Agent Orange - Va Denial Of Sarcoidosis Letter

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Agent Orange - VA Denial of Sarcoidosis Letter

VA Doctors and Sarcoidosis

As most of you know I have long suggested that dioxins and all the herbicides we were exposed including massive insecticide spraying is creating more immune system issues than the IOM or our truthful government wants to admit. Disturbance in B and T cell homeostasis cannot be just associated with cancers. Biologically to me in the little research I have done for over 12 years now would be not only illogical but medically impossible. Kind of like only Spina Bifida in paternal exposures. I sure would like someone to try and explain that to me as it seems impossible for a toxic chemical that can create neural tube birth defects can be that singularly specific. But that is later.

Toxic immune system disturbances capable of creating immune system systemic issues in about every organ or body system of about 75 different immune system disorders. While maybe not ICD coded because of government interference the fact remains the constant inflammatory or reduction in immune system efficiency or both is relevant to not only death but a plethora of disability immune system issues. Depending on what the chemicals were and genetics.

Lets face it in everything medically there is always genetics and genetic pathways. Even the VA cannot deny that fact; while they try. Otherwise there would be no need for every medical application/information at every doctors office in the nation to have the questions on immediate family and cancers or other issues such as heart disease. Now that does not mean that every offspring is going to develop from genetics but it does indicate the non-measurable risk factor. Ironic even when we do have measurable increased risk factors VA and IOM still deny the impacts. Practicing medicine agrees with and is interested in the slightest increased risk factors yet VA and IOM have no consideration of the increased statistics because of money - not facts. Also leaving our treating doctors in a dark room like a mushroom in what I call "the government created information void." You know the rest of the saying regarding the spreading of a certain substance and the dark corner.

Now this discussion is more legal and how the VA doctors and VA Law Judges can manipulate the real facts and not stating the obvious.

Read the disapproval letter at: http://www.2ndbattalion94thartillery.com/Chas/VAsarcoidosismedopinion.pdf

Now the doctor was almost correct.

He was almost correct in stating facts that there is no convincing statistical evidence to herbicides, including Agent Orange. Yes, the etiology of Sarcoidosis is unknown. Yes, it can involve one or multiple organs.

However, I think I would rather believe the research done by John Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic versus a VA company doctors statements being submitted to a defendant company Law Judge. No comfort here in real constitutional justice. Even the fact of having a government defendant Law Judge making decisions against plaintiffs for government damages and death should give everyone some concern.

We already know that VA says to their doctors do not discuss Agent Orange or diagnosis with “this” and “not that” because it is cheaper.

Remember when the very naïve VA doctor who thought truth meant something as in "intellectual freedom" called me and said I was correct in my assessments after he did the three biopsies on one of my Marines. He was going to write an article for some neurological publications as to what I had suggested and what he verified by testing including the dioxin level found.

Remember what I told him?

His career at VA would be over since they are not interested in truth and facts and even if he went into private practice I am not sure how far the long arm of VA retribution extends.

Now yes the etiology of Sarcoidosis is unknown but what we do know from some of the finest research organizations in the world is the following:

CausesThe exact etiology of sarcoidosis has not been clearly defined. Genetic as well as environmental factors are thought to play a role in the disease process. Sarcoidosis is thought to result from exposure of a genetically susceptible host to specific environmental agents that the immune system is unable to clear effectively.*

(gee how about a toxic chemical that only reduces itself once in the body every seven to eleven years.)

Environmental influence

Numerous geographically localized outbreaks have been reported and suggest the possibility of an infectious agent or shared environmental exposure as the causative agents. Infectious organisms, such as mycobacteria, can induce granulomatous inflammation. Many organisms have been linked to sarcoidosis, including Mycoplasma species; Borrelia burgdorferi; Propionibacterium acnes; fungi, such as Histoplasma and Cryptococcus species; viruses, such as Epstein-Barr virus, cytomegalovirus, herpes simplex virus, hepatitis C virus,⁸ and rubella; and numerous other organisms.

Noninfectious agents, such as aluminum, zirconium, talc, pine tree pollen, and clay, have also been implicated.

Genetic factors

Familial clustering of cases has been reported. Monozygotic twins are 2-4 times as likely to have the disease as dizygotic twins.⁹

Certain HLA associations have been demonstrated; the most common allele found in sarcoidosis is HLA-B8. Other associated alleles include HLA-A1 and HLA-DR3.

Two genes that are commonly found in female whites were found to be associated with EN in a study of sarcoidosis patients: a variant in the promoter of TNF and a variant in intron 1 of lymphotoxin-alpha, an adjacent gene.¹⁰

Causes

By Mayo Clinic staff

Doctors don't know the exact cause of sarcoidosis. Some people appear to have a genetic predisposition for developing the disease, which may be triggered by exposure to specific bacteria, viruses, dust or chemicals. Researchers are still trying to pinpoint the genes and trigger substances that may be associated with sarcoidosis.

Normally, your immune system helps protect your body from foreign substances and invading microorganisms, such as bacteria and viruses. But in sarcoidosis, some immune cells clump together to form lumps called granulomas. As granulomas build up in an organ, the function of that organ worsens.

We observed positive associations between sarcoidosis and specific occupations (e.g., agricultural employment, odds ratio [OR] 1.46, confidence interval [CI] 1.13–1.89),exposures (e.g., insecticides at work, OR 1.52, CI 1.14–2.04,and work environments with mold/mildew exposures [environmentswith possible exposures to microbial bioaerosols], OR 1.61,CI 1.13–2.31). A history of ever smoking cigarettes wasless frequent among cases than control subjects (OR 0.62, CI0.50–0.77). In multivariable modeling, we observed elevatedORs for work in areas with musty odors (OR 1.62, CI 1.24–2.11)and with occupational exposure to insecticides (OR 1.61, CI1.13–2.28), and a decreased OR related to ever smokingcigarettes (OR 0.65, CI 0.51–0.82). The study did notidentify a single, predominant cause of sarcoidosis. We identifiedseveral exposures associated with sarcoidosis risk, including insecticides, agricultural employment, and microbial bioaerosols.Key Words: environment etiology granuloma occupation risk factors sarcoidosis

The etiology of the systemic granulomatous disease sarcoidosis remains obscure (1). Few comprehensive investigations of cause have been conducted, although the prevailing view suggests that sarcoidosis occurs as the consequence of exposure to one or more environmental agents interacting with genetic factors (2–5). Studies of the immunopathogenesis of sarcoidosis have shown the accumulation of oligoclonal T cells at sites of granuloma formation, suggesting an antigen-specific cell-mediated immune response (6, 7). Skin tests using either Kveim-Siltzbach spleen extract or lung extract from patients with sarcoidosis suggest a specific immune response (8, 9). Clinical and pathologic features of sarcoidosis resemble other antigen-induced granulomatous disorders, including chronic beryllium disease (10) and other metal-induced granulomatoses (11), hypersensitivity pneumonitis due to inhaled organic and inorganic antigens (12), and fungal and mycobacterial antigen-induced granulomatous lung disease.

Previous investigators have suggested that environmental exposures to microbial agents may prove causative because of their infectious and/or antigenic properties (13–21). Environments that serve as reservoirs and that can both amplify and disseminate bioaerosols of bacteria, their antigens and endotoxins, as well as fungi and mycotoxins have been linked to epidemics of environmental granulomatous disease (12, 19). Epidemiologic studies documenting temporal/spatial clustering of sarcoidosis cases (22–29), and familial aggregation of this disease (30–34), raise the possibility of shared environmental exposure or of a transmissible agent. Published data suggest that a number of occupations and environmental exposures might be associated with sarcoidosis (2, 5, 27, 35–37), including employment as firefighters (38, 39), health care professionals (35, 40, 41), work in the U.S. military (42, 43), work in the lumber industry (44, 45), and coastal or rural residence (28, 29, 43–48). A recent study of African-American patients with sarcoidosis and their siblings suggests that environmental and occupational factors contribute to disease risk (5).

We report our assessment of environmental and occupational factors associated with sarcoidosis in a U.S. multicenter epidemiologicstudy of 706 clinically diagnosed and histologically confirmedincident patients with sarcoidosis and matched control subjects.

^{We tested a priori hypotheses that environmental and occupational exposures are associated with the risk of sarcoidosis. This case control design was viewed also as a means of generating new etiologic hypotheses.}

Some of the results of these studies have been previously reported in the form of abstracts (49, 50).

^________

Now in my humble opinion a more honest assessment would have been by this VA doctor crowing about his treating experience:

_______________________________________

The Veteran……was established.

The etiology of sarcoidosis is unknown……disorder.

However, the newest studies of the etiology of sarcoidosis have come to light as associated to environmental and occupational exposures. These assessments pointed out that is particularly compelling in increased odds ratios for agricultural employment and insecticides. Agricultural employment by default would suggest the use of herbicides. No specific herbicide or insecticide was found particularly more involved than another.

With the Veterans known and decreed by law that he was exposed to many environmental herbicides including Agent Orange with many forms of toxic chemicals inclusive and at least two different forms of insecticides and having no genetic family history of sarcoidosis “it is at least a likely as not” his Military Service in service to this nation during wartime contributed to his developed immune system dysfunction in the form of sarcoidosis.

__________________________

But then if the good VA doctor actually told the facts he would “at least as likely as not” be out on his ear, punished by the good folks at VA benefits and maybe even this VA so-called law judge. Lawless would be a better description and title.

This is a single sample of what our Veterans and Widows have been facing in not so truthful stated facts by VA doctors to VA Judges. In fact, I would suggest that medical and law standard practices are and have been broken daily. Either that or their powers of logic are minimal or their ignorance of facts is only surpassed by their overwhelming arrogance and self-importance.

Have a great day and vote all these congressional bums out in 2010. Unlike Senators Webb/Akaka maybe they will make the VA and its illegal processes accountable. If not...then vote them out the next cycle. Don't let these ESD's make a career out of short changing the best citizens this nation has ever had.

Kelley http://www.2ndbattalion94thartillery.com/Chas/sarcoidosis.htm