Air Force Times: C-123 Veterans Battle VA on Post-Vietnam Agent Orange Claims

Vets battle VA on post-Vietnam Agent Orange claims

Proof C-123-123 'spray birds' caused illnesses long after war

Posted today, by Gannett's Patricia Kime who has covered this issue with sensitivity and remarkable accuracy for several years. Reporter Kime details the track record of C-123 contamination, destruction, experts' opinions, other federal agency findings, test reports and recent scientific investigations.

She also reports the VA's standard response to any proofs against their predetermined refusal of C-123 claims, quoting VA spokesperson's promise to consider claims on a case-by-case basis, not reported was that gentleman's position, as detailed to W. Carter and M. Wentworth at our meeting with his staff on 28 Feb 2013, that no claims will be approved. 

Or VHA Chief Consultant Post Deployment Health assurances given C-123 veterans that "probably none" of the veterans' exposure claims would ever be approved before our deaths. VHA then comforted us with his assurance "We all die."

Obviously, there is a contradiction between VA uniform denials and VA assurances to the Senate, the veterans and the public that individual C-123 veterans' claims will be carefully evaluated on their merits, on their qualification for meeting the law's requirements and regulations enacted by the VA. And all then denied.

The contradiction is created by VA having both written and perfectly understood unofficial policies that all such claims are to be prevented, the laws apparently being waived in this situation.

So, on a case-by-case basis, all claims are uniformly denied. So much for law, justice, medicine, science, ethics, honesty, honor, and other values and standards we respect...and expected of VA. Just as the VA spokesperson promises, on a case-by-case basis, as each inquiry comes in from the VAROs in accordance with VA21-1MR, each claim then receives one of the boilerplate denial orders.

Why do all the VA spokespersons skip that last part? About all C-123 claims being denied on orders of Post Deployment Health staff?

The Secretary must have authorized various VA units to disregard VA commitments expressed in the Federal Register 31 Aug 2010, freeing the VA in some way from the rule of law (Administrative Procedures Act)

The Secretary must have authorized Post Deployment Health to overturn his earlier order to allow all veterans claiming exposure to receive an Agent Orange Registry exam. 

Although we've written, and the Washington Post carried full details in August just as the Air Force Times did today, the Secretary must not have been informed of the repeated findings by other federal agencies which confirm C-123 veterans' exposure, the staff at Post Deployment Health having a different perspective than the rest of Science, Law and Medicine.

We respect the talent of Dr. Davey's staff, with Post Deployment Health. However, would it not seem that the expertise of the NIH, CDC, EPA, and US Public Health Service might have some influence also?

The veterans' concerns were detailed (as a confidential communication to Dr. B.) to the VA National Center for Ethics in Healthcare, where staff, including its chief, declined to act in any way when we sought advice. This is perhaps because no ethical issues rose to their level of concern, or because the issues were voiced by veterans and not VA professional staff.

We are assured by Assistant General Counsel Hipolit that claims are handled appropriately. After detailing to him our concerns about VA legal shortcuts denying us our rights without due process, he reminded us that any objections can be brought to the Board of Veterans Appeals.

This is where surviving C-123 veterans can have their cases heard on actual legal and scientific merits, contrary to VARO decisions and orders from Compensation and Pension to deny such claims. To many C-123 veterans, the average 900 day wait for a BVA hearing is but fatal advice from Mr. Hipolit...as he knows.

No C-123 claims, other than Paul Bailey's, have ever been allowed by Compensation and Pension. They fulfill the instructions from Post Deployment Health that C-123 exposure claims "just cannot be permitted."

VA Announces C-123 Institute of Medicine Exposure Study

VA has posted a revision of the C-123 exposures page, which now includes a brief statement of the recent referral of the issue to the Institute of Medicine. Results expected late 2014.

The affected veterans appreciate the concern of the public and the Department of Veterans Affairs in submitting the issue to the Institute of Medicine. We feel, however, the issue is well-addressed in both legal and scientific proofs available to the VA today.

The inevitable delay in fairly considering C-123 veterans' claims which this IOM project involves means eligible veterans will continue to be denied VA medical care. This delay, perhaps as much as two more years, takes from us two years we don't have left to wait for such a decision to gain access to vital medical care.

It has been two years since VA broke their promise of the C-123 IOM project we'd agreed to, and now two more years are proposed mostly as a means of saving money by refusing medical care. That's wrong.

We're eligible now. But regardless, VA denies all claims now, on orders from Compensation and Pension.

Is it not a reasonable interim position that well-qualified C-123 claims be permitted approval? VA could ask for proof of service, proof of diagnosis of an Agent Orange-presumptive illness, and proof of duty aboard a known former Agent Orange spray aircraft such as # 362 (Patches) or one of the other Ranch Hand warplanes.

In our situation of exposure outside Vietnam, VA21-1MR requires VAROs to inquire of C&P as well as JSRRC. Rather than any evaluation at this point, C&P then responds to every referral by ordering denials, and VA has controlled how JSRRC can respond and upon what evidence JSRRC summaries can be based. Post Deployment Health and Compensation and Pension are able to explain better.

We believe that eventually somebody in authority will walk into General Hickey or General Shinseki's office and tell them what's actually being done to the C-123 veterans. The law reads exposure, the rules read exposure, the proofs from science and other federal agencies confirm both exposure and medical impact, but it seems orders still blast out of Washington to "deny, deny, deny. Invent whatever reason, but deny." Once leaders realize, as does the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, that VA procedures are improper, things can change.

Until then, we'll continue to see each and every one of our perfectly valid exposure claims denied on the preferences of a few staffers.

Exposure: Rights vs. Duties Regarding C-123 Veterans

The C-123 veterans have a right to military herbicide exposure benefits. There has been proof submitted far, far past the "as likely to as not" threshold.

Veterans Benefits Administration has the duty to respect the rights of C-123 veterans, and the duty not to construct their unique barriers to our access to VA medical care. The personal views of individuals dedicated to preventing care of C-123 veterans, clearly qualified under the law and regulations implemented by the VA in respect to law and regulations, is inappropriate and ethically questionable.

The duty of Veterans Benefits Administration to provide exposure benefits to only those veterans with the right to such benefits is clear. The duty of the Department of Veterans Affairs to protect medical and financial resources is clear.

The duty of the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide C-123 veterans submitting proof of military herbicide exposure is clear. The evidence of C-123 exposure, the legal basis for C-123 veterans' rights to exposure benefits, is clear. Both have been carefully documented to many senior executives in the Department of Veterans Affairs. Proofs have been either rebuffed or ignored, even by General Counsel which is the Department's chief ethical investigations officer.

Full facts of the C-123 veterans' exposure claims have been provided the Secretary, Under Secretary Hickey, General Counsel, Director Compensation and Pension, Director Public Health and Chief Consultant for Post Deployment Health. The decision by these officials not to respect their duty to correct the improper denial of C-123 veterans is unwise and inappropriate, and harmful to the veterans' well-being.

Selection of consultants to opine on C-123 veterans' exposure claims is inappropriate if those consultants have already and repeatedly expressed conclusions over decades that the veterans were not exposed or if exposed, such exposures were harmless, and could reliably be expected to repeat their convictions rather than examine new evidence or perspectives. Selection is especially questionable if the consultants were selected after the C-123 veterans had already submitted to VA leadership objections to the consultant's earlier expressed contempt for the subjects of the study. The situation leaves scientific objectivity of the work product an issue. Selection of consultants also leaves objectivity of the Department an issue of even greater concern.

The Senate Veterans Committee has been briefed along with the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, and Vietnam Veterans of America.

JSRRC should be asked to provide a full detailing of military documentation addressing C-123 exposure issues, including a Memorandum for Record as with Blue Water Navy and Thailand veterans, such a precedent for memoranda now well established. VA should not control which documents JSRRC may utilize to respond to veterans' claims, especially when other government agency input is in the scientific analysis of military source documents and tests. Preventing input from government agencies such as US Public Health Service and its Commissioned Officers is inappropriate, as these officers are commissioned military officers and physicians, meeting JSRRC and VA requirements.

VA senior-level decisions not to act on the clear and unmistakeable errors detailed to them is inappropriate, uncaring and discriminatory against the veterans. VA leadership has denied C-123 veterans VA medical care and other benefits for years since the earliest submissions of such proofs, without justification for this discrimination.

VA leadership assurances to veterans and their legislative representatives that no blanket policy exists prohibiting C-123 veterans' claims are inaccurate in the extreme...detailed boilerplate examples of how to deny all such claims constitutes a blanket policy to any observer.

VA's decision to seek another two year delay through an IOM study is a maneuver around mounting evidence, including recent juried scientific articles challenging VA and DOD exposure assessments. The same study, promised in 2012 but the promise broken that same year, would have addressed both the Department's and the veterans' concerns, but the broken promise is now reconstructed as another two-year barrier.

In all conscience, VA must either cancel the IOM project, or in the interim before VA action on any such IOM study, permit C-123 veterans' claims to be judged on their full merits and not obstructed by personal preferences of a small number of VA personnel, and by directions to VAROs to deny all such claims. If VA does not do this, the IOM must ask for such a provision.

Instructions should be provided VAROs that C-123 claims are welcomed by the Department. Veterans should be permitted exams under the Agent Orange Registry procedures. Exposure claims are to be judged on their merits and decisions permitted in favor of the veterans, rather than claims ordered denied by whichever VA staff now improperly directs such refusals.

Throughout VA web pages and published literature references are almost universally to "Vietnam veterans" but fail to provide proper language more inclusive of "veterans exposed to military herbicides elsewhere." VA decision to not use such inclusive language of qualification encourages systemic denial of all veterans exposed to military herbicides outside the "boots on the ground' cohort, as employees observing regulations or other literature see no permission to include C-123 veterans.

The "clear" language of the 31 August 2010 Federal Register must be observed. It was an obligation repeated after earlier assurances to the Congress that non-Vietnam exposures would be addressed properly. Inquiries to Compensation and Pension in accord with exposure claims per 

 M21-1MR, Part IV, Subpart ii, 2.C.10.should not be automatically responded to with Compensation & Pension orders to deny – as is now the case.

Recent C-123 IOM Study Project: Views of Others

From others in Federal Government, commenting on the C-123 study project VA issued to the IOM
last month:

"It is important to note that the Federal Government possesses organic scientific resources and expertise that has already concluded these aircraft likely posed a health hazard and the aircrew were likely exposed to dioxin. The introduction and arguable necessity of a non-governmental body to opine to the Federal Government on this topic should raise some questions, if not only because it involves additional time and cost to the taxpayer to execute a contract for a purpose which may be unnecessary and unjustified given the scientific facts already known and the Federal statute already in force."

Already having issued findings supporting C-123 exposure claims are the CDC/ATSDR, NIH/NIESH, US Public Health Service, and numerous physicians and scientists outside the government.

Can We Speak? C-123 Vets Seek Voice on Veterans Benefits Web Site

One of the best, most useful veterans' benefits sites is Veterans Benefits Network. Three years ago, that's where the late Paul Bailey and I started learning about this Agent Orange/C-123 issue.

It has been difficult to express our situation on that site. Veterans Benefits Network which is privately owned and run to the views of the owner...totally correct and if our views are not appropriate, it is totally appropriate for the owner of that site to restrict expression in any manner...freedom of the press, in this instance, is his, not ours. We agree totally. 

The owner feels we agitate for changes in benefits laws, or keep repeating the same arguments over and over. We do not seek any changes in law or rule changes via the Federal Register. We try not to repeat, and write about news such as the recent Yale Law study or the Environmental Research article.

We disagree with our host on Veterans Benefits Network only in that we feel we need the readership of that board to help us, through their voice and through their advice. Here is our most recent posting:

As the VBN posts will show, I try to provide links to source documents so any interpretation I may inadvertently add can be read in the original for yourselves:

One of the frequent references I make is to the Federal Register of 31August 2010. Why this? Because the Register is how agencies of the Executive Branch comply with various requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act. Here they announce how the government will act in regards to laws. On August 31, 2010, the VA made one of the most important announcements in the Register in recent years, acting on recommendations of the 2008 Institute of Medicine report, on page 53202:

"This document amends the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) adjudication regulations concerning presumptive service connection for certain diseases based upon the most recent National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Institute of Medicine committee report, Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 2008 (Update 2008). This amendment is necessary to implement the decision of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs that there is a positive association between exposure to certain herbicides and the subsequent development of hairy cell leukemia and other chronic B-cell leukemias, Parkinson's disease, and ischemic heart disease. The effect of this amendment is to establish presumptive service connection for these diseases based on herbicide exposure."

This was obviously important, and well-implemented in the VA with the exception of the overburdening of the claims process. Just as important, just as firm a requirement upon the VA (of course, how they interpret the requirement is for them to decide) was their announcement of how VA would respond to exposures outside the Boots on the Ground population. It is not pulling anything out of context, nor selecting only parts of documents useful to a claim, to show the part of this important Federal Register announcement of interest to C-123 veterans, on page 53205:

"Finally, we wish to make clear that the presumptions of service connection provided by this rule will apply to any veteran who was exposed during service to the herbicides used in Vietnam, even if exposure occurred outside of Vietnam." 

Why was the issue of exposure to vets outside Vietnam addressed? Because earlier Congress had asked the VA if VA wanted new legislation to make sure...that's the language...to make sure...such exposures were addressed. VA responded to Congress via the rule-making Register, "WE WISH TO MAKE CLEAR", and then repeated the rule they first issued (same thing) on 8 May 2005 (page 23166.) So, to finish our contributions here, or "arguments" as they are viewed by many, please see that the Federal Register brought important news to all herbicide-exposed veterans, including C-123 folks. There is no wrong in us pointing to the language and asking directly of VA, as well as indirectly through veterans organizations and media like this, for VA to help us understand what part of exposure isn't exposure? 

Even the Board of Veterans Appeals cites this in overturningpoor VARO claim decisions on exposure. BVA didn't take it "out of context." Neither did we.

If the "exposure" part of this Federal Register rule by the VA isn't important, isn't the part extending the illnesses also unimportant? Wouldn't IHD patients point to the language of the Register? We point to "exposure" as the rule.

God bless!

Congress Works to Reduce Claims Backlog...needs to attend to appeals also!

U.S. lawmakers push to reduce VA disability backlog

By Tracie Mauriello

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Published: March 7, 2014

RELATED

• VA backlog gone, accountability issues remain
• VA budget to get $10.1 billion increase under White House plan
• VA’s time to resolve disability appeals shoots up
• Senate blocks Dems' bill boosting veterans' benefits

WASHINGTON — Returning Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers are using the same antiquated disability claims process their great-grandfathers used after World War II when veterans were fewer — and computer technology was non-existent.

That isn’t good enough for a half-dozen senators who introduced legislation Thursday to move claims faster, in order to alleviate a cumbersome backlog.

More than 524,000 claims have been in queue for longer than six months, and some veterans and military widows have been waiting more than a year to receive benefits.

“We cannot say the federal government and those who enact policy in the federal government are worthy of the valor of our veterans unless we can say these claims are processed more expeditiously,” said Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., one of six prime sponsors of the proposed fix.

With an average wait time of 364 days, Pittsburgh has the eighth-worst processing rate of the 56 offices across the country. At 97 days, Providence, R.I., has the best and at 526 days, Reno, Nev., is the worst.

“The idea that a veteran and their families have to wait a year to have their benefits processed is beyond outrage,” Mr. Casey said during a press conference in Washington. “It should never, ever take that long.”

Lawmakers want all claims to be processed within 125 days.

They say their proposed 21st Century Veterans Benefits Delivery Act will help. It’s aimed at improving veterans’ access to information about the claims process, reforming practices of regional offices and mandating greater cooperation from other federal agencies.

“Everyone from the presidents to members of Congress to the VA to the veterans service organizations must work together to solve this problem that’s been plaguing veterans way too long,” said Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nevada.

Other sponsors are Sens. David Vitter, R-La.; Jon Tester, D-Mont.; Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. and Jerry Moran, R-Kan. All are part of a work group that compiled a report on the veterans backlog, also released Thursday

C-123 Contamination - Hill AFB Deception

Below is one of the source documents about DOD C-123 deception..the actual request to withdraw the C-123s from any recycling and this memo was followed by message traffic approving "the quiet way, the Navy way" for shredding and smelting. Now, AF, DOD and VA all deny that the C-123s remained contaminated after Vietnam. The deception is that the C-123s were "the Agent Orange airplanes" until the first veteran's claim. Then, all the exposure hazards and contamination seem to have been dismissed...magic? Or policy? Or deception? The AF suggests the C-123s were safe between 1972-1982 so crews weren't exposed, but after decades of surplus storage in the desert had to be destroyed "because of Agent Orange contamination during the Vietnam War," as this memo states.

Toxic Legacy of Vietnam War... C-123 and VA/DOD Denials

When Army veteran Steve House tells people he was exposed to Agent Orange, the toxic defoliant the Department of Defense (DOD) sprayed on trees, vegetation and rice fields during the Vietnam War, the first thing he’s typically asked is where he was stationed in that country. But House has never been to Vietnam. He didn’t join the military until three years after the last American troops evacuated Saigon.

In 1978, House, now 56, was an E-4 specialist and bulldozer operator with D Company 802nd engineers at Camp Carroll, a U.S. Army base in South Korea, where House said he and four fellow soldiers were ordered to dig an enormous trench on the base, then bury 250 barrels of Agent Orange.

In separate, exclusive interviews, former soldiers House, Bob Travis and Richard Kramer each told IBTimes how their postwar exposure to the harmful agent has had a profoundly negative effect on their lives and that the DOD and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) continue to call them liars.

"They didn't tell me what we were burying, but on the side of the 55-gallon barrels it said in bright yellow and bright orange letters, 'Province of Vietnam, Compound Orange’,” House said. “We knew that stuff was bad, and I had a lot of guilt about what I’d done to the people in Korea. I also felt really betrayed by my own government and the country that I love. "

Travis, an Army private first class and one of the two truck drivers who dumped the Agent Orange along with House, said he didn’t know much about Agent Orange at the time, “but our sergeant, who’d been in Vietnam, told us this was the stuff he had sprayed on the trees. We just did what we were told. It isn’t right that the government keeps lying about what happened at Camp Carroll.”

The widespread use of Agent Orange in Vietnam was a dark chapter in U.S. military history that proved devastating for countless Vietnamese civilians as well as hundreds of thousands of American troops. After decades of denial, VA in the early 1990s first started acknowledging the direct scientific links between exposure to the herbicide and a variety of cancers as well as Parkinson's disease, diabetes, birth defects and more. But the government has never talked much about the allegedly harmful ways in which DOD stored, tested and then disposed of Agent Orange on U.S. military bases across the globe before, during and after the war.

The VA still consistently denies claims from veterans like House who say they were exposed after the war but can’t empirically prove it. And in 2009, the Supreme Court made it impossible for any veteran to sue Monsanto Co. and Dow Chemical Co., makers of Agent Orange. Without comment, the justices declined to review a 2008 ruling by a U.S. appeals court that the veteran plaintiffs could not pursue their claims for their alleged injuries from their exposure to the defoliant.

“No one’s accountable,” said House. “Not DOD, VA, politicians or the courts. Everybody’s running from the liability.”

But the paradigm for veterans exposed to Agent Orange after the Vietnam War may be about to change in their favor. A study published last week in Environmental Research found that airmen who flew and maintained the C-123 Provider aircraft long after the planes were used to spray Agent Orange over Vietnam were exposed to dangerous levels of the dioxin that remained in the aircraft.

The American Legion, the nation’s largest veterans organization, responded to this news last week with a new call for VA to extend disability compensation benefits to former C-123 aircrews.

“I believe this new study will blow a big hole in the DOD and VA’s story,” House said. “Now there’s proof that vets were exposed well after the Vietnam War. But the C-123s are just the tip of the iceberg.”

What Happened at Camp Carroll?

For nearly a decade, House, who lives in Algonac, Mich., 45 miles north of Detroit, has been fighting VA to get coverage for his multiple illnesses, which several doctors including two from VA have said, in writing, were caused by his Agent Orange exposure at Camp Carroll. House suffers from an enlarged liver, failing pancreas, and other problems that have all been scientifically linked to Agent Orange.

Despite his worsening condition and inability to work, House was given just a 30 percent disability rating by VA for Post-Traumatic Stress (PTSD), which is not related to his exposure.

The Army now admits that toxic chemicals were dumped in that large ditch in 1978, though officials insist that Agent Orange wasn’t one of them. After House first went public with his story to an Arizona TV station in May 2011, a joint U.S.-South Korean investigation team reportedly spent as much as $4 million looking into his claims.

Col. Joseph Birchmeier, head of that investigation, said at a 2012 press conference that he was “99.9 percent confident” that Agent Orange was never buried there. But he also said it is possible that the toxic chemical may have been buried there and removed without leaving a trace for investigators to find years later.

The investigation did reveal that other herbicides, pesticides, solvents and chemicals were buried where House said he buried the Agent Orange. In 2011, groundwater testing at the base reportedly found trace amounts of 2,4,5-T – an herbicide that is a component of Agent Orange.

“We’re telling the truth,” House said. “Bob [Travis] saw the barrels first, then came up to me and said, ‘I don’t have a good feeling about this. They have a whole damn warehouse of Agent Orange’.”

"They Wanted to Put Me in a Straitjacket”

Richard Kramer, the bucket-loader operator who worked with House, Travis and others at the Carroll dump site, said that after just a few days on this toxic job, he started to experience numbness in his feet. His health degenerated from there.

"My condition got so bad that in a few weeks I became paralyzed from the waist down," Kramer said. "I was medevaced to Seoul and from there was transported to Walter Reed Army Hospital, where I stayed for the next two and a half months. They could not find what was wrong with me. I was diagnosed with Reiters' Syndrome, which they also call reactive arthritis. They never took care of me. There was no follow-up. I've had this in my body all these years. I am 50 percent disabled now. But I can't work. I have no doubt that this was because of my exposure to Agent Orange."

When Kramer went looking for his medical records, he said some of them were missing or blacked out. 

Bait & Switch – VA Teaser on C-123 Agent Orange Claims?

Maybe VA leaders believe they've found a way to help us by the IOM referral. No! Many thanks, but this works against us!
As we've detailed for years, the C-123 veterans are legally qualified for Agent Orange benefits upon proof of their exposure, but VA has created barriers to that proof...most notably, by redefining the very word "exposure." Also, by refusing all evidence supporting the veterans' exposure claims from other federal agencies, universities, physicians, etc.

Here is what feels like a bait and switch part of what VA does to look veteran-friendly. Right on their web pages VA describes categories of veterans and includes C-123 vets, yet regional offices deny claims stating "regulations do not permit recognizing C-123 exposure claims" and "a thorough search of available records fails to substantiate your claims of exposure" and also in what passes for VA humor, the famous "TCDD is harmless" from Compensation and Pension Service 

Below is a screenshot from their web page, listing C-123 vets as eligible with proof of exposure, yet VA insists no exposure was possible. Science disagrees with VA. It is an interesting teaser, but outrageous to list C-123 vets as eligible but provide links to VA pages denying that eligibility. 

Actually, this part of the VA page is correct, but the pages which deny C-123 veterans' exposure claims are in error.

What Laws Need to be Changed for C-123 Agent Orange Exposure Claims?

The question comes up occasionally...do any laws need to be changed for C-123 veterans to have
VA recognize their Agent Orange exposures and provide treatment for Agent Orange-type illnesses.

Easy...none. There is no new legislation needed because these veterans are fully eligible for VA care today. The law is based on the 1991 Agent Orange Act, Title 38, and the 31 Aug 2010 Federal Register statement by the VA.

Actually, VA would need legislation, or at least notice in the Federal Register, for a legal basis for denying claims as they do today.

We are advocating for VA to obey the law, not change it. Double check us with the NVLSP, Katrina Eagle, or other veterans law experts.

Yale Law did a comprehensive review which was completed 18 January 2014, concluding that C-123 veterans are legally qualified today for Agent Orange benefits. VA's failure to permit these claims is unacceptable implementation of policy.

As VA itself made clear (in the Federal Register 31 Aug 2010, p. 53205:)

Finally, we wish to make clear that the  presumptions of service connection provided by this rule will apply to any veteran who was exposed during service to the herbicides used in Vietnam, even if exposure occurred outside of Vietnam.

VA's National Center for Ethics in Health Care

Beginning in January, C-123 veterans brought a series of ethical concerns to the VA National Center for Ethics in Health Care. We had both intrinsic and extrinsic ethical concerns on a wide variety of VA actions.

 - UPDATE 01/03/2017: C-123 VET'S COMPLAINT ON VA ETHICS FAILURES -

We have been told the Center is not able to assist in our ethical questions. Although our confidential inquiries were elevated to the Center's chief, we were referred to the VA IG or perhaps US Attorney for any further discussions. It is disappointing to have a number of ethical concerns and not find understanding and resolution from the Center charged with that responsibility. We sought help understanding where we might be in error or have inadequate perceptions of situations. But as they suggested, many of the issues do seem to surpass "mere" ethical concerns.

As veterans, we are invited to turn to the Center for such a consult. This was very important because while we could describe the facts surrounding situations we were unskilled in correctly relating them to the highly sensitive area of ethical concerns...and wanted to insure that our situation, expressed with

caution and supporting materials, was received with the Center for help making a determination as to the ethical implications and search for a resolution with concern for avoiding any inferences of individual wrong-doing. Turning to the Center, however, turned out not to be the solution.

Among the many concerns about VA were raised:

• Selective use of references to achieve pre-determined conclusions against veterans' fundamental claims

• Improper reference to selective literature review as "all available scientific information which instead dismissed literature not contributing to predetermined conclusion

• Questionable scientific methods
• Failure to obey the laws, and regulations, concerning veterans proving exposure to military herbicides being entitled to seek VA service-connection for recognized illnesses

• Failure to seek peer review, and failure to respond when independently offered by leading experts

• Failure to react to veterans' claims in a pro-veteran perspective

• Misstatements by senior leadership to veterans' legislators denying blanket policy of denying all Agent Orange C-123 claims

• Redefinition of "exposure" for policy objectives, without peer review or regulatory authority, and failure to respond to peer input contesting the redefinition, to circumvent the laws and regulations requiring VA to recognized exposed veterans' claims for Agent Orange-associated illnesses

• Official findings by other federal agencies confirming veterans' claims being mischaracterized into failure to support the claims

• Providing "boilerplate" claims denial language to regional offices, with questionable rejection reasons such as "regulations prohibit recognizing C-123 exposure claims" (there being no such regulation)
• Overriding regional office recommendation for claim approval, directing all claim be denied (but telling the Senate each claim is evaluated on its own evidence)
• Denying claims citing "a thorough search for supporting evidence failed to substantiate" but ignoring all submitted references of valid scientific and medical input since 2011

• Failure to accept input from NIH/National Institute of Environmental Health Science finding confirming C-123 veterans' exposure claim, the NIESH having statutory authority in this area

• Failure to accept input from US Public Health Service confirming C-123 veterans' claims, the USPHS having scientific and medical expertise in this area

• Failure to properly characterize expert toxicologists' scientific input confirming veterans' exposure, instead dismissing input as from scientists unqualified to comment on medical nexus; rejecting all toxicological input in violation of both 8th and 9th US Circuit Court decisions

• Unscientific dismissal of federal agency confirmation of C-123 exposure, inserting manipulative and deceptive sentence implied to be part of that agency's finding, that  no "conclusive evidence exists of TCDD exposure implications." Additional failure to correct when deception was repeatedly brought to the attention of senior personnel in Veteran Health Administration. Veterans Benefits Administration, and General Counsel.

• Failure to honor obligations specified in Federal Register 31 August 2010, with VA determined to prevent veterans' exposure claims; general failure to assist
• Deceptive Internet pages, some stating the inclusion of C-123 veterans with proof of exposure as able to submit claims, but Catch-22 hyperlinks to other pages asserting these veterans disqualification by predetermined rulings from Post Deployment Health
• VA War Related Illness and Injury Study Center, which offers exposure assessments, has on its Internet site the VA's explanation as to how our exposures never occurred, despite all evidence to the contrary from other federal agencies and scientists (none of which is cited in "The science behind their conclusion"...which was instead a mere very selective review focused solely on C-123 exposures and designed for prevention of such claims, regardless of the law:

• Public Health releases their conclusion on TCDD and possible health effects

• The science behind their conclusion

• Failure to reveal large potential savings by denying C-123 veterans exposure benefits
• Failure to resolve confusion regarding veterans' access to Agent Orange Registry, with the Secretary earlier issuing a directive that all veterans believing themselves exposed can receive an exam, but Post Deployment Health overruling the Secretary and forbidding C-123 veterans those exams, without clarification on the Internet page for the Registry

• Highly questionable use of Agent Orange Committee of the Institute of Medicine. The 2012 promise by VA to contract with IOM for a study was broken, but raised again two years later with a forecasted two year delay in any results from the study. Improper to scheme to use IOM as a delaying tactic faced with recent significant legal and scientific evidence surfacing which confirms C-123 veterans' claims. Ample proof exists today to meet the fundamental qualification under the law...these C-123 veterans were exposed to military herbicides – no moral or legal excuse for denying medical care to these veterans. VA seeks to postpone providing expensive medical care to ill and elderly veterans – the longer the delay, the greater the savings by refusing all care and benefits (dental, prosthetics, vision, pharmacy, rehab, primary care, counseling, etc.)

• Questionable influence upon the Joint Services Records Research Center to obstruct collection of documentation confirming veterans' exposure claims

• Questionable influence upon DOD/DCS/Logistics & Mission Support preventing designation of Agent Orange Exposure Sites

This is the VA motto...Defining Excellence in the 21st Century. In medical care...yes, most certainly. But if this is how VA expects to define Department-wide excellence...with deception of our legislators, mistreatment, broken promises, delayed medical treatment, unjustified dismissal of valid claims, use of consultants hostile to veterans issues, and other failures, VA has indeed redefined "excellence" with the same scientific precision as in their unique redefinition of "exposure!"

There is no shortage of medical and scientific excellence – once a veteran gets past the VA hospital doors, guarded so carefully by Post Deployment Health The care is loving, skillful, and life-saving...we want it for all our C-123 veterans!

The only excellence evidenced outside those doors is in the recognized skill of C&P and PHD in obstructing valid veterans' exposure claims.

Where can we turn? We've sought help from our VA doctors, Patient Affairs, General Counsel, VA Ethics Center, senior VA executives, the press, other veterans' organizations, expert scientists and physicians...but nothing will permit a C-123 veteran's claim for exposure to military herbicide to be approved. So, the only excellence we're able to acknowledge is that of Post Deployment Health.

They were charged with preventing our claims and they have succeeded perfectly. 100% of the VARO claims have been denied, and, other than spreading unscientific and misleading information with the hope it will help prevent claims, PDH has only an indirect role with the BVA. This small staff took on all of science and medicine by redefining exposure just for their own use. This small staff took on multiple federal agencies confirming the C-123 veterans' exposure and dismissed them all. This small staff successfully stalled all C-123 veterans' claims for the last three years, and with their suggestion for another IOM study, skillfully employed another stall good for two and perhaps, even three more years of denying all care and benefits to these aircrews.