VA Claims Brief - Application Process 101 (for beginners)

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Nothing is automatic. Every veteran has to take the step of applying for benefits if you seek medical care or disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The process generally takes over a year...far longer with complicated issues, appeals, etc. In recent years (thank God) the VA and DOD manage a servicemember's separation so as to smoothly transfer medical records and partly automate the initial claim steps. 

During the return of forces from the first Gulf War, veterans seeking care from the VA were turned away until a service connection for the disability was proven...it took some time for the logical step of "presumptive service connection" to be implemented and many of us had to pay for private medical care because of the gap in coverage between military medical care and the VA. Bummer!

The VA Claims Process
After VA receives your Application for Compensation, it sends you a letter. The letter explains what VA needs in order to help grant your claim. It states how VA assists in getting records to support your claim. The letter may include forms for you to complete, such as medical releases. They help VA obtain pertinent medical records from your doctor or hospital. You should try to complete and return all forms VA sends within a month. Your claim can often be processed more quickly if you send a copy of your own medical records. This letter is often referred to as the Duty to Assist lette . Read More
Win Your Veterans Affairs Disability Claim - You finally decided to file a VA claim for disability, so now what do you do? Maybe you already have started the paperwork yourself or (far better!!) have been helped by a veterans service officer (VSO) filling out the required VA Forms and are now one of many waiting to hear from the VA about your claims status.

A Veterans Benefits Raters View

Definitions, Terms, Abbreviations

VA Claims (Multiple Articles)
Compensation and Pension Exam Do's and Don'ts
Veterans Claims Self Help Guide
Requesting Your Copy of Your Veteran Affairs Claims Folder (C-File)We can not stress enough how important it is to:

1. View your VA claims folder at the Veterans Affairs regional office. Call the VA at 1-800-827-1000 and request an appointment to view your VA c-file (claims folder).
2. Ensure that all the records in your Veterans Affairs C-File are yours. 
3. Check that everything you have sent to the VA is included in your C-File.
4. After viewing your VA claims folder (c-file) and correcting any mistakes you may find. Then request a hard copy of your claims folder (c-file)

Veterans Affairs Fast Letters and Veterans Affairs Training Letters

Establishing Service Connection

New Agent Orange Exposure Studies Requested

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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?

USAF Agent Orange Consultant Confirms C-123 Dioxin Contamination WAS Greater When First Flown in 1972-1982

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In his 24 February 2009 recommendation "Decision Memorandum for Contaminated UC-123K Aircraft" that dioxin-contaminated C-123s stored at Davis-Monthan AFB be destroyed, Alvin Young commented that the aircraft were less contaminated when tests were conducted in 1994, 1996, 2000 and 2009, than when aircrews flew and maintained them in the years 1973-1982!

Al Young is the gentleman who has made his career around Agent Orange. At first, in the Air Force, he helped develop the military herbicide for use in Vietnam. Later, as a civilian, he loaned his expertise to the AF and the VA in their efforts to construct arguments against permitting exposed aircrews to access VA medical care!

One must read his memo of February 2009 carefully! His memo is the most direct smack-down any war veteran could fear! Here, Young is urging the prompt destruction of contaminated surplus C-123 transports stored at Davis-Monthan. He specifically urges the Air Force to attend to likely publicity the event would cause, stating "carefully-worded statements for the media" should be prepared. In other documents, he directs that instead of alarming words such as Agent Orange or dioxin in such statements, more benign descriptors of "aged Vietnam-era" aircraft, and that destruction was done because "this action is selected on the basis that these are old aircraft and have been in storage for many years" with little resale potential. Of course, on behalf of the Air Force, William Boor, Director of the 505th ACSS at Hill AFB, UT in November 2009 arranged the prohibition of any further sale of these valuable aircraft specifically "Because of Agent Orange contamination during the Vietnam War"!

Let's not forget Al Young. His smack-down of C-123 veterans, those aircrews whom he publicly labeled "trash-haulers, freeloaders looking for a tax-free dollar from sympathetic congressmen", escalated to the point he recommended destruction of the contaminated C-123s to prevent veterans from learning about their exposure and subsequently approaching the VA for Agent Orange illness treatment. His February 2009 memo detailed the protection which the VA allows for other Agent Orange veterans and stressed media coverage of the destruction he recommended would alert C-123 veterans who did not know of their exposure, and might lead them to seek VA medical care. Nice of him to care!

Apparently, Young felt veterans should be barred from such treatment of their exposures. His earlier efforts were dedicated to preventing Vietnam veterans from receiving Agent Orange benefits, but, thank goodness, Congress robbed him of much of that argument. Apparently, both the USAF and the VA eagerly sought Young's guidance on preventing such an event with the C-123 veterans. In response,  a grateful Major General Busch (the officer who approved destruction of the contaminated C-123s in 2010) promptly labeled Young "one of America's Best." Busch's letters even carried the subject line "Agent Orange airplanes".

Seems the C-123s were no longer Agent Orange airplanes once our veterans started worrying about our illnesses and deaths!

Debunking VA View of USAF C-123 Agent Orange Report

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from the VA's page on C-123 Agent Orange - the VA's interpretation of the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine C-123 Exposure Report (May 2012)

Testing for Agent Orange Residue on C-123 Aircraft Used in Vietnam

1. The U.S. Air Force (USAF) collected and analyzed numerous samples from C-123 aircraft to test for Agent Orange. USAF's recent risk assessment report (April 27, 2012) (2.3 MB, PDF) found that potential exposures to Agent Orange in C-123 planes used after the Vietnam War were unlikely to have put aircrew or passengers at risk for future health problems. The report’s three conclusions:



VA Claims Denial Excuse Expert

• First: There was not enough information and data to conclude how much individual persons would have been exposed to Agent Orange 

• Second: It is expected that exposure to Agent Orange in these aircraft after the Vietnam War was lower than exposure during the spraying missions in Vietnam.  

• Third: Potential Agent Orange exposures were unlikely to have exceeded standards set by regulators or to have put people at risk for future health problems. (bold emphasis in the original)

Bogus! phony voodoo "science", carefully selecting some materials (and ignoring others)  from over three decades constructing a money-saving argument to prevent veterans seeking medical care for Agent Orange illnesses. No wonder that the Air Force report, once drafted by the research team, was actually rewritten by the JAG at Wright-Patterson AFB to insure it met leadership's predetermined objective of denying exposure. Now, let's look into these three points used by the Air Force and cited by the VA in this slap-down of war veterans.
First, "not enough information re: individual persons". Who cares if the data can be brought down to an individual's exposure rather than that of an entire group? The entire fault rests with the Air Force...the contamination was known in 1994 and AFMC and the School of Aerospace Medicine did NOTHING to care for aircrews and maintenance personnel once the contamination data was in-hand. Rather, AFMC's Environmental Law Office recommended the damning reports be "kept in official channels only." So decades pass by, with more tests confirming the C-123 toxicity but no tests made on individuals or even our entire small group of veterans...so in May of 2012 the Air Force and VA suddently conclude we were not individually exposed because they can't find the data to evaluate? Amazing that they are blaming us for their error, punishing for their delay in informing us of our exposure, punishing us with their decision forbidding access to medical care because the USAF kept the information confidential.


Second, "exposure after Vietnam was lower than exposure during wartime spray missions." Who cares? A little poison leading to Agent Orange illnesses is just as bad as more poison leading to the same Agent Orange illnesses. Stupid conclusion but seemingly logical on its face because obviously, Ranch Hand veterans were indeed much more exposed than those of us after the war. The AF fails to note, however, the fact that the CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry concluded our aircrews and maintenance personnel were exposed to a 200-fold greater cancer risk than the standard Army screening value...that the Air Force own tests of our aircraft showed our aircrews were exposed to 182 times the Army's safety standards for dioxin exposure. ATSDR concluded aircrews operating the C-123 were indeed exposed to TCDD! Additionally, many CDC and other government agencies' reports detail that long-term exposure to low density dioxin is perhaps even more dangerous than short-term exposure to high density! And Dr. Jeanne Stellman, who has conducted more research into military herbicides than any other scientist, concluded our aircrews were exposed to more military herbicides than most ground troops during the Vietnam War.

A major mistake of the VA and USAF is reliance on the 1994 and later studies of C-123 contamination. Their conclusions were guided by these studies but were reached totally without consideration of the fact that dioxin has a half-life of about seven years. The tests were not done until over 23 years has passed since the last Agent Orange spray missions and decades into the deterioration of the dioxin! Even the USAF's infamous consultant on Agent Orange, Al Young, concedes concentration and exposure were more intense in the years just after Vietnam, rather than a quarter of a century later when finally tested by AF toxicologists! Get it? They said we were not "exposed" but to keep us from medical care they used contamination data far, far lower than we actually had in the airplane 1972-1982.

Third, they say "exposures were unlikely to have exceeded standards." Here is the most artful deception. Obviously all the Air Force's own reports detail the "heavily contaminated C-123s, and USAF toxicologists have testified under oath that the aircraft were "a danger to public health." Just as obviously, the Army, CDC/ATSDR, Columbia University, Oregon Health Sciences University and so many others have officially stated that our aircraft were indeed contaminated. So...the VA and USAF took the position that the tests which were done establishing the airplanes' toxicity were themselves accurate regarding the contamination but were not appropriate to determine exposure. Here, for the first time, a government agency separates the issues of contamination from the issues of exposure! Here, the VA invented without foundation a position that the industry standard tests performed which determined C-123 contamination were unable to measure the dioxin to which veterans were exposed. And remember, they used 1994 tests of contamination to mislead about our 1972 exposure, when the dioxin was far more intense!

Do you see what they did? Do you see the lies, half-truths and outright vicious twisting of decades of C-123 tests to prevent aircrews from turning to the VA for our cancers, diabetes, heart disease, and other Agent Orange diseases?

These clumsy deceptions required the invention, new to toxicology, of a concept of "dry dioxin transfer" whereby the VA asserts all the dioxin remaining in the post-Vietnam airplanes was dry, and that somehow dry dioxin couldn't expose anyone. The ignored gold standard toxicology protocol that holds dermal exposure has no standard measurement.
-They also had to invent the pretense that the dioxin wasn't released by rain water which penetrated the C-123 both on the ground and aloft. 
-They had to invent the pretense that the dioxin wasn't released when we kicked up contaminated dust and inhaled it.
-They had to invent the pretense that the dioxin wasn't ingested when contaminated water and dust settled on our flight lunches, or when we had constant skin contact with the leather, canvas, wood, plastic, glass and painted metal of the C-123.
- They had to invent the pretense that we were not exposed because they were rabidly dedicated to save the VA the cost of treating our Agent Orange illnesses and the expense of burying the friends we've lost over the years since the C-123 fleet was retired. 
-They had to invent a false argument denying our exposure in order to counter established government findings that NO LEVEL OF DIOXIN POISON is considered "safe' - decisions reached by the National Institute of Environment Health Sciences as well as the US EPA! Following this logic, one would expect the VA and USAF to argue that any industrial situation where the dust had settled after an event (such as the first World Trade Center bombing or the State University of New York fire), somehow magically no further exposure to dioxin is possible. Science, logic, justice, law - all disagree with this deception!

It is clear that the present mission statement of the Department of Veterans Affairs requires an amendment...to it must be added "to prevent eligible veterans from receiving medical care".


Remember, comrades: the findings of the VA were political, not scientific. There was adequate evidence from the multitude of Air Force scientific studies and their interpretation in the light of TG312 and other standards, adequate evidence which greatly exceeded the VA's "more likely to than not" threshold for medical benefits. Forgotten in their stumbling effort to twist conclusions their way, AF and VA authorities seem to have ignored the fact that the EPA considers "excess" deaths risk to be above 1 per 100,000 and the point at which regulations must be triggered for most environmental toxins!

Forgotten in their efforts to keep us from receiving VA medical care was their moral obligation of honesty, of honor.

Eglin AFB Veteran Wins Domestic Agent Orange VA Claim!

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Just received from an AF veteran who served at Eglin AFB, Florida. Eglin was the principal field test facility for Agent Orange, and this veteran finally won VA recognition for his Agent Orange exposure. Eglin AFB still has 400 acres of dioxin-laden, fenced-off area due to this severe contamination. Congratulations...and note his emphasis on being persistent! Get your claim in, even if only via a general letter, and get your Agent Orange exam scheduled by contacting the Agent Orange Hotline - call 800-749-8387.

Just got the award letter today, saying that I got 20% for Diabetes II, 20% for radial nerve damage from removal of tumor left arm and 20% for the painful swelling and edema left arm. It only took 9 years, but Brothers and Sisters, you got to be vigilant and persistent in your fight to get the rights you deserve and were promised.I've a few other symptoms that are secondary, but now that they're recognized we can go on from there, as they're still in the exploratory stage right now.I wish to thank those on this site in helping me get the recognition, by providing advice, documents and direction. 

Dan Callaghan, Recognized Victim - Eglin AFB AO Exposure 

click: CDC - Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry Eglin AFB Contamination Study 

CLARIFICATION OF PRESUMPTIONS OF EXPOSURE FOR VETERANS WHO SERVED IN VICINITY OF REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

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http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r112:FLD001:S56112
Amendment introduced yesterday by Senator Gillibrand of New York:

Congressional Record
112th Congress (2011-2012)

TEXT OF AMENDMENTS -- (Senate - September 11, 2012)

SA 2784. Mrs. GILLIBRAND submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by her to the bill S. 3457, to require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish a veterans’ jobs corps, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table, as follows:

On page 18, between lines 5 and 6, insert the following:

SEC. 7. CLARIFICATION OF PRESUMPTIONS OF EXPOSURE FOR VETERANS WHO SERVED IN VICINITY OF REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM.

(a) Compensation.--Subsections (a)(1) and (f) of section 1116 of title 38, United States Code, are amended by inserting ``(including the territorial seas of such Republic)'' after ``served in the Republic of Vietnam'' each place it appears.

(b) Health Care.--Section 1710(e)(4)(A) of such title is amended by inserting ``(including the territorial seas of such Republic)'' after ``served on active duty in the Republic of Vietnam''.

(c) Effective Date.--The amendments made by subsections (a) and (b) shall take effect as of September 25, 1985.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r112:FLD001:S56112

Agent Orange consequences to be overcome by 2020

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http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/society/48561/agent-orange-consequences-to-be-overcome-by-2020.htmlVietNamNet Bridge – The Viet Nam-US Dialogue Group has announced its aim to overcome the consequences of Agent Orange (AO) and dioxin in Viet Nam by 2020 at the seventh meeting of the Viet Nam-US Joint Advisory Council (JAC) yesterday, Sept 20.The two-day JAC meeting will review the handling of AO and dioxin environmental hotspots, humanitarian activities and dioxin treatment technologies.The next five years will be key towards achieving the group's goal, starting with the treatment of dioxin contaminated soil at Da Nang Airport in 2012. In addition, the US Agency for International Development will provide more support for dioxin victims.The national steering committee on overcoming the consequences of toxic chemicals used by the US during the war in Viet Nam has drafted a plan focusing on detoxification treatment of hotspots, prevention of exposure to dioxin, provision of support for locals living near hotspots, and better services for AO and dioxin victims.The Viet Nam-US Dialogue Group brings together both Vietnamese and American individuals, scientists and policymakers, with a view to mobilising resources to deal with the consequences of AO/dioxin in Viet Nam.By the end of last year, the group raised US$91 million for the clean-up of dioxin in Da Nang, Bien Hoa and Phu Cat. Of the sum, one third went to health care programmes in eight provinces nationwide, benefiting 20,000 people with disabilities.The group's activities have so far helped bring about positive changes. On December 22, 2011, US President Obama signed an Act on Budget Allocation for 2012, under which, $15 million was given to tackling dioxin hotspots in Da Nang airport and US$5 million went to a health care programme targeting dioxin-contaminated areas.Last year, the Vietnamese Government also pledged to invest VND28 billion ($1.3 million) in caring for AO and dioxin-infected victims in Friendship Village.So far, the biological dioxin treatment technology has been applied successfully at Da Nang airport. It is expected to be used in other large-scale areas in the coming time.