dock671

Dan, I lost my husband in April to Hep C/cirrhosis. I have it also. The link Berta gave you to hcvets.com is the best info out there for vets with hep c. My husband's claim was successful in large part due to the info from there, and how it was presented. He was granted service connection for the hepc due to airgun injections, and we used the claim info Berta was talking about that the VVA won. If you go to that website, somewhere on there is a link to the message board, and Harry, the forum manager, has a file he can email you with a lot of medical evidence in it that can help with your claim. I believe the nexus letter that my husband's dr. wrote for us is in the file also, and there is another nexus letter on the site. If you are still going to get one, make sure it states that it is "at least as likely as not" or "more likely than not" that you contracted the hep while serving and that the dr. addresses all risk factors you were exposed to. The syringes that were used were used with multi dose vials, which were pulled due to the risk of bloodborne pathogens, the info on that is also in the file Harry has. If you (or anyone else) have any questions or problems getting the file from Harry, please feel free to email me at dock671@gmail.com. Good luck Lori

My husband was approved service connection for Hepatitis C due to the air guns in late 2004. So the V.A. has approved more than one claim due to airguns, we based his claim on the first one, a Tiger Team decision out of Ohio. There are more, just something the V.A. defintely doesn't want to advertise B) Mark passed away April 10 from liver failure due to hepatitis c, after a couple of years of misery and pain. His drs. said he had had it at least 20 years which dated it back to his time in the Army. He drank beer his whole adult life, but the beer alone would not have killed him, and he did not find out he had the hep until 2003. He was only 44, and we have four kids. Check out www.hcvets.com they are a wealth of information. Also a message board, you can find it somewhere on the homepage that link takes you to. And anyone that served, please get tested even if you don't think you have any of the risk factors. The V.A. does not list all of the possible risk factors, and imply it is a druggie disease, so a lot of guys we know don't think they are at risk. If you read the above website, you will see how many more veterans have it than the general population. Lori