The VA’s Claim Dodge

[babylonsister]

The VA’s Claim Dodge
Beyond the awful conditions at Walter Reed hospital, something smells fishy in the government’s handling of veterans’ claims. One appalling case study suggests what might be happening and why.
by Deb Derrick


The two signature injuries of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). An estimated 26,000 U.S. veterans from these wars have had their brains traumatized from nearby explosions. Another 45,000 have initiated post traumatic stress disorder claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

These claims concern real disabilities that are medically hard to prove. In each VA case, it is up to the military and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to decide if and how much any given soldier’s mental faculties have been impaired. These are also precisely the kinds of claims that the U.S. government has actively thwarted in the past — and recent news and health articles suggest that a repeat performance is underway. The Defense Department is being accused of under-funding studies of traumatic brain injuries. The VA and Defense Departments are refusing to make their brain injury data public. Current PTSD claimants are finding their medical and service records missing, lost, or subject to challenge. A class action lawsuit was recently initiated on behalf of PTSD claimants.

My recent investigation on the VA claims of a Navy waste disposal ship, the USS Calhoun County, provides a cautionary tale about what might be happening and why.

Harvey Ray Lucas served in the late 1950s on the USS Calhoun County, a low-ranking Navy ship whose primary mission was to dump atomic and other military waste into the Atlantic Ocean. Lucas spent four years heaving radioactive materials over the side of the ship. After leaving the military, he suffered from chronic health problems and sired five children with birth defects. Lucas’s testimony made my jaw drop. He described one baby whose skin oozed “bloodwater.” He described the birth and death of another whom physicians termed an “anencephalic female monster.” A couple years after his testimony, Lucas died of a rare cancer associated with radiation exposure.

I came across Lucas’s story in 1998, when I worked in a U.S. Congressional office and read the transcript of his Board of Veterans Appeals hearing. Lucas’s widow, Barbara, and my boss, Congressman David Skaggs (D-Colo.), both felt that Harvey Lucas and his family’s illnesses stemmed from radiation exposure in the Navy. But Barbara Lucas had been pursuing a compensation claim with the VA for 18 years without success. The VA always seemed to need more or different evidence. When our office dug up a key final document and Barbara prevailed, I decided to write a book about the USS Calhoun County and her VA claim.

Deck logs and interviews with the ship’s sailors, officers, and scientists suggested that the USS Calhoun County had carried excessively radioactive material and that the ship’s decks had been contaminated. When I discovered a number of other sailors had experienced odd health problems, I broadened my inquiry to look at the VA cases of other USS Calhoun County veterans.

I interviewed Deane Horne, whose teeth and hair had fallen out after he left the ship and whose eldest son was born without a femur. I interviewed Richard Tkaczyk, who had also lost his teeth and whose first born son had seizures and brain damage. I interviewed George Albernaz, who was half paralyzed after suffering from an odd brain disease that his physician called radiation necrosis. All had filed claims with the VA. None had made any headway.

In all cases, the VA began the claims process by asserting that there was no proof that the USS Calhoun County had even carried atomic waste — even though there was ample evidence of the ship’s mission in public federal archives. In all cases, the Navy forwarded personnel files to the VA that were missing a key radiation exposure document.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/12/5180/

[hootinholler]

1. kick for recs.

[babylonsister]

2. Thanks, hoot, I'm going to try this again. This is important, but I guess

people are being overloaded with VA stuff today.

[hootinholler]

3. You're welcome!

Just as it's not a good day to bare one's angst.

This is important, because it is partially how vets become homeless.

-Hoot

[hootinholler]

4. This is sick.

Nobody thinks this is worth kicking?

-Hoot