nightmares without interrupting sleep.
But now, these products are facing a serious threat from the International Trade Commission (ITC).
The ITC is supposed to hear and rule on cases related to international trade and intellectual property, and its primary tool to resolve these disputes is exclusion orders. These bans prevent products from being brought into the United States and are incredibly powerful.
Unfortunately, companies here in the United States have learned to abuse that power as a tool to hurt the competition in their industry. However, instead of pushing back on bad actors, recently the Commission has taken up cases threatening valuable products and tools, and now, the agency is threatening West Virginia veterans.
Recently, the ITC agreed to hear a case between Apple and Masimo, a health technology company, over patents used in the Apple Watch, the only product compatible with NightWare technology. Already, the ITC has issued an initial decision against Apple, and unless the agency reverses course, the case could result in a ban on the Apple Watch, taking away essential care many veterans use to treat PTSD.
This is not how a government agency tasked with protecting Americans is supposed to work.
There are guardrails in place that are supposed to prevent the ITC from banning products, like NightWare, that benefit the American public, but unfortunately, the Commission has largely ignored that duty. For example, the Commission is legally required to consider “public interest factors” to protect these valuable products, but since 1975, the ITC has only used public interest factors in a handful of cases.
Our elected leaders in Washington can help put a stop to this. Senator Joe Manchin, who has advocated veterans for years as a member of both the Senate Armed Forces and Veterans’ Affairs Committees, as well as Senator Shelley Moore Capito, both sit on the Senate Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Committee, which has authority over the ITC.
Now, we need them to act quickly to fix the ITC’s basic, fundamental flaws and stop the agency from threatening West Virginia’s brave veterans.
Casey, a veteran, is founder of Casey Construction, which is based in Ravenswood.