The approval rate for disability claims filed with\u00a0the Veterans Affairs Department for illnesses related\u00a0to poisonous drinking water at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, has dropped by two-thirds since VA implemented a\u00a0third-party review process to provide medical opinions on related diagnoses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Camp Lejeune subject matter expert\u00a0program\u00a0requires a VA-appointed physician\u00a0to review the medical files of former troops who lived on base from 1953 to\u00a01987 and are seeking compensation for\u00a0illnesses possibly related to drinking contaminated water there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But since the program\u00a0was introduced in 2012, claims approvals have dropped from 25 percent to 8 percent, prompting critics to question the independence and training of the VA’s 22\u00a0to 30-some experts, whom the department has not identified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Veterans advocacy groups, including Vietnam Veterans of America, the Connecticut State Council of the Vietnam Veterans of America and The Few, the Proud, the Forgotten, have filed a Freedom of Information Act request for records\u00a0about the subject matter expert program, seeking information on the\u00a0identities, training and education of those experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Former Marine and\u00a0Yale Law School student Rory Minnis, who is helping\u00a0with the FOIA process, said\u00a0VA has “largely ignored demands for basic information on the policies, procedures and qualifications of these experts.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The subject matter expert program has\u00a0been billed as a means to provide consistency of Camp Lejeune claims and to help develop VA’s institutional knowledge. What the VA\u00a0did not tell the veterans is what they meant\u00a0by consistency\u00a0is consistent denials,” Minnis said during an announcement about the FOIA at Yale on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nearly a million people, including troops, family members and civilian employees, may have been exposed to volatile organic compounds and other cancer-causing agents, such as\u00a0benzene and vinyl chloride, in the drinking water at the coastal Marine Corps base, starting roughly in 1953 and continuing at least until 1987, when the water treatment facilities supplying the contaminated water were closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 required VA to treat veterans who were stationed at Camp Lejeune and have one of 15 related illnesses at no cost. The bill required VA\u00a0to reimburse affected family members for health services for the named illnesses as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Disability claims for exposure-related illnesses, however, are decided on\u00a0a case-by-case basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A process is underway at VA to designate three illnesses as presumed to be connected to serving at Camp Lejeune during the designated timeframe, including\u00a0kidney cancer, angiosarcoma of the liver and acute myelogenous leukemia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But for now, all Camp Lejeune disability claims are reviewed by subject matter experts who provide an opinion on whether they believe the claimant’s illness is related.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The veteran never meets with the subject matter expert nor does he or she receive a copy of the expert opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
VA officials say that the medical opinions crafted by subject matter experts are just “one piece among\u00a0many of evidence” that are considered when deciding a claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“That is the job of the adjudicator, to review all the evidence, determine the credibility of the evidence and\u00a0the weight of the evidence,” said Bradley Flohr, senior adviser for compensation services at the Veterans Benefits Administration during a community meeting on Camp Lejeune held in Tampa\u00a0on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Jerry Ensminger, founder of the Camp Lejeune family advocacy group\u00a0The Few, the Proud, the Forgotten, said VA adjudicators placed too much weight on\u00a0the subject matter experts’ opinions, and VA\u00a0has never provided an example of a claims adjudicator overriding an expert\u00a0opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“These people are refuting what the veterans’ own doctors are saying,” Ensminger said. “They are making life and death decisions that affect peoples’ lives. Veterans have a right to know who these people are and what their qualifications are.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He and others also say that clinicians in the program have based their opinions on outdated or incorrect science, including one who argued that the cleaning solvent trichloroethylene\u00a0does not cause cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I saw two denials for kidney cancer written by the same so-called subject matter expert that stated he’d done a comprehensive review of two decades of scientific studies and could find no evidence that TCE causes cancer,” Ensminger said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Studies dating to at least 2010 indicate that TCE is linked strongly to kidney cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than\u00a010,000 disability\u00a0claims have been filed at VA related to Camp Lejeune water toxicity, according to Minnis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In October, the Marine Corps sent mailings to thousands of troops and veterans informing them of their eligibility to enroll in the\u00a0Camp Lejeune Historic Drinking Water\u00a0notification database. To date, more\u00a0than 230,000 troops and veterans have enrolled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year, Sens. Jerry Moran, R-Kan.,\u00a0and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., along with Reps. Dan Benishek, R-Mich., and Mike Honda, D-Calif., introduced the Toxic Exposure Research bill, S\u00a0901, to support research into the health issues of veterans’ children and grandchildren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blumenthal said Monday that veterans have\u00a0a right to know the reasons claims were denied, who contributed to the decision and what documents were used to decide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The modern battlefield is full of toxic substances,” Blumenthal said. “Whether it is burn pits and nerve gas in Iraq or Afghanistan,\u00a0depleted\u00a0uranium, Agent Orange in Vietnam,\u00a0there is a need for a complete overhaul and reform of the method for\u00a0assessing these claims and determining\u00a0their validity.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
But since a third-party review program was introduced in 2012, claim approvals have dropped from 25 percent to 8 percent,.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":92027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":19,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3244],"class_list":["post-53535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-veterans"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"TZCKWSHJONCWZIBIR42K3OWWHE","arc_canonical_url":"\/veterans\/2015\/12\/07\/groups-demand-information-on-camp-lejeune-disability-claims\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n