For our third time since January 2013, on November 17 2014 the C-123 Veterans Association presented an update on our Agent Orange experience to the Institute of Medicine. This time, the IOM was beginning a special, final 24-month examination of virtually all Agent Orange issues with a special focus on newly published scientific and medical literature.
Unlike the first of these meetings back in 1994, only three veterans were present to address the committee during its Monday public forum. In 1994, hundreds of concerned veterans and their advocates made clear to the VA and the IOM the depth of our anger and disappointment.
This time, on Monday November 17, it was immediately clear that so many of those passionate advocates are no longer with us, or no longer able to advance the cause of exposed veterans. The three folks on Monday did their best, and we'll know more in 24 months when the committee's report is finally published.
Who knows...it might be the last one in history!
[T]he government’s interest in veterans cases is not that it shall win, but rather that justice shall be done, that all veterans so entitled receive the benefits due to them.” Barrett v. Nicholson, 466 F.3d 1038, 1044 (Fed.Cir.2006)
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