Agent Orange Exposed Veterans

Veterans Have to File a VA Claim to Be Awarded PACT Act Benefits

Jan

30

2024

PACT Act Overview: The PACT Act finally does right by toxic-exposed veterans and their families after decades of veterans exposed to toxins have fought the government for the VA health care and benefits they earned. This law pays the cost of war and finally delivers health care and benefits to all generations of veterans and ...

Lessons Learned in Prosecuting a VA Claim for Free Healthcare Related to a Toxic Exposure

Jan

26

2024

As an Agent Orange exposed veteran, I am here to tell you that the PACT Act significantly accelerates the processing of claims for VA toxic-exposure-related benefits due to veterans. Those benefits can include monthly compensation for disabilities that affect a veteran’s ability to work, a benefit which automatically [under 38 U.S. Code § 1710(a)] includes ...

MGUS: A New Agent Orange Disease

Jun

20

2023

Below is a copy of an email I recently sent to the editor of The VVA Veteran magazine: Dear Sean Venables, Editor The PACT Act added MGUS (monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance) to the Agent Orange presumptive disease list. Research by doctors at the VA, National Institutes of Health, and Centers for Disease Control found ...

How the Honoring Our PACT Act Will Improve Veterans’ Health Outcomes

Apr

15

2022

On March 3, 2022, the House of Representatives passed a comprehensive bill (Honoring Our PACT Act of 2021, H.R. 3967) on Veterans toxic exposures. All Democratic House member and 34 Republican House members voted for the bill. H.R. 3967 is supported by 42 Veterans and Military Service Organizations that represent millions of Veterans who pay ...

Significance of the Asymptomatic Disease MGUS to Veterans’ Advocates

Oct

10

2021

This article addresses the question “Why should Veterans’ advocates care that Agent Orange exposed Veterans are over twice as likely as unexposed Veterans to be diagnosed with the generally asymptomatic disease MGUS?” Recent research by scientists at the NIH, CDC, and others that showed that MGUS is significantly more prevalent in Agent Orange exposed Veterans ...

THE STEALTH AGENT ORANGE DISEASE

Feb

28

2021

Can you pass this pop quiz? Which disease (that has no symptoms) precedes the devastating and invariably-fatal presumptive Agent Orange diseases multiple myeloma and AL amyloidosis essentially 100% of the time, often by years? Which stealth (asymptomatic) disease significantly increases a Veteran’s risk of acquiring a viral infection (including infections caused by respiratory viruses, like ...

A Vietnam-era Veteran’s Story

Jun

10

2020

When I was diagnosed in 2016 with a condition that precedes the fatal diseases multiple myeloma and amyloidosis 100% of the time, it was like hearing “the other shoe drop.” For decades, as a Vietnam-era veteran, I had been informing my primary care doctors that I was at increased risk for Agent Orange diseases. That ...

Status Report: VA Petition for Copayment-Exempt Monitoring of MGUS Progression and Complications

May

1

2019

As you know, in March 2017, as a Vietnam Veteran who had been diagnosed with the pre-malignant condition, MGUS (monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance), I filed a petition with the Secretary of Veterans Affairs. The petition asked that the VA provide copayment-exempt care for the condition to improve health outcomes of all herbicide-exposed Veterans diagnosed ...

Public Comment of Robert Hunter, Veteran

Nov

30

2017

Review of the Health Effects in Vietnam Veterans of Exposure to Herbicides Eleventh Biennial Update, Meeting 4, November 30, 2017 Under VA law, MGUS is a “disability” (because it is a disease) International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) Code D47.2 Not merely a lab finding, MGUS reduces life expectancy Like the subclinical form of ...