V a Reviews of Vietman Vets Who Hire a Attorney
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Many Vietnam veterans and their survivors may be missing out on substantial payments they are entitled to receive as a result of exposure to Agent Orange, veterans' advocates say.
Though most veterans are aware of the toxic nature of Amanuensis Orangish, an herbicide used to clear foliage in Vietnam, not everyone has kept runway every bit the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has expanded a list of diseases that brand it easier to authorize for benefits. Until the 1990s, the government recognized but one ailment – a skin condition called chloracne – as being linked to Agent Orange. But over the years, the VA list of medical weather condition associated with Amanuensis Orange has grown to more than a dozen, including some that are much more prevalent.
"In that location are nevertheless thousands of vets who don't realize their affliction is on the listing," says Bart Stichman, executive director of the National Veterans Legal Services Program (NVLSP), a nonprofit that helps veterans, survivors and active duty personnel pursue service-related benefits.
The diseases now on the VA'south Agent Orange list are ischemic centre illness, lung and trachea cancers, prostate cancer, multiple myeloma, Hodgkin's disease, not-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Parkinson's Disease, type 2 diabetes, peripheral neuropathy, AL amyloidosis, chronic B-cell leukemia, chloracne, early-onset peripheral neuropathy, porphyria cutanea tarda, and soft tissue sarcomas.
Several other diseases — bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, hypertension and Parkinson's-like symptoms — have been under consideration to be added to the list.
One time a disease is put on the list, it is easier to get disability bounty for it considering the VA presumes the disease is a consequence of exposure to Agent Orange for veterans who served in Vietnam or its inland waterways between 1962 and 1975. The same applies to veterans who served in or virtually the Korean demilitarized zone between 1968 and 1971. These veterans don't need to testify that they were exposed to Amanuensis Orange to qualify for benefits related to ailments on the list.
For veterans who authorize for inability payments and survivors who qualify for death payments, the benefits can mean tens of thousands of dollars a twelvemonth in income.
The problem, veterans advocates say, is that veterans don't necessarily make the connection between a disease they take had for years and the expanded Agent Orange listing. For example, a veteran diagnosed decades ago with blazon 2 diabetes may not have noticed when the authorities later on added the condition to its listing of ailments linked to Agent Orange, says Linda Schwartz, special advisor on wellness to the Vietnam Veterans of America. If a veteran is seeing a civilian doctor who isn't well-versed in veterans' issues, she says, the doctor wouldn't necessarily associate the diagnosis with Agent Orange.
When veterans don't think to use for inability benefits based on conditions added to the VA's Agent Orange list in recent years, they tin can miss out on sizable payments. David DePodesta, a 69-yr-quondam veteran who lost sight in his right center due to enemy shrapnel while serving with the Marines in Vietnam in 1969, was fortunate that he did pay attention to the list every bit it grew. DePodesta says that for many years his heart injury qualified him for a inability rating of 30 percent and a monthly payment of under $400. After the VA in 2010 added ischemic heart disease to its listing of ailments linked to Agent Orange, DePodesta — who had open heart surgery in 1988 and over again in 2010 — saw his disability rating jump to 100 pct and his monthly payment leap to more than $3,100. He also received a large lump sum payment compensating him retroactively to his start diagnosis with ischemic heart illness.
DePodesta, a retired mortgage banker who works occasionally as a substitute instructor and serves as a prison chaplain, says the monthly benefits together with the retroactive payment made a "pretty big change in my lifestyle."
"Getting extra compensation certainly helps. We're not wealthy,'' he says. "We get by with Social Security and the compensation and substitute teaching.''
When veterans don't realize that they are eligible for disability benefits based on ailments added to the VA'due south Agent Orange list, their survivors also miss out on monthly payments under a program called Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC), which provides lifetime tax-costless income to survivors of veterans who had service-related disabilities or diseases.
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Stichman at NVLSP estimates that tens of thousands of survivors are unaware they are eligible for benefits considering their spouses had diseases that the VA linked to Agent Orange only subsequently their expiry. Survivor benefits can exist higher depending on their situation, including whether they need a caregiver to assist them with everyday activities like bathing and dressing.
Like veterans, survivors also can sometimes get retroactive payments in addition to qualifying for monthly death benefits. Stichman says his organization helped an Alabama widow persuade the VA to pay her $247,508 in retroactive benefits. The adult female's husband, a Vietnam veteran, had died of cardiac ischemia in 1983, but the VA had rejected a request for a death pension that she filed in 1985. Considering the VA decades later added ischemic heart disease to its listing of Agent Orange-related diseases, the widow was able to make the case that she should take been getting benefits all those years.
Fifty-fifty if veterans suffer from an ailment not on the VA list, they should consider applying for inability benefits if they believe it is the effect of Agent Orange exposure. The VA says information technology encourages veterans in such cases to gather medical and scientific evidence that their ailment was caused by Agent Orangish and submit it to see if it qualifies them for a service-connected disability benefit.
"If a direct link is made to Agent Orange exposure in a item case, and so service connectedness could still be granted,'' says Beth Murphy, VA Bounty Service Director.
Veterans service groups say information technology can be worth trying to bring such claims even though they can exist difficult.
"This type of instance requires a lot of medical prove and is harder to prove but not impossible,'' says Felicia Mullaney, deputy director of Veterans Benefits, Vietnam Veterans of America.
Because disability claims can be complicated, Linda Schwartz at VVA says it'southward vital for veterans and survivors to use an accredited veteran service officer when filing such claims.
"They can't do this by themselves," says Schwartz.
The VA suggests that veterans can get help from this listing of government-accredited Veterans and Military machine Service Organizations. Veterans and survivors besides can learn more almost eligibility for benefits.
1 way for veterans to get started if they've never explored a link betwixt their medical ailments and Agent Orange is to come across if they qualify for a free Agent Orange test.
Source: https://www.aarp.org/home-family/voices/veterans/info-2018/vietnam-korea-agent-orange-benefits.html
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