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The Department of Veterans Affairs has suspended debt collections related to overpayments of pensions to low-income veterans or their survivors after the agency found it had mistakenly paid too much, in some cases, over a period of many years, department officials announced Friday. The VA provides pensions to some veterans or survivors based on self-reported income that is later verified by the department, using data reported from outside sources such as the Social Security Administration and other federal agencies. (Kime, 11/7)

Health care open season is about to get underway for military beneficiaries who are eligible for Tricare or the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program, known as FEDVIP. And there’s a new benefit for military families this year, the Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account, which allows families to set aside money before taxes for dependent care expenses. Families sign up for this new benefit during the federal benefits open season. (Jowers, 11/7)

Funded by the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, researchers spent a year exploring the kinds of data on service members and veterans that brokers are collecting and selling, and whether foreign adversaries could exploit any of that information. ... “It is not difficult to obtain sensitive data about active duty members of the military, their families, and veterans, including non-public, individually identified and sensitive data, such as health data, financial data and information about religious practices,” according to the report. (Myers, 11/7)

Like other psychedelics, psilocybin is illegal under federal law and classified as a Schedule I drug, which the Drug Enforcement Administration says have a "high potential for abuse and no recognized medical value." As a result, there are roadblocks to research its effectiveness in treating PTSD and the VA is prohibited from prescribing or administering it. But local Congressman and Naval vet Chris Deluzio is supporting legislation to change that.  "I say let the science and medicine lead us here and if there are safe therapies that are helping veterans and helping people, we should be making those available to folks," Deluzio said. (Sheehan, 11/7)

Around one military family out of eight turned to food banks during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new academic study led by a researcher at the University of Georgia has revealed. Researchers surveyed more than 8,000 military families who applied for child care subsidies from the National Military Family Association, a military-focused nonprofit, in the spring of 2021 and found that about 13% of those families had used a food pantry in the past year. (Toropin, 11/7)

The Peace Corps, which has repeatedly come under scrutiny for the medical care it provides to volunteers, has agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the family of a 24-year-old volunteer who died of undiagnosed malaria in the island nation of Comoros off the coast of East Africa. The federal government did not admit any guilt or liability in the death of the volunteer, Bernice Heiderman of Inverness, Ill., according to a legal filing on Tuesday in Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. (Stolberg, 11/7)