C-123 Veterans Association Challenges VA to Correct Agent Orange Exposure Publications

Our C-123 Veterans Association has identified numerous errors by which VA denies our aircrews and maintenance veterans earned Agent Orange benefits.

So, we today submitted a 68-page detailed analysis of these errors to as many VA managers for whom we have email addresses.

Here's what we've addressed about VA's C-123 literature:

OUR REPORT

1. 905 CAMS maintainers cross-trained on the C-123 at Westover and should have their exposure claims honored.
2. Rickenbacker's 67th Aeromedical Evacuation squadron flew their base C-123s between 1972-1986 and their exposure claims should be honored.
3. VA has failed to specify enlisted medical crew AFSCs and has for five years simply denied most of their applications, even when submitted with ample evidence.
4. Certain aerial port units at the three C-123 bases should have claims honored, particularly for ramp and fleet service staff.
5. VA failed to see the 911th AES at Pittsburgh IAP was previously named the 33rd AES, and has let the confusion lead to denied veterans benefits.

VA has had most of this sent their way for two years and has failed to act. Perhaps there is hope this time. Worth the try!

Current Status - Institute of Medicine C-123 Agent Orange Exposure Committee

Actually, the full name just doesn't quite flow off the tongue, nor is it easily typed...I always have to look it up: Committee to Evaluate the Potential Exposure to Agent Orange/TCDD Residue and Level of Risk Adverse Health Effects for Aircrew of Post-Vietnam C-123 Aircraft."

They've been meeting and working very hard since the spring and apparently are about finished with their draft copy, according to the cryptic summation of the recent committee teleconferences. Once the draft is complete, it begins another process before reaching the Secretary of Veterans Affairs:

• Prior to release, report is reviewed by individuals who are not involved in authoring the report and whose names are not revealed to the committee or the study director during review.
• Reviewers are selected by the major unit responsible for the project, in consultation with the National Academy of Sciences’ Report Review Committee.
• The review is overseen by a review monitor and/or coordinator.
• Each committee must respond to, but need not agree with, reviewer comments in a detailed “response to review” that is examined by the monitor and/or coordinator, who ensure that the report review criteria have been satisfied.
• The report may not be released to sponsor or the public until the chair of the Report Review Committee (or designee) signifies that the review process has been satisfactorily completed.
• The Department of Veterans Affairs will not be given an opportunity to suggest changes in the report.
• The names and affiliations of the report reviewers will be made public when the report is released.

The second bullet could be fatal: VA, as the "major unit responsible" will select reviewers already determined to prevent C-123 exposure claims, so whatever pro-C-123 exposure conclusions will be severely challenged, and whatever anti-C-123 exposure conclusions will be amplified. So whatever the committee itself recommends will be amended in some way at this point to a position more acceptable to the VA's Post Deployment Health Section. And you can bet they've already got their reviewers picked out! Only when its released and too late to be challenged, are the reviewers identified and in any case, nobody sees the committee's draft, or original version.

Remember: VA did not refer this to the IOM because there is any scientific question that we've been exposed. They referred it, and worded the charge to the committee, to create a basis for continuing to deny all C-123 exposure claims even though each C-123 veteran with an Agent Orange-recognized illness is presently legally entitled to presumptive service connection.

A strong point still in our favor is a fundamental IOM rule: In reaching consensus about an association between exposure and health effects, the Committee considers only peer-reviewed, published scientific literature. The committee also realizes that this group of veterans was never tested at any time for dioxin, and that VA rules for the Agent Orange registry actually prohibit such tests.

The committee realizes that our C-123s are unique in that they were tested to be contaminated – "highly contaminated," in the words of the toxicologists, long after we'd retired them to storage. No other such situation...boats, ships, tanks, trucks, helicopters...was ever determined to be contaminated as were our C-123s. "A danger to public health" as AF toxicologists offered in sworn testimony in 2000. And then, all aircraft destroyed as toxic waste, with special note made for this to be done because exposed vets would seek their exposure benefits.

The material gathered by the VA for IOM, including from its $300,000/year Agent Orange consultant and the Dow/Monsanto sponsored letters, was never peer reviewed. Of course, many other documents submitted to the IOM by the VA and the veterans weren't peer-reviewed, either.

And the only peer-reviewed scientific literature available which directly addressed the situation was Lurker, et. al. "Post-Vietnam Military Herbicide Exposures in UC-123K Agent Orange Spray Aircraft."

The committee is doing what it has to. We asked them also to exercise their independence and address the yes/no question of exposure.

We'll wait and hope for the best.We'll look forward with great hope to the end of September or, if delayed, maybe sometime in October bringing us the IOM report.

What VA Doesn't Want the Institute of Medicine C-123 Post-Vietnam Agent Orange Exposure Committee to Know:

VA gathered the Institute of Medicine this spring and summer to study the post-Vietnam C-123 transports and the aircrews' Agent Orange exposures. Their report on what the VA should do will be submitted to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs by the end of September 2014. C-123 veterans notified IOM staff and the VA we consider this an an unethical step by VA to prevent currently qualified exposure veterans from receiving care the law now provides, with VA seeking to use IOM to construct a specific barrier in our situation.

But the committee doesn't have all the facts before it. The C-123 veterans wish to make known the various reports, studies, and other relevant documents, because the end of June was the committee's cut-off date for formal submission and many new items have been uncovered in the last two months.

Here are new developments or materials not previously submitted to the committee:

1. USAF has withheld hundreds of pages of its post-Vietnam C-123 Agent Orange study from release to veterans and the public, but provided everything to the VA. 
The USAF, through suits filed in the US District Court of Washington DC, has released some of the materials sought under the Freedom of Information Act request we first filed in 2012. Last week, years late and too late for the IOM, USAF released only heavily redacted materials, with nearly every page of the 380 completely blank. The only useful item was a single paragraph in which the USAF research team on post-Vietnam C-123 exposures grouped our exposures with those of Operation Ranch Hand. They then concluded because Ranch Hand veterans are reasonably healthy, the C-123 veterans were somehow not exposed to harmful amounts of Agent Orange. Actually, the AF should have likened our degree of bioavailability to the Vietnam ground troops or even more, according to Dr. Jeanne Stellman of Columbia.

2. VA withheld most pages of its post-Vietnam C-123 Agent Orange activities from release to the veterans and the public.
VA promised through the US District Court requested documents by the end of May, but continues to request postponements and releases nothing except the request for the next postponement. VA references "scientific studies" on its web pages which even the VA Board of Veterans Appeals cites as authority for denying C-123 exposure claims, yet apparently no such studies exist...only the VHA collection of references and selection of those best aimed at preventing veterans' claims. Subsequently in July 2014, VBA officials even denied knowledge of the A.L. Young Consultants $600,000 contract let in 2012, and of all reports, correspondence and other information.

3. Other Federal agencies have concluded the C-123 veterans were exposed and suffered harmful results.
At one point, with the draft provided by a staffer at VBA who'd been a leader in blocking C-123 claims, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs told the Senate that "many independent scientists voluntarily came forward" to argue against C-123 veterans' exposure claims, but it turns out there were only three, and each was paid to offer their opinions, one by VA and the other two by Dow and Monsanto. The Secretary dismissed the dozens of "Concerned Scientists and Physicians" who'd written him through Dr. Stellman as their corresponding scientist, and all of whom were unpaid. The Secretary, writing Senator Burr, dismissed these experts with a minimizing adjective as "some."
Please note that three voices against the veterans are termed "many" but dozens confirming the veterans' exposures are termed, "some."

He ignored input from the National Institutes of Health/NEISH and the CDC/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in explaining to the Senate why VA refuses C-123 claims. The Secretary's misleading letter to the Senate, perhaps an example of what the Secretary meant when he resigned because of poor staff work, was prepared by VBA which has opposed C-123 veterans' claims since we first began submitting them in 2011.

4.  Explaining the VA perspective to the IOM C-123 committee was VA's consultant, paid $600,000 for his services, but a detail not revealed to the committee. The Dow and Monsanto-sponsored reports properly noted their chemical industry sponsorship.  All six major veterans service organizations have demanded the VA cease contractual relationships with this firm.

5. As I told told the committee, the legal issue for the benefits claimed by C-123 veterans is exposure itself, and not bioavailability.
The law, regulations, US Code and Federal Register simply specify exposure to be eligible for what VA terms "presumptive service connection" for recognized Agent Orange illnesses. We've established our exposure to the satisfaction of legislators and Yale Law School as well as other federal agencies. Agencies with the actual statutory authority and expertise in exposure issues such as CDC, NIH and the US Public Health Service have informed VA that we've been both exposed and harmed by it. VA currently orders all C-123 exposure claims denied but the Board of Veterans Appeals almost always overturns and awards benefits to the veteran. To address this, VA's office of General Counsel has opined that VA can redefine exposure in any unique manner it wishes to prevent exposed veterans from being able to meet the law's requirement which only states "exposure."

6. VA, and the consultant explaining VA perspectives to the IOM committee, did not reveal that its spokesperson at the June 16 IOM was personally involved in ordering destruction of the toxic C-123s in 2010 (and as he stressed, to prevent potential veterans' claims), a unique element of his personal background which should have led VA to select another consultant regarding these veterans' health.
In a 2009 series of "Decision Memoranda" to Air Force leaders, the consultant, in his capacity as Senior Consultant to the Office of Secretary of Defense, recommended cessation of all further testing and the immediate destruction of the toxic C-123s, then in quarantine storage at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ. Citing the consultant's unique authority from the Office of Secretary of Defense, Mr. Wm. Boor requested and received from the Air Staff approval for destruction.

This has provided the consultant a unique historical role over four decades:

7. VA Expenditures Regarding C-123 veterans' exposure claims:
    -Support Veterans' Claims: $0.00
    -Prevent Veterans' Claims: $600,000 plus contractor expenses, VA staff salaries, travel & benefits
    -Contract extension with Institute of Medicine: unknown but language of the charge is considered to direct a negative response regarding the legal question of exposure and to force an inconclusive response regarding degree of harm, as this has been the result of previous IOM, unless the committee opts to exceed its charge and act with independence. Dow & Monsanto also sponsored letters opposing C-123 veterans' exposure claims at the June 16 2014 Institute of Medicine hearing.

8. In 2013 the USAF Assistant Surgeon General informed the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that the USAFSAM C-123 Consultative Letter should not be used by VA in denying C-123 veterans' claims.

Still, VA cites it as the foundational document in preventing all C-123 veterans claims. VA further cites its own "scientific study" which is actually only a single page point paper typed in 2011 in preparation for the initial teleconference between VHA, VBA,C-123 veterans, and several scientists. The VA "scientific study" pointedly ignored every finding and opinion supporting C-123 veterans' claims...only publications which could be interpreted to argue against exposure were cited. This "scientific study" was thus only a policy statement.

In its response to the Senate, the AF illogically also reported that its conclusion aircrews were not exposed was "consistent" with the ATSDR finding that aircrews were exposed, and AF simply disregarded the ATSDR finding that the aircrew cancer risks were greatly increased.

9. The Air Force Ranch Hand Study considered non-Ranch Hand C-123 aircrews as potentially exposed from flying converted spray airplanes.
From the early study:

"Another possible control group, the non-Ranch Hand C-123 population, is known to be too small (approximately 3000) to provide flexibility and replacement under the proposed best match variable concept (see below and Section VI,A). Many of the Ranch Hand aircraft were reconfigured for transport and insecticide missions and thus, non-Ranch Hand crews responsible for these other missions, may have been exposed to Herbicide Orange residues in these aircraft. This group may not be considered truly unexposed to herbicides..."

More Inquiries About the Agent Orange Registry Exam for C-123 Vets – NOT ELIGIBLE!

We're NOT eligible! I keep getting inquiries, which I'm glad to answer but the answer hasn't changed about us taking, or being permitted to take, the VA Agent Orange Registry exam. An earlier decision by a Secretary of Veterans Affairs to permit any veteran who claims to have been exposed has been overturned by VHA Public Health, Post Deployment Health. Their policy is that we are not permitted the exam. Please don't be misled by VA internet pages because VHA has made it clear and in writing (below.)

Several Agent Orange Registry sites have written us that any veteran may be examined, but they are apparently not aware of the reversal of the Secretary's policy by VHA Post-Deployment Health.

Last year several C-123 vets were refused by various VA medical centers, and I inquired of VA's Deputy Chief Consultant in Post-Deployment Health. She explained why we're now ineligible in an email to us:

Walters, Terry
5/6/13
to me
Mr. Carter:
The information Mr. XXXX received is correct. The registry exam is essentially a physical exam and is not part of the disability exam.  The Agent Orange registry is available for the following Veterans.

  Vietnam
Veterans who served in Vietnam between 1962 and 1975, regardless of length of time.
Veterans who served aboard smaller river patrol and swift boats that operated on the inland waterways of Vietnam (also known as “Brown Water Veterans”)
   Korea
Veterans who served in a unit in or near the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) anytime between April 1, 1968 and August 31, 1971.
   Thailand
U.S. Air Force Veterans who served on Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) bases near U-Tapao, Ubon, Nakhon Phanom, Udorn, Takhli, Korat, and Don Muang, near the air base perimeter anytime between February 28, 1961 and May 7, 1975.
U.S. Army Veterans who provided perimeter security on RTAF bases in Thailand anytime between February 28, 1961 and May 7, 1975.
U.S. Army Veterans who were stationed on some small Army installations in Thailand anytime between February 28, 1961 and May 7, 1975. However, the Amy Veteran must have been a member of a military police (MP) unit or was assigned a military occupational specialty whose duty placed him or her at or near the base perimeter.
   Other potential Agent Orange exposures
Veterans who may have been exposed to herbicides during a military operation or as a result of testing, transporting, or spraying herbicides for military purposes. Learn about herbicide tests and storage outside Vietnam. Agent Orange or Dioxin dried on surfaces does not present a significant threat to human health. Veterans are eligible if they were in the presence of liquid Agent Orange such as when Agent Orange was sprayed, tested or transported.

Terry Walters MD MPH
Deputy Chief Consultant Post-Deployment Health
Office of Public Health
Veteran Health Administration

More On VA's Claim That Agent Orange is Harmless

VA's Director of Compensation and Pension Service has directed that C-123 veterans' claims for Agent Orange ALL be denied on a variety of grounds, including his statement: 

"In summary [C&P is writing its review of the CDC conclusion by Dr. Tom Sinks that C-123 veterans actually were exposed, but the Director very pointedly skips that part so as to better deny claims]there is no conclusive evidence that TCDD [the toxin in Agent Orange] exposure causes any long term health effects." 

Gosh, maybe it is just me, but it really looks as though the VA deliberately reversed the actual finding of the CDC/ATSDR...just to deny C-123 veterans' claims.

C&P's staff, in denying vital medical care to Agent Orange-exposed veterans, perhaps didn't have the spare time to read up on Agent Orange.

One place the nice folks at Compensation and Pension might turn for TCDD information is...the VA! Yes, indeed! Right on the VA Public Health "Facts About Herbicides" web page the VA says "TCDD is the most toxic of toxins, and is classified as a human carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency." 

Do we have this right? Has C&P refused care to over a thousand C-123 vets seeking care for cancers, ALS,

diabetes, heart disease and other Agent Orange presumptive illnesses...because C&P has concluded TCDD hasn't been shown to have any health effects? Their statement was brought to his attention in a meeting in the C&P office on 28 Feb 2013, and VA has not corrected or modified it in any way since.

That same web page directs veterans to the CDC/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease web page, where the dangers of TCDD are discussed in detail. This is also confusing, because C&P directed VA to disregard input from Dr. Tom Sinks, Deputy Director of the CDC/ATSDR, as well as other experts from agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, EPA and US Public Health Service...all of whom agree C-123 veterans were exposed to TCDD. C&P writes that these other government agencies are not qualified to discuss exposure to Agent Orange. Yet VA tells vets to rely on ATSDR for information about TCDD!!

It seems the only conclusion a reasonable person can make from all this is that C&P has decided that no C-123 veterans were harmed by their Agent Orange exposure, despite opinions from other federal agencies and in the face of its own conclusions about the dangers of TCDD. 

It seems the only reason for this action by Compensation and Pension is to insure, despite the law, that all C-123 vets are prevented from receiving care for their established Agent Orange illnesses. It seems C&P is determined to prevent "benefit of the doubt" or "veteran-friendly, non-adversarial" requirements to apply to C-123 vets.

Can't somebody from VA's Office of the General Counsel read the law to Compensation and Pension? Toss them a copy of the Federal Register 8 May 2001, page 23166 and also the Federal Register of 31 August 2010. Counsel should ask why rating officials in the regional offices are told by C&P to tell veterans "regulations do not permit" recognition of C-123 exposures. 


Somebody must explain to Compensation and Pension, and to Post Deployment Health, that the term "exposure" is not theirs to redefine in a totally unscientific manner, which is what they've done for their stated purpose of preventing C-123 veterans' claims!

Note: VA's regulation that implements 38 U.S.C. 1116(a)(3), 38 CFR 3.307(a)(6)(i), defines herbicide agents specifically: “2,4-D; 2,4,5-T and its contaminant TCDD; cacodylic acid; and picloram.” So C&P is charged with providing compensation and pensions to TCDD-exposed veterans, but VA elects to deny compensation and pensions to TCDD-exposed C-123 veterans because C&P has concluded it isn't harmful????

Another Challenge to VA Definition of "Exposure" & VA Policy of Denying C-123 Agent Orange Benefits

The authoritative Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology is recognized as the premier scientific publication dealing with toxins and their impact on humans.

As you know from reading earlier postings, VA in 2012 introduced their policy-driven and wrong-headed redefinition of "exposure" only to bar C-123 veterans from Agent Orange exposure benefits. Because the various laws specify that a non-Vietnam War veteran need only prove exposure to military herbicides for a successful claim, VA focused on creating a phony way to deny the exposure. To make it go away with semantics, even though we'd had a decade of that exposure flying the contaminated C-123 warplanes.

VA opposed us by redefining the word. They put forward the incorrect and unscientific pretense that "Exposure=Contamination Field+Bioavailability." No proof of biological impact of the substance on the body (like caffeine in coffee increasing blood pressure) the VA pretends to mean equals no exposure. 

This is scientifically wrong. The most authoritative source is the CDC/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which defines exposure as the simple contact (or ingestion or inhalation) of a contaminant with the body. Remember, the laws and regulations make clear veterans need only establish the fact of exposure...that is what the VA seeks to make impossible by creating their own in-house use for that word.

Now, a highly respected professional society, the International Society of Exposure Science, has published their official ISEA glossary. There, exposure is defined as "contact between an agent and a target." No mention of bioavailability! Not here, nor elsewhere in science is bioavailability required to acknowledge exposure, because in fact, bioavailability flows from exposure.

And this flows from experts with the US EPA, the American Chemistry Council, and Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. Dr.Valerie Zartarian with the EPA published the glossary in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology in September 2004.

It must be clear to everyone, including VA's Veterans Health Administration and their

Post-Deployment Health Section, that VA has undertaken a policy-driven redefinition of fundamental scientific terms and done so solely to prevent C-123 exposure claims.  Post-Deployment Health has even barred C-123 veterans claiming exposure from receiving Agent Orange Registry health exams. (source: W. Carter telecon with Deputy Director VHA Post-Deployment Health)

Nowhere else in science or medicine is "exposure" redefined as the VA has done. Now, the authority of the premier professional scientific organization addressing exposure issues, and the publication by an EPA scientist here of the glossary as a juried article, means VA's approach has been trashed.

VA will still deny claims, which is the VBA's fundamental mission. The Secretary promised the Senate that all C-123 claims were to be considered individually. Perhaps so, but these claims are all 100% denied regardless of proof submitted, and denied at the direction of VA's Compensation and Pension Service which tells raters that "regulations do not permit" C-123 claims to be honored. 

However, VHA's Post-Deployment Health, which directed Compensation and Pension Services to accept their warped manipulation of the word exposure,  now stands exposed themselves for their obvious falsehoods.

Civilian Insurance Eligibility vs. VA Disability Claims

Much is being written, comparing failures in the VA delivery of medical care to eligible veterans to that of the civilian sector. The inference is that a system so "screwed up" as the VA, the nation's largest single health care delivery organization, shows the government's inability to assume the even larger task of Obama Care.

Perhaps so. All I can relate is my complete disappointment with the side of the VA which deals with eligibility for care...the Veterans Benefit Administration (VBA, headed by Under Secretary Allison Hickey) and their Compensation and Pension Service.

The other part of the VA, that which delivers the care, is Veterans Health Administration (VHA.) While I am totally and completely satisfied with all of the hands-on care I've received since being disabled (other than two incidents of physician misdiagnosis) I am far less satisfied with one function of the VHA...Post Deployment Health.

Post-Deployment Health section eagerly seeks excuses...however unscientific...for denying issues such as burn pit and Agent Orange exposure claims. Post-Deployment Health has even pushed for the denial of C-123 Agent Orange exposure claims by telling VBA that Agent Orange's toxic element (dioxin) hasn't been shown to be harmful. They have told The C-123 Veterans Association that aircrew veterans were never exposed, despite a decade of flying our dioxin-contaminated warplanes.

Asked about this, Post-Deployment Health responded that NONE of the Vietnam War veterans were perhaps the Operation Ranch Hand airmen and the Army's Chemical Corps troops who sprayed from helicopters and ground vehicles.

Amazing. They get away with this deception by application of their special, unrecognized, in-house, agency-unique, unscientific definition of "exposed," because the law simply uses that word to describe those veterans eligible for Agent Orange exposure care.

Further, VA actually denies Agent Orange claims of non-Vietnam War veterans by stating Agent Orange is harmless! Perhaps they've missed a few pages on the Internet site, or haven't read medical journals for the last several decades. Or perhaps...these are merely policy-driven excuses!

Here's another fun factoid: although headed up by and staffed by scientists as well as physicians, Post-Deployment Health guided VBA into rejecting disability claim proofs submitted by outside scientists, including those from other federal agencies. Ignored without even comment in claims were physician proofs.

But back to the comparison of civilian health care to that of the VA.

I say there is no comparison possible because the VA immediately defaults in their delivery. To receive care from the VA, a veteran must first establish eligibility...the disability claim. No program can be called a health care system if it obliges ill beneficiaries to wait years to begin their medical care!

You're a veteran. Perhaps you're told you have heart disease...cancer, ..ALS... scary scary illnesses and you start looking around for vital medical care. Don't look to the VA unless you're already in their system for other disabilities.

Because of their antiquated disability claim process, veterans fully qualified for medical care are DENIED that medical care until the VA completes the disability claim process. Veterans eventually deemed eligible for care have thus waited a year or more for the care sought to relieve their suffering and save their lives.

There is no comparison with civilian health care. A civilian walks into an ER and will either receive care there or be transported to a facility providing the necessary care. A veteran walks in to a VA medical center and, if unable to present his VA pre-approved service-connection ID card, is told to go elsewhere.

That's right. No cancer care, no pharmacy, no rehab, no surgery, no dental...nothing.

The fix: VA has already undertaken several steps to address separating military personnel and get them into the VA system before being dropped from the DOD care. VA has sped up the claims process, in great part due to automation and the "Fully Developed Claim."

What they need to do to close the gap is permit care on a presumptive eligibility basis. A veteran presenting a DD214 (record of honorable service) and a plausible case for eligibility should receive care unless and until the presumptive eligibility is disproven.

Today, the VA saves tremendous sums by denying care to veterans submitting disability claims...not by withholding their compensation checks because eventually the system will catch up with the disability claim...but the VA saves money by keeping the veterans out of VA hospitals for as long as possible.

Two years waiting for a claim...and three to five years for an appeal...and the only ones left concerned about the claim are the veteran's survivors!

Veterans Benefits Administration REDEFINES Science to Prevent Agent Orange Claims

PART ONE: The Grand Deception
A simple line deep in the middle of a poster presentation offered at the Society of Toxicology convention is where VA did it to the C-123 veterans, and other vets exposed to Agent Orange in situations other than "boots on the ground" during Vietnam. Here is where VA showed its eagerness to prevent service-disabled veterans from, as VA and DOD consultants have put it, becoming "freeloaders looking for a tax-free dollar from a sympathetic congressman."

The Society of Toxicology invites poster displays as well as scientific and medical presentations from members, and VA's Veterans Benefits Administration and Veterans Health Administration prepared their large poster for that San Francisco meeting.

Their objective: enjoy a freebee trip to the Golden Gate city justified on the basis of doing something useful like the poster, but also engineer a special way to skirt the law and insure Agent Orange veterans, in particular, C-123 veterans, all be denied exposure benefits clearly provided for by law. What law? The Agent Orange Act of 1991, and also Title 38, as well as the 8 May 2001 Federal Register, page 23166 which has the force of regulation.

These laws, regulations and announcements provide that veterans exposed to military herbicides will receive exposure benefits without requirement that they provide proof of medical nexus...which is virtually impossible for any individual to do. Think here of a non-smoker getting lung cancer. Where and when cannot be proved with today's science, but it surely came from somewhere. Same here with military herbicide exposure and the "Agent Orange" presumptives, a list of illnesses acknowledged the the VA and the National Academy of Science/Institute of Medicine to be associated with dioxin exposure.

Seems simple enough. Exposure proof would result in claim approval. Nope! Faced with the possibility of C-123 veterans continuing their legitimate pursuit of essential, life-saving medical treatment for Agent Orange illnesses, VA executives realized that the Agency needed to focus on exposure. The Air Force had already determined that C-123s used for spraying Agent Orange during the Vietnam War remained contaminated ("heavily contaminated on all test surfaces" and "a danger to public health" read the AF toxicology reports.) That left the VA weak on any challenge to the fact of contamination of the aircraft, and any veteran's confirmed diagnosis of an Agent Orange illness prevented any challenge on that issue, so the only approach would be to deny the exposure itself.

VHA Poster Display

Here is where VA gets amazingly creative. Simply disregarding the law, and challenging the entire world of science and medicine, Veterans Health Administration utilized the Society of Toxicology conference to present a non-juried poster display entitled "AGENT ORANGE: 50-Year History and Newest Chapter of Concerns." Folks, C-123 veterans were cited as the VA's "chapter of concerns." Folks, the "concern" was the VA's in dread of eligible veterans actually receiving the benefits to which our Agent Orange exposure entitles us!

So somebody at 810 Vermont Avenue, Washington D.C.  got the clever idea, "Let's redefine the word "exposure" to prevent any exposed veteran from ever being approved. Let's pretend, just here at the VA, that "exposure" will mean something extra...that "exposure," the simple and precise word used in the various laws, will mean only what we say it means. And that definition is going to be that "exposure equals contaminant plus bioavailability." This way, with our special private redefinition, we can pretend that the laws of the United States do not apply, that science, logic and justice do not apply, and we can once again require proof of medical nexus!"

VA associates us much too closely with the tens of thousands of Blue Water Navy veterans, and VA is frightened that approving C-123 vets will lead to approving Blue Water Navy also.

Midway down the SOT poster made up by the VA, left column, at the fourth paragraph, the reader comes to the alarming deception employed by VA's Post Deployment Health staffers who wrote this poster. C-123 Veterans Association leaders encountered them all at the March 2013 conference hosted by Senator Burr's staff as we tried to find common ground. Sadly, this non-juried piece of policy-driven verbiage is the result!

Read carefully, won't you? Chew carefully on the highlighted items. We'll discuss this vicious VA deceptions in our next post. Meantime, Google words like "medical nexus, "exposure," and take a moment to read Page 23166 of the 8 May 2001 Federal Register, the last section of the middle column. Very revealing!

Lesson Learned – Don't Tweak the VA's Nose!

Last Friday the VA's eBenefits site showed my disability claims had been resolved, and today I learned just how. The VA denied all fifteen claimed! Thus it seems the VA has firmed up their resistance to C-123 claims following the single claim permitted on 31 July 2013 when the Manchester VA Regional Office approved Paul Bailey's claim.

Very surprising was VA's failure to address each of the proofs I submitted as well as dismissing all my "lay" evidence. They just said "no."

I'm already 100% for other issues so the disappointment I feel is only in the painful realization that they meant it..."No C-123 claims will be permitted to be approved," as per VA's Post-Deployment Health

Newest YouTube Video: C-123 Veterans Challenge VA's "Scientific Review of C-123" Article

Posted yesterday: C-123 Veterans Challenge VA's "Scientific Review of C-123 Agent Orange" article.

The VA began poisoning the air immediately after the first C-123 Agent Orange exposure concerns were raised by veterans. Their basic response was posted on the Internet entitled "Scientific Review of Agent Orange in C-123 Aircraft." Our is a long 22-minute video, because there was much to cover, or should we say, uncover, regarding this act of deception on the part of VA.

As science, this article from VA is useless. It reflects a 100% one-sided argument, framed solely to prevent any possibility of our veterans qualifying for Agent Orange exposure protection. VA deliberately ignored everything in science which would have confirmed our possible exposure, and cherry-picked only materials to deny us. Amazing, but they even cited Dr. Linda Birnbaum of the NIH/NEIHS as author of an article "proving" we weren't exposed, yet Dr. Birnbaum has written that C-123 veterans WERE exposed to dioxin.

VA scientists writing this certainly won't be proud to list it in their CV of publications - no, it isn't science, but rather policy, and it doesn't deserve to be called science! As for VA's cherry-picking of references, we must remember what VA's Compensation Services told us on 28 February 2013 - that no amount of evidence proving C-123 veterans' exposure will be considered because VA's Post Deployment Health has already ruled that no C-123 veteran was ever exposed.

I guess we'll have to keep arguing that point with them!

C-123 Veterans Excluded from Agent Orange Registry Exam effective 5 May 2013

This morning, VA's Deputy Director Post-Deployment Health, part of the VA's Office of Public Health, corrected our understanding regarding the Agent Orange Registry exam. C-123 veterans, unless otherwise qualified through Vietnam service, are not eligible for this screening examination.

Originally, the current  Jun 2 2012 Internet page specified eligibility for any veteran believing him/herself to have been exposed.  Recent interpretations of that page have added language denying coverage for dried Agent Orange and specifying only liquid Agent Orange, thus restricting us from eligibility. The new version reads:

"Other potential Agent Orange exposures

• Veterans who may have been exposed to herbicides during a military operation or as a result of testing, transporting, or spraying herbicides for military purposes. Learn about herbicide tests and storage outside Vietnam. Agent Orange or Dioxin dried on surfaces does not present a significant threat to human health. Veterans are eligible if they were in the presence of liquid Agent Orange such as when Agent Orange was sprayed, tested or transported."

The language of the Internet page which now provides for us to be included will probably be updated to exclude us at some point to address this confusion. I don't know what the impact will be on any Agent Orange claims but the Registry exam was never a part of the disability application process so there should be none.

Thanks to the VA's Post-Deployment Health for detailing these important changes for us. 

C-123 Veterans Post YouTube Video - VA Defiance of Freedom of Information Act

In 2012 C-123 veterans submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain vital documents regarding the VA's treatment...shall we say mistreatment, of veteran's claims about Agent Orange exposure.

A full year later, and on 11 March 2013 VA's Assistant General Counsel "kindly" informed the veterans that no evidence exists. Nothing. No publications, research, emails, marginal notations, notes, correspondence, presentations..nothing exists within the Department of Veterans Affairs about C-123 Agent Orange exposure. Not even whatever the VA bases its refusal to honor veterans' claims for Agent Orange exposure, or why their Director of Veterans Compensation Service informed a veteran his Agent Orange claim is to be denied because Agent Orange is harmless.

We've complained, but FOIAs are commonly ignored or falsely responded to, and here's another one on the pile of dishonored requests. I guess obedience to the law is for those subject to the law, not for those responsible to administering it like the VA.