The percent of disability claims approved by the Veterans Affairs Department for Persian Gulf War-related illnesses\u00a0has declined steadily in the past five years, resulting in record lows,\u00a0according to a new report from the advocacy group\u00a0Veterans for Common Sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the first two quarters of fiscal 2015, VA denied nearly 82 percent of claims filed by Gulf War veterans for two main conditions presumed to be connected to their military service\u00a0\u2014\u00a0chronic multi-symptom illness and undiagnosed illnesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2011, the denial rate was 76 percent, Veterans for Common Sense director Anthony Hardie said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The low approval rates, which “approach\u00a0the limited odds of winning a scratch-off lottery,” are a “complete contravention of\u00a01998 laws passed to improve Gulf War veterans’\u00a0ability to have their claims approved,” Hardie wrote in testimony to two House Veterans’ Affairs subcommittees Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If we measure VA’s success by how it has approved Gulf War veterans’ claims 25 years after the war, VA has failed most ill and suffering Gulf War veterans,” said\u00a0Hardie, an Army veteran who served in the 1991 war as well as in Somalia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nearly 700,000 U.S. service members deployed to the 1991 Gulf War, and 54,193 have filed disability claims for illnesses related to their service, according to a\u00a02014 VA report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Roughly a fifth of those claims were granted, and of the denied claims 42 percent were approved for another condition other than a presumptive Gull War-related condition, according to VA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To qualify for disability compensation for Persian Gulf War-connected conditions, veterans must have developed one of a number of infectious diseases during their service or have undiagnosed chronic symptoms or a chronic disability that began either\u00a0during service or after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Currently, the conditions must appear before\u00a0Dec. 31, 2016, to an extent that they are at least 10 percent disabling, existed for at least six months and not be attributable to any other circumstance or cause for consideration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But during a joint hearing of the House Veterans’ Affairs oversight and investigations\u00a0and the disability assistance and memorial affairs subcommittees, veterans advocates pressed for an extension of the year-end deadline as well as improvements to the claims approval process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Citing a recent report from the Institute of Medicine that found two conditions occurring in Vietnam veterans \u2014\u00a0bladder cancer and hypothyroidism \u2014 likely are\u00a0linked to exposure to the defoliant Agent Orange more than 40 years ago, advocacy groups and members of Congress said the deadline should be extended for at least five years if not indefinitely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“VA has repeatedly extended the end date … due to scientific uncertainty regarding the time period in which Persian Gulf\u00a0War veterans have an increased risk of suffering from\u00a0chronic illnesses. …\u00a0\u00a0Little has changed with respect to the level of scientific certainty. Due to this continued state, VA should again extend the date of presumptive service connection,” said Richard Spataro, director of training and publications for the National Veterans Legal Services Program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A VA official said the department is taking the steps needed to extend the deadline but the process has not been finalized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dave McLenachen, acting deputy undersecretary for disability assistance at VA, also said the department is\u00a0working to improve claims processing for Gulf War veterans but its own internal reviews indicate a\u00a090 percent accuracy\u00a0rate for claims decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
McLenachen added that\u00a0VA has taken steps to\u00a0improve and accelerate claims processing but he would return to his office to “see whether there was\u00a0room for improvement.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I\u00a0intend to look carefully\u00a0at the testimony of the other witnesses and carefully consider their suggestions,” McLenachen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rep. Mike Coffman, a Colorado Republican who served in the Persian Gulf War, pointed\u00a0out that the claims process for Gulf War veterans warrants improvement since VA is failing to expedite claims\u00a0designated as presumptive, a moniker that is supposed to accelerate the process, not delay it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I am disappointed that the law was passed that a specific set of conditions is supposed to be presumptive and the VA does not appear to be following the law,” Coffman said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Department of Veterans Affairs has been denying disability claims submitted by veterans of the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War at increasingly higher rates over the past five years, according to an analysis by the advocacy group Veterans for Common Sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":93148,"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-55025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-veterans"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"U2OFPMZFFNCUDO3CZ5BWJ7NYTI","arc_canonical_url":"\/veterans\/2016\/03\/15\/va-gets-f-for-persian-gulf-war-claims-approvals\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n