AO and Hypertension?

[john999]

Has the VA made a service connected and compensable link between exposure to AO and high blood pressure.  I got the AO Registry letter today and I can't decide what they are saying except it sounds like a time delaying hedge.

[Buck52]

John999 I know the VA is Adding new A.O. Condition's  Ms Berta put up those conditions  up a few months ago here on hadit.

I believe its a new condition added to the A.O. Registry.  if they decided on the new ones yet?

I am in the A.O. Registry  but never got a letter?  (yet anyway)

Being in the Registry helps if you come down with an A.O. Presumption condition on the A.O List

but we still need to go through the claims process     the registry just makes it a little easier that you were a Vietnam combat veteran  boots on the ground and don't have to prove you were in Vietnam.

 we still have to prove with medical evidence./unit reports ect,,ect,,

jmo

Edited December 14, 2017 by Buck52

[Berta]

The Secretary is still considering the NAM Report and possibly some more AO conditions:

https://community.hadit.com/topic/70336-possible-new-ao-presumptives-coming/?page=4#gsc.tab=0

I have collected medical info on one of them-ischemic stroke- which very few veterans have claimed  over the years due to their service due to AO or anything else, and am asking the Secretary to consider that if a veteran has AO IHD and has also suffered from an Ischemic stroke, the medical association of both of them  due to ischemia, cannot be overlooked. Very few vets, as far as I know, have ever gotten SC for stroke, and none for AO stroke.

If a veteran  does not have IHD, and still suffers from an ischemic stroke, the definitions of ischemia-whether brain or heart- could still have no other etiology but for AO.

Ischemia:

"medical Definition of ischemia. : deficient supply of blood to a body part (as the heart or brain) that is due to obstruction of the inflow of arterial blood (as by the narrowing of arteries by spasm or disease)"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ischemia

I feel any veteran with any disease on the list in the link above, should write to the Secretary telling them why they feel their disability has no other etiology but for  their incountry exposure to AO.

HBP is more problematic, as often HBP is diagnosed long before any any of a vet's disabilities have gone onto the presumptive list.

HBP can have many etiologies. Still nothing is impossible.

But this is the last time , as I understand it , that NAM ( formerly IOM) will be asked to review any more disabilities that could become AO presumptives. 

 

 

 

 

[Buck52]

Here is a A.O. Presumptive  list  IMD is on this list. but so for not HBP

TBI 's should be on the list. 

jmo

https://www.hadit.com/agent-orange-presumptive-conditions/

Edited December 14, 2017 by Buck52

[Gastone]

Hypertension as an AO Presumptive?  I don't see it happening, how many Nam Vets don't have a Hypertension DX? You're talking BF$$$ in Retro.  If men, probably women also, live long enough they'll develop a Hypertension DX.

I don't recall what the last IOM report stated as far as Nam Vets Vs Civilians regarding the incidence of Hypertension per 100K comparatively speaking.

Anybody seen the stats regarding Nam Vets and Hypertension, can't really say I have.

Lifelong smokers, both civilian and military are virtually guaranteed to develop Hypertension as well as COPD, at some point before they take the Dirt Nap.

Out of my 02/68 Boot Platoon of 80 Wannabe JarHeads, only 2 of us were none smokers. The rare occasion the smoking lamp was lit, you had 78 chimneys fired up. You just know that those that made it back from Nam continued the smoking habit, probably even worse.

[john999]

Buck

                 I got the AO Registry letter today and it said the VA had made a link between AO and HBP.  However, it did not actually say HBP would be service connected to AO.  They were also making some kind of link between AO and bladder cancer.  I might just go ahead and file a claim for HBP and when and if they SC it I would have a retro date back to my claim.   The VA knows the dioxins cause cancer, but they use these half ass statistics to compare Vietnam vet populations and non-Vietnam vet populations to see if there is significant link between AO and any disease they choose to study.  This is crap really because the Vietnam "Boots on the Ground" population is shrinking by the day.  Less than one million Vietnam vets survive.  By the time they do all these studies we will all be dead.  I think the average age of a Vietnam vet is probably 70 now.   How much time do we have?  2 out of 3 RVN vets have already died.

 

              

[john999]

I saw stats that show Vietnam vets are 1.26 times as likely as non-Vietnam vets to have high blood.  Vietnam vets who actually sprayed or handled AO are 1.70 times as likely to have HBP as vets who did not serve in Nam.  The current AO Registry letter says there is a link between AO and HBP, but how significant is the link I don't know because I am not a statistician.   The   VA also says there is evidence of a link between AO and bladder cancer.   It is absurd to quibble about AO conditions while the Vietnam generation is probably age 70 on average and will not survive to wait for the VA to make up it's mind.  We know that AO causes cancer, DMII, Parkinson's and IHD.  What is left that usually kills people?   All the cancers and other potentially fatal diseases that plague Vietnam vets should be made presumptive.  90% of us will be dead in the next 15 years, so the only people the VA are really screwing are the aging spouses of Nam vets who might be able to claim DIC.  I do think that the VA does want to delay any more presumptive SC conditions because every day they wait a 300 Nam vets die.  In my local newspaper I see Nam vet obits every day.