Rogers / 3 Senator Datte

S.S._____

A BILL
To fund research for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Psychological) Support Animals for United States veterans.
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Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE
This act may be cited as the PTSD Support Act of 2015.
SECTION 2. FINDINGS
Congress hereby finds and declares that,
1) About 11-20 out of every 100 Veterans (between 11-20 percent) who served in Operation Enduring Freedom or
Operation Iraqi Freedom have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in a given year.
2) The Department of Veteran Affairs, the VA, provides service dogs for Veterans with certain physical disabilities,
vision or hearing loss, or loss of a limb.
3) Stress and anxiety are often eliminated simply by having an animal present in both individual and group therapy.
4) The dogs can alleviate nightmares and sleeplessness, common symptoms of PTSD.
5) VA has not yet been able to determine that these dogs provide a medical benefit to veterans with mental illness.
6) Researchers surveyed and observed 40 PTSD victims given a service dog and found that all but one participant
with a service dog indicated that the dog made a positive difference in the lives of family members, friends, and/or
attendants; provision of emotional support and companionship by the dogs was mentioned by 44 percent of the
participants as having a major impact.
7) The ability to physically touch an animal reduces symptoms of hyperarousal, the first sign of PTSD and is linked
to the sympathetic nervous system.
8) Clinically, there is not enough research yet to know if dogs actually help treat PTSD and its symptoms.
9) A therapist working with a client who had PTSD noted that the child was exhibiting a decrease in symptoms when
with the dog.
10) There is a category of service dogs that is gaining a lot of attention and that is dogs who are working with people
with PTSD.
11) Dogs can alleviate nightmares and sleeplessness, which are common symptoms of PTSD.
12) Memory recollections cause a variety of psychological disabilities, such as social avoidance, anxiety, emotional
overload, depression, a general sense of foreboding, etc.
13) While a dogs companionship may offer emotional support, comfort or a sense of security, this in and of itself
does not qualify as a trained task or work under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, thus it does not give
a disabled person the legal right to take that dog out in public as a legitimate service dog.
SECTION 3. STATUTORY LANGUAGE
A) The United States Department of Veteran Affairs shall hereby divert two million dollars per year from their annual
budget of 168.8 billion dollars to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Animal research until a result has
been determined or until the bill expires. Funding shall allow the United States Department of Veteran Affairs to
conduct research on animals, such as dogs, and their effects on PTSD and its symptoms to determine if the animals
are a reasonable treatment for PTSD. The United States Department of Veteran Affairs shall only use the diverted
money for PTSD Support Animal research. The Office of Research and Development shall be conducting the PTSD
Support Animal research within the United States Department of Veteran Affairs. The research shall be used to
determine if animals, such as dogs, are able to treat PTSD and its symptoms. The goal of this research is to find a
cure or treatment for PTSD.
B) The United States Department of Veteran Affairs shall be responsible for administering enforcement that the
diverted funds are hereby used for, and only for, the research of PTSD Support Animals for the treatment of PTSD.
The United States Department of Veteran Affairs shall check the enforcement of this bill by scrutinizing the diverted
fund account of the PTSD Support Animals research each month, until the expiration date.
C) This bill shall go into effect February 1, 2016. This bill shall expire June 2, 2019.