Old 5311

Thanks for your reply and link to MSDS and the 2nd link. I used sodasorb and barylyme as a CO2 absorbant extensively while deep, mixed gas diving. While handling these chemicals no PPE was advised or required to be used. As a Machinist Mate I had extensive exposure to asbestos in the 60's and 70's so all the private physicians determined AB must be the cause of the emphysema. The damage is detected in the upper lobes just as if I were a heavy smoker. In fact I am a life long non-smoker. The upper lobes seem to be the deciding factor in the denial. In addition I have above average lung capacity 6 1/2 L, perhaps this is a factor why I did so well on the pulmonary function test. I have a referral with a pulmonary specialist so soon I may have enough information for a well founded NOD. Thanks again.

Seeking an attorney in the NE FL area for help with a "K" award. An attorney may or may not be required, I just need to know how to proceed to acquire a "K" Award. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks

My diagnosis was for asbestos related lung desease; emphysema. Maybe I went wrong using the word "asbestosis". Who knows? The damage is located in the upper lobes vs lower. This is what the RO emphasized. Quote from my Rep: For VA purposes any post drug predicted FEV1 reading above 80% are considered normal, your's was 108%, this is one of the reasons the VA Dr says your breathing problrems are un related to asbestos, he also says you have dammage to the upper lobes of the lungs and asbestos always effects the lower lobes first, so if you have asbestos exposure related lung disease and show effects to the upper lobe, you should also see it in the lower lobes, again according to the scans you submitted, you only have involvement in the upper lobes - and none in the lower lobes. My VAMC test results: FEC: PREDICTED-4.95. PRE DRUG REPORTED% 3.90. PRE DRUG PREDICTED 79 <. POST DRUG PREDICTED 95. %CHANGE 20. FE1: PREDICTED 3.42 PRE DRUG REPORTED% 3.24 PRE DRUG PREDICTED 95 POST DRUG REPORTED % 3.71. POST DRUG PREDICTED 108. %CHANGE 14. I was also exposed to Sodasorb and Barylyme while diving.. Any thoughts out there regarding this? Thanks and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

JSTACY, Some of my diagnosis were for asbestos related lung desease; emphysema Maybe I went wrong using the word "asbestosis". Who knows? The damage is located in the upper lobes vs lower. This is what the RO emphasized. Quote from my Rep: For VA purposes any post drug predicted FEV1 reading above 80% are considered normal, your's was 108%, this is one of the reasons the VA Dr says your breathing problrems are un related to asbestos, he also says you have dammage to the upper lobes of the lungs and asbestos always effects the lower lobes first, so if you have asbestos exposure related lung disease and show effects to the upper lobe, you should also see it in the lower lobes, again according to the scans you submitted, you only have involvement in the upper lobes - and none in the lower lobes. My VAMC test results: FEC: PREDICTED-4.95. PRE DRUG REPORTED% 3.90. PRE DRUG PREDICTED 79 <. POST DRUG PREDICTED 95. %CHANGE 20. FE1: PREDICTED 3.42 PRE DRUG REPORTED% 3.24 PRE DRUG PREDICTED 95 POST DRUG REPORTED % 3.71. POST DRUG PREDICTED 108. %CHANGE 14. Regards,

Halibut was a Regulas Boat. Went aboard in 71 till decom in 76 then went to the Parche SSN-687 until retirement 9/79. No known incidents on the boats except R/R Mn. Clg. Pmps. I'm taking your advice earlier with a private and VA pulmonary Specialist. I'll go the whole route again. Never went alongside a tender. Home Port: Mare Island Naval Shipyard.

Thanks, I am encouraged to follow through. I think the Shang was scrapped to Japan.

For VA purposes any post drug predicted FEV1 reading above 80% are considered normal, your's was 108%, this is one of the reasons the VA Dr says your breathing problrems are un related to asbestos, he also says you have dammage to the upper lobes of the lungs and asbestos always effects the lower lobes first, so if you have asbestos exposure related lung disease and show effects to the upper lobe, you should also see it in the lower lobes, again according to the scans you submitted, you only have involvement in the upper lobes - and none in the lower lobes.

In the 1960's young Machinist Mates and Boilermen played in asbestos. We knocked it off with hammers and saws. some even slept in large piles of it. No warnings untill late 70's. I served on asbestos laden steam ships for 16 yrs. Yes I had a Nuc Med Lung Scan detailing the damage. It does not show up on a std. lung X-Ray. From DAV: I just reviewed a decision from the VA concerning your claim for lung disease, they're continuing to deny because the VA Dr. you seen for the compensation and pension exam indicates you have no lung disease related to asbestos exposure, he provides a lengthy explanation as to why your lung condition is not related to asbestos exposure. You need to get a copy of that exam and review it with your lung Dr. Also the VA Dr is a pulmonary specialist, so there taking his opinon. I'm to old and tired to fight it.

CLAIN DENIED! DAV REP NOTIFIED ME JUST NOW. I'M EXHAUSTED ON THIS CLAIM, ANY ADVICE?

Thank you Rich T, for the answer! You provided exactly what I and perhaps many other Vets need to know. These things I have written you that believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that you may KNOW that you have eternal life. 1 John 5:13

Met a vet who tried to explain about his three "K" awards but I failed to understand him. Anyone out there knowledgeable of this? He did say his first award was for ED due to meds. Thanks,

Met a vet who tried to explain about his three "K" awards but I failed to understand him. Anyone out there knowledgeable of this? He did say his first award was for ED due to meds. Thanks,

Met a vet who tried to explain about his "K" awards but I failed to understand him. Anyone out there knowledgeable of this? He did say his first award was for ED due to meds. Thanks,

NOTICE!!!! Last week, the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs held a hearing on the review. Before Garcia left for Washington to testify, he called Morris' widow. "She said she was happy" that her husband's suicide and the V.A. review would be brought up in Congress, Garcia said, "because maybe then his death would mean something." ( Details Below ) Where are the Republican members of Congress and Republican Senators on this? So far, it looks like only Democrats care about this Veterans Affairs (VA) witch-hurt... Many Democrats are against the War in Iraq, yet they are concerned for this group of disabled vets. What's up with Republicans? Don't Republicans think PTSD is a real disability? There must be a better way to look for fraud within the VA System, than to exacerbate the PTSD disability of 72,000 honorable vets. Jack http://www.americans-working-together.com/id107.html ----- Original Message ----- From: VET66A@aol.com The V.A.'s bad review Early this month, a vet in New Mexico took his life. At his side was the agency's plan to question benefits for mental trauma. By Mark Benjamin Oct. 26, 2005 | On Oct. 7, the remains of eight American Vietnam veterans were laid to rest in a single casket at Arlington National Cemetery, after lying in the jungle in Vietnam for over 35 years. Their unit was overrun by two enemy regiments on May 10, 1968. John M. Garcia fought in Vietnam with the 4th Infantry Division in 1969 and 1970. He came all the way from New Mexico to Northern Virginia for the burial because he once knew a Marine whose body was now in that casket. Bringing those veterans home and giving them the respect they deserve was the right thing to do. "It is a beautiful story," Garcia said. Garcia is the cabinet secretary of the New Mexico Department of Veterans Services, a state agency that aids veterans and helps them get federal benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington. The federal agency provides veterans medical care after their service and sends disabled veterans monthly checks if needed, up to $2,000 a month. When Garcia got back to his office the following Monday, his phone rang. Another Vietnam veteran needed to be buried. But this one had died by his own hand. "I was stunned," Garcia said in a telephone interview from Santa Fe. "And I was even more stunned at why." On Oct. 8, Greg Morris, 57, was found by his wife, Ginger, in their home in Chama, N.M., an old mining town of 1,250 in the Rocky Mountains. Lying at Morris' side were a gun and his Purple Heart medal. For years, Morris had been receiving monthly V.A. benefits in compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder. Next to his gun and Purple Heart was a folder of information on how the V.A. planned to review veterans who received PTSD checks to make sure those veterans really deserved the money. Last spring, the V.A. began to quietly draw up plans to take another look at nearly 72,000 veterans who from 1999 to 2004 had been classified as disabled and unemployable because of mental trauma from war. The V.A. plan, about which Salon was the first to report on Aug. 9, would review previous decisions to grant disability benefits to veterans incapacitated by PTSD. Veterans advocacy groups are irate, charging the department with trying to save money at the expense of the men and women traumatized by war. They say mentally troubled veterans will be shocked, hurt and afraid of losing their monthly checks. Many veterans said the review was bound to trigger suicides. "It is my educated opinion that [the V.A.] will kill some people with this," Ron Nesler told me on Aug. 24. "They will either kill themselves or die from stroke." Nesler served in Vietnam in 1970 and 1971 and is coincidentally from New Mexico. His traumatic memories include a Claymore mine blasting a busload of civilians near his artillery base. He has been getting disability checks for PTSD for years. On Aug. 11, he received a letter from the V.A. saying that his file was one of those in its review. He said the letter left him shocked, angry and afraid. The letter warns that "confirmation" of his mental wounds "had not been established" and that his file at the V.A. "does not establish that the event described by you occurred nor does the evidence in the file establish that you were present when a stressful event occurred." (The V.A. recently determined, again, that Nesler's claims are legitimate.) The letters themselves generated considerable controversy. "It was like Russian roulette," Garcia said. "You are dealing with lives. You don't do that. You don't just send out information to people who are suffering from some sort of mental stress saying, 'We are going to take these benefits away.'" Morris was a member of AMVETS, a service organization for veterans, whose issues were close to his heart. He was also one veteran who sent a clear message back to the V.A. "The evidence indicated that he committed suicide because he was frustrated and afraid that the V.A. was going to take his benefits away," Garcia said. By all accounts, he was a troubled veteran who had attended counseling. And medical studies have shown that people with PTSD often suffer intense suicidal or homicidal rage. "People will say, 'Well, he's got problems,'" Garcia said. "Well, that was just enough to push him over the edge." Morris did not receive a review letter from the V.A., but the prospect clearly upset him. "He was greatly shaken by the announcement of the V.A. review," Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said in a statement calling for a halt to the review. Udall also said Morris "frequently inquired whether he would be losing the support he did receive" before he committed suicide. "He believed, as so many veterans do, that he was being forced to prove himself yet again. It is that belief that makes veterans so angry and so frustrated with this process." Recently, Garcia was contacted by the wife of another Vietnam veteran who did get a letter from the V.A. "As a result of this letter, I have spent the last three nights watching him walk the floor, scared his benefits are going to be cut off," the wife wrote. "This morning, I went to work, and when I called my husband to inform him that I was safe at work, he told me he was going to 'fix everything.' I left work, and when I returned home, he had called his brother to pick [up] the two guns he owns." Garcia said that when the wife got home, the veteran "had his rifles out and they were fully loaded. His family arrived in time to prevent him from doing it." Garcia told me the V.A. review has to be stopped. "We lost a veteran because of it," he said, adding, "I don't know how many more have tried" suicide. The V.A. inaugurated the review after the department's inspector general issued a report last May that showed the agency had been inconsistent in granting full disability benefits to veterans with PTSD. The report found that the likelihood of a veteran getting the maximum payment varied widely in regions across the country, calling into question the evaluation procedures. V.A. statistics show that in 2004 an average of 9 percent of vets in New Mexico, Maine, Arkansas, West Virginia, Oklahoma and Oregon received a 100 percent disability rating, entitling them to the maximum payment. In contrast, an average of 3 percent of vets received the maximum payment rating in Indiana, Michigan, Connecticut, Ohio, New Jersey and Illinois. The review will ultimately cover 72,000 veterans but has started with a group of 2,100. There is a lot of money at stake. PTSD benefits have soared from $1.7 billion in 1999 to $4.3 billion in 2004, as more veterans learn about the condition and the V.A. benefits for it. "We have a responsibility to preserve the integrity of the rating system and to ensure that hard-earned taxpayer dollars are going to those who deserve and have earned them," Daniel L. Cooper, the V.A.'s undersecretary for benefits, told Salon in a written statement last summer. (A V.A. spokesman did not return calls seeking comment on Morris or the current state of the review.) The original inspector general's report warned that 2.5 percent of veterans getting 100 percent disability checks for PTSD might be "potentially fraudulent." It noted "an abundance of Web sites" that were "offering ways to compile less than truthful evidence" to get monthly checks. It also said one Web site was selling a fake Purple Heart for $19.95. Concern about fraud may be ill-founded. According to an Oct. 19 letter from seven Senate Democrats to their colleagues, arguing in favor of an amendment to halt the V.A. review, no cases of fraud have been identified. "At a time when service members are returning from war and straining an already burdened system, this review raises serious questions of costs and efficiencies," the letter stated. Some lawmakers have launched an all-out effort to halt the V.A. review. In September, the Senate passed an amendment to block it. Drafted by Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash.; Barack Obama, D-Ill., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, the amendment was attached to a Senate bill that funds the V.A. Conferees from the House and Senate must now decide if the final bill that lands on the president's desk will contain a prohibition on the review of 72,000 PTSD claims. On Oct. 14, a bipartisan group of 54 House members led by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., wrote to key conferees to urge them to adopt the Senate ban on the review. "It just sends a terrible message to those who are serving in the military today for the VA to attack and question whether those who served before are entitled to receive the benefits the VA itself previously approved," the letter said. Last week, the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs held a hearing on the review. Before Garcia left for Washington to testify, he called Morris' widow. "She said she was happy" that her husband's suicide and the V.A. review would be brought up in Congress, Garcia said, "because maybe then his death would mean something." About the writer Mark Benjamin is a national correspondent for Salon based in Washington, D.C. Related Stories Sticker shock over shell shock The U.S. government is reviewing 72,000 cases in which veterans have been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, claiming that misdiagnosis and fraud have inflated the numbers. Outraged vets say the plan is a callous attempt to cut the costs of an increasingly expensive war. By Mark Benjamin 08/09/05 Protecting America's wounded Democratic senators have stepped up to defend benefits for soldiers traumatized by combat. By Mark Benjamin 09/24/05 *********************************** PTSD is called a disability for a reason. To exacerbate the disability of 72,000 honorable veterans, just to find a few PTSD claims of fraud is a disgrace. Jack Cunningham http://www.americans-working-together.com/id107.html http://home.earthlink.net/~americans_who_lived_as_peasants http://www.CapVeterans.com http://www.americans-working-together.com/id107.html

Last week, the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs held a hearing on the review. Before Garcia left for Washington to testify, he called Morris' widow. "She said she was happy" that her husband's suicide and the V.A. review would be brought up in Congress, Garcia said, "because maybe then his death would mean something." ( Details Below ) Where are the Republican members of Congress and Republican Senators on this? So far, it looks like only Democrats care about this Veterans Affairs (VA) witch-hurt... Many Democrats are against the War in Iraq, yet they are concerned for this group of disabled vets. What's up with Republicans? Don't Republicans think PTSD is a real disability? There must be a better way to look for fraud within the VA System, than to exacerbate the PTSD disability of 72,000 honorable vets. Jack http://www.americans-working-together.com/id107.html ----- Original Message ----- From: VET66A@aol.com The V.A.'s bad review Early this month, a vet in New Mexico took his life. At his side was the agency's plan to question benefits for mental trauma. By Mark Benjamin Oct. 26, 2005 | On Oct. 7, the remains of eight American Vietnam veterans were laid to rest in a single casket at Arlington National Cemetery, after lying in the jungle in Vietnam for over 35 years. Their unit was overrun by two enemy regiments on May 10, 1968. John M. Garcia fought in Vietnam with the 4th Infantry Division in 1969 and 1970. He came all the way from New Mexico to Northern Virginia for the burial because he once knew a Marine whose body was now in that casket. Bringing those veterans home and giving them the respect they deserve was the right thing to do. "It is a beautiful story," Garcia said. Garcia is the cabinet secretary of the New Mexico Department of Veterans Services, a state agency that aids veterans and helps them get federal benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington. The federal agency provides veterans medical care after their service and sends disabled veterans monthly checks if needed, up to $2,000 a month. When Garcia got back to his office the following Monday, his phone rang. Another Vietnam veteran needed to be buried. But this one had died by his own hand. "I was stunned," Garcia said in a telephone interview from Santa Fe. "And I was even more stunned at why." On Oct. 8, Greg Morris, 57, was found by his wife, Ginger, in their home in Chama, N.M., an old mining town of 1,250 in the Rocky Mountains. Lying at Morris' side were a gun and his Purple Heart medal. For years, Morris had been receiving monthly V.A. benefits in compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder. Next to his gun and Purple Heart was a folder of information on how the V.A. planned to review veterans who received PTSD checks to make sure those veterans really deserved the money. Last spring, the V.A. began to quietly draw up plans to take another look at nearly 72,000 veterans who from 1999 to 2004 had been classified as disabled and unemployable because of mental trauma from war. The V.A. plan, about which Salon was the first to report on Aug. 9, would review previous decisions to grant disability benefits to veterans incapacitated by PTSD. Veterans advocacy groups are irate, charging the department with trying to save money at the expense of the men and women traumatized by war. They say mentally troubled veterans will be shocked, hurt and afraid of losing their monthly checks. Many veterans said the review was bound to trigger suicides. "It is my educated opinion that [the V.A.] will kill some people with this," Ron Nesler told me on Aug. 24. "They will either kill themselves or die from stroke." Nesler served in Vietnam in 1970 and 1971 and is coincidentally from New Mexico. His traumatic memories include a Claymore mine blasting a busload of civilians near his artillery base. He has been getting disability checks for PTSD for years. On Aug. 11, he received a letter from the V.A. saying that his file was one of those in its review. He said the letter left him shocked, angry and afraid. The letter warns that "confirmation" of his mental wounds "had not been established" and that his file at the V.A. "does not establish that the event described by you occurred nor does the evidence in the file establish that you were present when a stressful event occurred." (The V.A. recently determined, again, that Nesler's claims are legitimate.) The letters themselves generated considerable controversy. "It was like Russian roulette," Garcia said. "You are dealing with lives. You don't do that. You don't just send out information to people who are suffering from some sort of mental stress saying, 'We are going to take these benefits away.'" Morris was a member of AMVETS, a service organization for veterans, whose issues were close to his heart. He was also one veteran who sent a clear message back to the V.A. "The evidence indicated that he committed suicide because he was frustrated and afraid that the V.A. was going to take his benefits away," Garcia said. By all accounts, he was a troubled veteran who had attended counseling. And medical studies have shown that people with PTSD often suffer intense suicidal or homicidal rage. "People will say, 'Well, he's got problems,'" Garcia said. "Well, that was just enough to push him over the edge." Morris did not receive a review letter from the V.A., but the prospect clearly upset him. "He was greatly shaken by the announcement of the V.A. review," Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said in a statement calling for a halt to the review. Udall also said Morris "frequently inquired whether he would be losing the support he did receive" before he committed suicide. "He believed, as so many veterans do, that he was being forced to prove himself yet again. It is that belief that makes veterans so angry and so frustrated with this process." Recently, Garcia was contacted by the wife of another Vietnam veteran who did get a letter from the V.A. "As a result of this letter, I have spent the last three nights watching him walk the floor, scared his benefits are going to be cut off," the wife wrote. "This morning, I went to work, and when I called my husband to inform him that I was safe at work, he told me he was going to 'fix everything.' I left work, and when I returned home, he had called his brother to pick [up] the two guns he owns." Garcia said that when the wife got home, the veteran "had his rifles out and they were fully loaded. His family arrived in time to prevent him from doing it." Garcia told me the V.A. review has to be stopped. "We lost a veteran because of it," he said, adding, "I don't know how many more have tried" suicide. The V.A. inaugurated the review after the department's inspector general issued a report last May that showed the agency had been inconsistent in granting full disability benefits to veterans with PTSD. The report found that the likelihood of a veteran getting the maximum payment varied widely in regions across the country, calling into question the evaluation procedures. V.A. statistics show that in 2004 an average of 9 percent of vets in New Mexico, Maine, Arkansas, West Virginia, Oklahoma and Oregon received a 100 percent disability rating, entitling them to the maximum payment. In contrast, an average of 3 percent of vets received the maximum payment rating in Indiana, Michigan, Connecticut, Ohio, New Jersey and Illinois. The review will ultimately cover 72,000 veterans but has started with a group of 2,100. There is a lot of money at stake. PTSD benefits have soared from $1.7 billion in 1999 to $4.3 billion in 2004, as more veterans learn about the condition and the V.A. benefits for it. "We have a responsibility to preserve the integrity of the rating system and to ensure that hard-earned taxpayer dollars are going to those who deserve and have earned them," Daniel L. Cooper, the V.A.'s undersecretary for benefits, told Salon in a written statement last summer. (A V.A. spokesman did not return calls seeking comment on Morris or the current state of the review.) The original inspector general's report warned that 2.5 percent of veterans getting 100 percent disability checks for PTSD might be "potentially fraudulent." It noted "an abundance of Web sites" that were "offering ways to compile less than truthful evidence" to get monthly checks. It also said one Web site was selling a fake Purple Heart for $19.95. Concern about fraud may be ill-founded. According to an Oct. 19 letter from seven Senate Democrats to their colleagues, arguing in favor of an amendment to halt the V.A. review, no cases of fraud have been identified. "At a time when service members are returning from war and straining an already burdened system, this review raises serious questions of costs and efficiencies," the letter stated. Some lawmakers have launched an all-out effort to halt the V.A. review. In September, the Senate passed an amendment to block it. Drafted by Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash.; Barack Obama, D-Ill., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, the amendment was attached to a Senate bill that funds the V.A. Conferees from the House and Senate must now decide if the final bill that lands on the president's desk will contain a prohibition on the review of 72,000 PTSD claims. On Oct. 14, a bipartisan group of 54 House members led by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., wrote to key conferees to urge them to adopt the Senate ban on the review. "It just sends a terrible message to those who are serving in the military today for the VA to attack and question whether those who served before are entitled to receive the benefits the VA itself previously approved," the letter said. Last week, the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs held a hearing on the review. Before Garcia left for Washington to testify, he called Morris' widow. "She said she was happy" that her husband's suicide and the V.A. review would be brought up in Congress, Garcia said, "because maybe then his death would mean something." About the writer Mark Benjamin is a national correspondent for Salon based in Washington, D.C. Related Stories Sticker shock over shell shock The U.S. government is reviewing 72,000 cases in which veterans have been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, claiming that misdiagnosis and fraud have inflated the numbers. Outraged vets say the plan is a callous attempt to cut the costs of an increasingly expensive war. By Mark Benjamin 08/09/05 Protecting America's wounded Democratic senators have stepped up to defend benefits for soldiers traumatized by combat. By Mark Benjamin 09/24/05 *********************************** PTSD is called a disability for a reason. To exacerbate the disability of 72,000 honorable veterans, just to find a few PTSD claims of fraud is a disgrace. Jack Cunningham http://www.americans-working-together.com/id107.html http://home.earthlink.net/~americans_who_lived_as_peasants http://www.CapVeterans.com http://www.americans-working-together.com/id107.html

The VA may tell you you should have known it was hazardous. Warnings began appearing in the early 80's. Good luck, Jim

Thanks again for all the help. C & P yesterday. Now wait. 39nholdin

Thank you for the excellent information. This information is very difficult to obtain and I sincerely thank you. regards, Jim

You may reply to email address. Thanks

You may reply to email address. Thanks

Berta, Couldn't open your PDF. I was a Chief Machinist Mate. Jim

Our VA has announced a "REVIEW" of all 100% TDUI PTSD receipients. This is because the large percent of those Vets no longer see their doc or refill their meds. This has prompted an increase in investigators. Job announcments are listed in usajobs.opm.gov/

Our VA has announced a "REVIEW" of all 100% TDUI PTSD receipients. This is because the large percent of those Vets no longer see their doc or refill their meds. This has prompted an increase in investigators. Job announcments are listed in usajobs.opm.gov/

Only reason for the post is it is information good to know. It's reality. Might help someone.