VA makes all toxic-exposure conditions presumptive immediately following signing of PACT Act! Great News - no further waiting!

By 

SARA SAMORA

STARS AND STRIPES • August 31,

WASHINGTON — The Veterans Affairs Department has declared all 23 health conditions outlined in the recently enacted PACT Act “presumptive” from the date the bill was signed, reducing the burden on veterans or their survivors to prove that certain diseases were caused by service-related exposure to toxins and burn pits.

The VA had planned to phase in the system, under which specific health conditions likely resulting from exposure to toxins are recognized as service-related, over the next few years. Those conditions include brain cancer, gastrointestinal cancer, kidney cancer, lymphoma and melanoma, among others. President Joe Biden signed the legislation Aug. 10.

"Veterans have waited too long for this care and these benefits already and we're not going to make them wait any longer," VA Secretary Denis McDonough told the American Legion National Convention in Milwaukee on Wednesday. “So instead of phasing in the conditions over the coming years, we're making all conditions outlined in the PACT Act presumptive August 10."

The law will provide an easier path to health care and benefits for veterans who served near open-air burn pits, which were widely used by the military throughout the 1990s and the post-9/11 wars to dispose of garbage, jet fuel and other materials. Veterans diagnosed with cancer, respiratory issues and lung disease at early ages have blamed exposure on the toxic fumes from these pits, but the VA contended for years that there wasn't sufficient evidence to support their claims.

The new law will also expand the list of presumptive diseases related to Agent Orange to include exposure in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Guam, American Samoa and Johnston Atoll. It also strengthens federal research on toxic exposure, and boosts the VA's resources and training to help cope with new claims.

McDonough also said the VA will begin processing PACT Act claims on Jan. 1, describing it as the earliest possible date. He also said that implementing and executing "one of the biggest expansions of VA benefits in history" won't be easy.

"We will really need your help communicating because we want every veteran, every single veteran to get the care they need and the benefits they deserve, the benefits they have earned, and we will not rest until they do," McDonough said.

The bill was named after Sgt. 1st Class Heath Robinson, who was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder and lung cancer after serving with the Army National Guard in Kosovo and Iraq, where he experienced prolonged exposure to burn pits. He died in 2020.

VA's C-123 Benefits for Reservists Helped Active Duty Veterans Also

I reviewed the March Board of Veterans Appeals decisions and was glad to see five Active Duty airmen win their appeals based on VA's C-123 rules. None of these vets would have succeeded without their claims reliance on our having convinced VA that C-123 duties, Reserve or Active Duty, between 1972-1986 provide for a presumption of exposure to Agent Orange. The benefits to them are tens of thousands of dollars each – congratulations!
In addition, there was one claim approved that I disagree with: a paratrooper claimed Agent Orange exposure merely by having jumped from a C-123 during his active duty years. This kind of infrequent, non-professional is not what VA had in mind when the C-123 eligibility rules were published. Lucky guy, but not from any merit on his part.

VA Contract Against Agent Orange Veterans Revealed - $600,000

How did this happen? Who approved this no-bid sole source contract, an expense never budgeted by the VA? What was done with the resulting materials about Agent Orange? How did VA expect to use the materials to aid veterans' claims, as the contract promised? Why haven't they??

$600,000 was spent on this project. More than most communities received from VA for helping homeless veterans. Were there no contractors who wouldn't offend senators as well as the major veterans' organizations, angering them to insist the VA stop this waste? Read about the anger this contractor caused.

(from VA Contract)

• Did the $600,000 spent on this 

contract do anything to help veterans?

• Wasn't its true purpose to oppose Agent Orange claims?

VA Sets Unfair Barriers to C-123 Veteran Agent Orange Claims

C-123 fleet in HAZMAT quarantine storage, Arizona

VA recognizes several groups regarding veterans' Agent Orange exposure. First and foremost, the "boots on the ground" Vietnam War vets. These men and women are presumed to be exposed to Agent Orange and eligible for treatment of a long list of VA-recognized Agent Orange illnesses - the "presumptive connection" illnesses.

VA also recognizes other groups, including Korean DMZ veterans, Brown Water Navy, and some vets who served in Thailand during the Vietnam War. All these veterans need prove to the VA is that they served "when and where".

Finally, VA has recently published a list of other veterans who, if able to prove their exposure to Agent Orange or other military herbicides, may be considered on an individual basis for Agent Orange-presumptive illnesses. These veterans need not prove the "medical nexus" of their exposure and illness, so long as the illness is one of the current list. Included here are veterans from stateside storage locations, some Blue Water Navy, and -of great interest to us- the C-123 veterans.

But even though we're on their bulletins, we're being treated in a most unique, most unfair manner. Only in the case of C-123 veterans has the VA established a special barrier built around the issues of contamination and exposure. You see, other veterans need only provide "as likely to as not" proof that their service in the military brought them into contact with contaminants of military herbicide. The VA seems to group the whole issue so that contamination equals exposure.

In fact, and we agree, contamination and exposure are separate issues. Contamination means the scientifically established toxicity of a veteran's workplace, vehicle, location, etc. Exposure means that in the presence of a contaminant, one is or is not EXPOSED via inhalation, ingestion or dermal routes of exposure. Separate parts of the larger story of toxic substances and how people are harmed.

But only in the case of C-123 veterans has the VA taken special illogical steps to prevent our group of veterans' lawful claims for treatment of typical Agent Orange illnesses. Once VA found out that there was no way to dispute the actual contamination of the C-123 fleet because so many Air Force tests had already been done, VA acted to bar us from service connection by dreaming up a phony argument that contamination for the first time somehow did not equal exposure! And regardless of the multitude of scientists and physicians who support C-123 veterans' claims, the VA remains dedicated to denying us vital medical care.

Hard to understand why, other than the determination (as always) by the VA to prevent any group of veterans from successful Agent Orange claims unless Congress demands the VA to recognize them. VA has never, on its own, reviewed a group of veterans and determined them to be AO-eligible, and they clearly are dedicated to preventing even one C-123 veteran from getting VA medical care. We recognize there is a budget impact, but the duty of Congress is to provide the dollars. The duty of the VA is to treat veterans. We wish they'd start doing so!

New Agent Orange Exposure Studies Requested

In addition to the request filed with the US Army's Directorate for Risk Assessment , similar applications have been filed for investigations by the National Industrial Occupational Health Administration (part of the CDC) and an independent scientific agency, the Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA). TERA has been asked to evaluate the USAF report on C-123 contamination and its relevance to aircrew exposure to Agent Orange. Our veterans can only hope that TERA accepts this challenging responsibility!

The Army Directorate for Risk Assessment earlier published the famous TG312, the technical guide to assessment of worker contaminants exposure. TG312 has been cited by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in their letter confirming the likely exposure of aircrews and maintenance personnel assigned to the C-123 to dioxin remaining from the aircraft's Vietnam War missions. Further, TG312 was cited by each of the university-based experts who weighed in to support the veterans' claims of having been exposed to the deadly herbicide. Such experts have further claimed that C-123 aircrews (1970 to 1980) were even more severely exposed than nearly all Vietnam War veterans!

Davis-Monthan DAF Employees in Required C-123 HAZMAT Protection

The VA and USAF have disagreed. Faced with the alternative of admitting that they'd sold these dioxin-contaminated aircraft to Walt Disney for movies, and to Thailand and South Vietnam for their militaries, the USAF took a middle-of-the-road approach in their evaluation of the C-123 risks, opining that they could not confirm or deny exposure, but then somehow concluded that aircrew exposure was "unlikely." Of course, having destroyed all the contaminated aircraft in 2010, they've made their limpid position difficult to challenge. All the aircraft were very quietly destroyed on order of the Air Force Material Command and approved by the Air Staff...that is, all were destroyed except for the souvenirs kept by the inspectors themselves (who certified the complete destruction of the airplanes...so destruction complete except for their private, personal and improperly kept souvenirs?)

The VA, faced with the costs of providing medical care for the exposed veterans, quickly prepared their opinion denying veterans' exposure, and did so in the face of toxicology tests completed by the Air Force's Armstrong Labs in which the airplanes were tested as "heavily contaminated" and about which the USAF scientists testified were "a danger to public health." The VA even challenged the industry-standard method by which the Air Force tests were conducted, and concluded the aircraft were not contaminated "enough" to affect veterans' health. This position staggered professional toxicologists - was the VA suggesting a threshold of dioxin exposure, or describing a situation where workers could perform their duties in a dioxin-contaminated aircraft and somehow not be exposed?? Is VA unaware of decisions that NO LEVEL OF DIOXIN is considered "safe" - decisions reached by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) as well as the US Environmental Protection Agency?

Any such "ignorance" seems highly unlikely since these agencies' documents were cited by both the AF and the VA! Any attempt to now claim that the C-123 didn't have enough dioxin to potentially cause harm to aircrews is clearly an equivocation - an attempt to worm their way out of having to care for our veterans' Agent Orange-caused illnesses!

Why can't we get Senator Gillibrand to stand up for us as has Senator Burr?