VA Agent Orange claim for MDS - need help

[Tommy Daniels]

My claim for the above with the VA was denied. I'm now filing a Notice of Disagreement (NOD) and need to beef up my documentation with supporting published medical evidence that AO can cause MDS but thus far haven't found any.

With my original claim I cited three cases in which the Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA) has awarded service-connection for MDS due to AO exposure. However yesterday I reviewed many more of those BVA MDS decisions and discovered that the BVA will not accept previous BVA favorable decisions as precedents in subsequent appeals.

I don't intend to file my appeal with the BVA instead will use the Decision Review Officer (DRO) process. Anyway, I'd greatly appreciate someone pointing me to a website which has medical evidence of this nature archived for download.

Thanks

[Neil Cuadra]

Tommy,

I suggest that you read Agent Orange, United States Military Veterans, and Myelodysplastic Syndromes by Dr. David Steensma (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School), and that you then contact John Huber, executive director of the Aplastic Anemia & MDS International Foundation, to ask what medical evidence is available to support your case.

[Keri Anne]

Neil,
Thank you for the info. Very helpful. I will contact Dr. Steensma tomorrow. He wrote his last article "Agent Orange, United States Military Veterans, and Myelodysplastic Syndromes" two days after my husband V. Vet passed away from MDS. I too, am fighting the VA. My husband made me promise to fight with everything in my power to bring this disease that took his life at a very young age to light. It is a cancer that took his life 12 months after diagnoses and he felt very confident it was from his 18 month exposure in the jungle during the Vietnam War. I know others have fought and not succeeded. In numbers we can do great things.
If you have any other information please forward to me. keri@emzkreations.com.
Thank you!!!