April 8, 2016
The Veterans Affairs Department is
weighing whether to add several diseases to the list of health conditions
presumed in Vietnam veterans to be caused by exposure to Agent Orange.
A VA
working group is studying a report issued in March by the Institute of Medicine
to determine whether bladder cancer, hypothyroidism and Parkinson’s-like
symptoms — illnesses the IOM said may be more strongly linked to
exposure than previously thought — should automatically make a Vietnam
veteran eligible for VA disability benefits and health care.
According
to Dr. Ralph Erickson, VA's chief consultant for post-deployment health
services, the group will make a recommendations to VA Secretary Robert McDonald
on whether the diseases should be added to a list of 15 already in place.
“We are
in the midst of a deliberative process, carefully looking at all the IOM
committee put in the report and additional information that has come out
since,” Erickson said. “We will be putting tougher a VA response that will be
brought before senior leaders and ultimately brought before the secretary.”
The process could take up to two years, a VA spokeswoman
added.
The working
group also is looking into the role, if any, Agent Orange exposure has played
in the development of hypertension in Vietnam veterans. According to VA,
307,324 Vietnam veterans in the Veterans Health Administration have high blood
pressure.
“Hypertension
has been a question that has been asked,” Erickson said. “The cohort of men and
women who heroically served their country in uniform and went to Vietnam are in
their 60s, 70s and 80s, and these individuals, merely because of their
age, are starting to accrue chronic diseases that come with aging. It’s a
delicate matter to tease out whether someone has hypertension because
of their age or whether it would be related to an exposure to Agent
Orange.”
VA began
recognizing diseases associated with herbicide exposure in Vietnam beginning in
1991, naming 15 diseases as presumed to be related, including Hodgkin’s
disease, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, early-onset peripheral
neuropathy, porphyria cutanea tarda, prostate cancer, respiratory cancers,
soft-tissue sarcoma, chloracne, type-2 diabetes mellitus, light chain
amyloidosis, ischemic heart disease, chronic B-cell leukemias, Parkinson’s
disease, and spina bifida in offspring of veterans.
But the change
of spina bifida from "limited or suggestive evidence" it is related
to exposure to “inadequate or insufficient” evidence should not affect
disability payments to the 1,153 descendants of Vietnam veterans who receive
them, Veterans Benefits Administration senior adviser for compensation services
Brad Flohr said.
If a veteran
dies of a condition determined to be a presumptive condition after the
veteran’s death, VA will provide dependency and indemnity compensation benefits
to eligible spouses, children and parents of that veteran.
Patricia Kime
covers military and veterans health care and medicine for Military Times. She can
be reached at pkime@militarytimes.com.
http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/benefits/veterans/2016/04/08/list-agent-orange-related-diseases-may-expand/82793396/
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