Denying a veteran's claim is a big, big deal. Especially to the veteran of course, but to VA as well. It means one more claim off the desk of rating officials, but more importantly, it means lots of money saved! It costs a lot of money to try to keep alive a sick, elderly veteran with toxic exposures plus normal ailments of aging. Cancers, heart disease, hypertension, ALS, etc...better to prevent any access to care than to permit it, especially if the prevention can be as easy as redefining a word like exposure.
Why pick exposure to redefine? Because the VA acknowledged as recently as the 31 Aug 2010 Federal Register that it would treat veterans exposed to military herbicides the same as it treats Vietnam veterans. So "exposure" was an easy target...redefine away the veterans' exposure events and then deny the claims.
The worst that could happen to the VA with this verbal deception is the veteran appeals and three to four years later, if the sick veteran still survives, his claim can be corrected then but that still means years of savings by locking the hospital doors to them, and of course, the hope that the vet will die and the problem go away.
Now, nobody says any particular VA staffer wants any particular, nice old veteran guy or gal to die. Not something so specific, but in general, yes. The VA view is the fewer pigs (that's us) at the trough (that's the VA) the better. Kept from applying, denied in their claims, or died off before any decision...works just fine for Post Deployment Health.
Judge for yourself the deception of VA in redefining exposure. Note also the DOD definition of exposure...and we were under DOD regs when we flew and became exposed. Neat...DOD says we were exposed but VA says, not on their watch!
Besides DOD saying we were exposed, ATSDR, NIESH, National Toxicology Program, Boston University, Columbia University, Oregon Health Sciences University, University of Texas Medical School, EPA, US Public Health Service all say we were exposed...but no, Post Deployment Health whips out their redefinition of exposure and tells the guards to get those hospital doors locked...C-123 veterans aren't going to be allowed in!
VA Post Deployment Health: Exposure = contamination field + bioavailability
Society of Toxicology: In health
matters, measurement of levels at which one encounters any substance
Defense Technical Information Center: Intensity, frequency and length of time personnel are
subjected to a hazard.
EPA: Contact made between
a chemical, physical, or biological agent and the outer boundary of an
organism.
EPA (pesticides): Radiation or
pollutants that come into contact with the body and present a potential health
threat.
American Chemical Council: Occurs when an employee is subjected to a
hazardous chemical in the course of employment through any route of entry
(inhalation, ingestion, skin contact or absorption, injection), and includes
potential (e.g., accidental or possible) exposure.
Lawrence Berkeley
National Labs: contact with a toxic
substance
US National Medical Library: Process by which a substance becomes available
for absorption by the target population,
organism, organ, tissue or cell, by any route.
ATSDR: Contact with a substance by swallowing,
breathing, or touching the skin or eyes
EPA: contact between an
agent and the visible exterior of a person
Web
Taxonomy: Contact between a chemical
and the skin
Johns Hopkins School of
Public Health: Any condition which provides an opportunity for an external
environmental agent to enter the body
The Law Dictionary: Contact or exposure to a chemical substance
by touching, breathing, eating or drinking.
Journal of Exposure
Science and Environmental Epidemiology: event when a person
comes into contact with a toxic material.
IPCC:
nature and degree to which a system is exposed to significant variations
WHO, & IPCS:
Contact between an agent and a target – Exposure does not automatically lead to
an internal dose
OSHA: skin, eye, mucous
membrane, or parenteral contact with potentially harmful materials that may
result from the performance of an employee's duties
OSHA (disease process,
such as TB): in the presence of exhaled breath of infected individuals or in the
presence of such individuals in situations where procedures are performed with
any potential to develop airborne droplet nuclei.
California
Environmental Health Hazard Assessment: transport of
chemicals from a source to an individual or population
California EPA: contact by an
individual or population with hazards through radiation, inhalation, ingestion
or direct skin contact. Contact that does not involve transport of the hazard
through an environmental medium is also possible, as when a child ingests
chemicals used as plasticizers in pacifiers or lead in paint chips. The
duration and frequency of exposures to harmful agents influence adverse
outcomes. Exposure may be continuous; discontinuous but regular (e.g., once daily); or intermittent (less than
daily, with no standardized, quantitative definition). The magnitude of
exposure or dose determines how much of a hazard can be taken up by an
individual or population, i.e. bioavailability.
Definition of Bioavailability:
degree to which a material in
environmental media can be assimilated by an organism, or: The ability of a
substance to affect organism.
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