![]() ![]() The VA’s new rule also applies to veterans who served in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Syria and Djibouti.īesides veterans with cancer, there is another large group of veterans who will also not be covered by the VA’s new ruling. The Southwest Asia theater of operations refers to Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia,Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, the Gulfs of Aden and Oman, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea and the air space above those locations. Seventy-four percent or 12,410 of these veterans had their cancer claims rejected. The rejection rate for cancer claims among veterans who served in the Persian Gulf war of 1990-1991 is even higher. Sixty-three percent, or 26,867 of these veterans had their claim rejected. But what they have excluded from the list are those veterans who are suffering from very severe and sometimes life-threatening illnesses like cancers or conditions such as constrictive bronchiolitis, which have been shown to be present in the biopsies of lungs of veterans who have come back from exposure to burn pits.”Īccording to documents obtained by the PBS NewsHour, 42,686 veterans who served in the Global War on Terror filed a claim for cancer between Septemand earlier this year. Those are generally pretty common conditions. “What the VA has announced is that they are going to grant benefits to veterans who can show that they have conditions like … a runny nose and asthma. ![]() ![]() Shulkin believes there are other medical conditions that also should have been included in the VA’s ruling. But I’m concerned that they didn’t go far enough,” Shulkin said. “I’m very pleased that the VA has taken a proactive position to finally grant veterans who have been waiting sometimes now for decades to get the benefits that they deserve. David Shulkin believes the department’s new ruling is a good first step, but says it still falls short. The VA’s new policy is effective as of Augwhich means if a veteran filed a claim in the past that was rejected, new benefits will only become available once a new claim is filed.įormer VA Secretary Dr. These veterans can now file a new claim for those same illnesses. And 29 percent of the 410,000 veterans who filed a claim for rhinitis also during that time were rejected. Fifty-five percent of the 322,000 veterans who filed a claim for sinusitis during that time were rejected. But there were hundreds of thousands that were not. Overall, 51 percent of these claims were granted. And it affects probably hundreds of thousands of veterans because most of these guys and gals come back with some form of upper respiratory discomfort and disability,” said Cassano, an occupational and environmental physician who served as a Navy physician from 1984 to 2004 and now works as a consultant.Īccording to the VA, 212,805 veterans who served in Southwest Asia filed a claim for asthma between 1990 and March of this year. The VA’s decision to grant presumptive service connection is “a good start. “I think it is very exciting for those veterans who have served since the beginning of the first Persian Gulf War and I think it’s long overdue,” Dr. READ MORE: Did military burn pits make soldiers sick? military bases in burn pits, as well as dust storms and man-made pollution. Almost all of them were exposed to smoke from burning garbage on U.S. More than 3.7 million people have served in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan since 1990. This new guidance “will ease the evidentiary burden of … Veterans who file claims with VA for these three conditions, which are among the most commonly claimed respiratory conditions,” according to the interim final rule published in the Federal Register. READ MORE: Veterans exposed to ‘burn pits’ struggle to get benefits approved by the VA Over the past three decades, veterans who served in Southwest Asia that later suffered from chronic asthma, rhinitis and sinusitis, among other conditions, have had to prove that their illnesses were caused by their military service in order to receive disability compensation or medical care - proof that more often than not was impossible to provide. Veterans who were exposed to particulate matter while serving in Southwest Asia beginning in 1990 are now able to receive compensation, according to an announcement by the Department of Veterans Affairs this week. ![]()
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