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Old Tue Mar 29, 2011, 11:46 AM
Neil Cuadra Neil Cuadra is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Los Angeles, California
Posts: 2,553
At the Veteran's discussion and workshop at the Phoenix AA&MDSIF conference last Saturday we heard from Vietnam-era vets, not just with MDS but with aplastic anemia, and we heard about the vets exposed to Agent Orange where it was being prepared and stored, not just where it was applied in Vietnam. We also heard how Agent Orange (contaminated with dioxin) was mixed with chemicals like benzene, also linked to bone marrow failure, and how barrels used for Agent Orange were reused for water storage without sterilization (that's also mentioned in the Chicago Tribune article).

The frustration with the V.A. continues. For vets who have not yet applied, the advice we heard was to make the initial application as strong as possible, with all supporting evidence provided up front. That's proven to be more successful than waiting to be rejected and providing more evidence in an appeal. Of course that doesn't help those who area already stuck in this process, some for years. And approvals and rejections still seem haphazard, with one vet approved for benefits while another with the same exposure at the same location and time with the same resulting illness being rejected.

The next update to the "presumptive illnesses" list will be in 2012 and it's still going to be an uphill battle to get MDS added.
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