One of the world’s biggest genetic databases comprises DNA data donated over the years by more than a million retired military service members. It’s part of a project run by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The initiative, dubbed the Million Veteran Program, is a “crown jewel of the country,” said David Shulkin, a physician who served as VA secretary during the first Trump administration.
Data from the project has contributed to research on the genetics of anxiety and peripheral artery disease, for instance, and has resulted in hundreds of published papers. Researchers say the repository has the potential to help answer health questions not only specific to veterans — like who is most vulnerable to post-service mental health issues, or why they seem more prone to cancer — but also relevant to the nation as a whole.
“When the VA does research, it helps veterans, but it helps all Americans,” Shulkin said in an interview.
Researchers now say they fear the program is in limbo, jeopardizing the years of work it took to gather the veterans’ genetic data and other information, like surveys and blood samples.
“There’s sort of this cone of silence,” said Amy Justice, a Yale epidemiologist with a VA appointment as a staff physician. “We’ve got to make sure this survives.”
Genetic data is enormously complex, and analyzing it requires vast computing power that VA doesn’t possess. Instead, it has relied on a partnership with the Energy Department, which provides its supercomputers for research purposes.
In late April, VA Secretary Doug Collins disclosed to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, that agreements authorizing use of the computers for the genomics project remained unsigned, with some expiring in September, according to materials shared with KFF Health News by congressional Democrats.