: SunToads Health News 291. The VA's Claim dodge

November 14, 2007

There are many thousands of Veterans' disability claims that

have been mishandled and/or intentionally sabotaged by the VA and/or

military....... Guess what........ Social Security is also guilty of

similar behavior...... SunToads

+++++++

The VA's (Veterans Administration) Claim Dodge

<http://www.prospect.org/site/_media/_common/spacer.gif>

Beyond the awful conditions at Walter Reed hospital, something smells

fishy

in the government's handling of veterans' claims. One appalling case

study

suggests what might be happening and why.

<http://www.prospect.org/site/_media/_common/spacer.gif>

Deb Derrick | November 12, 2007 | web only

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_vas_claim_dodge

<http://www.prospect.org/site/_media/_common/spacer.gif>

<http://www.prospect.org/site/_media/_common/divider_h_752.gif>

The two signature injuries of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are

traumatic

brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). An estimated

26,000

U.S. veterans from these wars have had their brains traumatized from

nearby

explosions. Another 45,000 have initiated post traumatic stress

disorder

claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

These claims concern real disabilities that are medically hard to prove.

In

each VA case, it is up to the military and the Department of

Veterans'

Affairs to decide if and how much any given soldier's mental faculties

have

been impaired. These are also precisely the kinds of claims that the

U.S.

government has actively thwarted in the past -- and recent news and

health

articles suggest that a repeat performance is underway. The Defense

Department is being accused of under-funding studies of traumatic

brain

injuries. The VA and Defense Departments are refusing to make their

brain

injury data public. Current PTSD claimants are finding their medical

and

service records missing, lost, or subject to challenge. A class

action

lawsuit was recently initiated on behalf of PTSD claimants.

My recent investigation on the VA claims of a Navy waste disposal ship,

the

USS Calhoun County, provides a cautionary tale about what might be

happening

and why.

Harvey Ray Lucas served in the late 1950s on the USS Calhoun County,

a

low-ranking Navy ship whose primary mission was to dump atomic and

other

military waste into the Atlantic Ocean. Lucas spent four years

heaving

radioactive materials over the side of the ship. After leaving the

military,

he suffered from chronic health problems and sired five children with

birth

defects. Lucas's testimony made my jaw drop. He described one baby

whose

skin oozed " bloodwater. " He described the birth and death of

another whom

physicians termed an " anencephalic female monster. " A couple

years after his

testimony, Lucas died of a rare cancer associated with radiation

exposure.

I came across Lucas's story in 1998, when I worked in a U.S.

Congressional

office and read the transcript of his Board of Veterans Appeals

hearing.

Lucas's widow, Barbara, and my boss, Congressman David Skaggs

(D-Colo.),

both felt that Harvey Lucas and his family's illnesses stemmed from

radiation exposure in the Navy. But Barbara Lucas had been pursuing

a

compensation claim with the VA for 18 years without success. The VA

always

seemed to need more or different evidence. When our office dug up a

key

final document and Barbara prevailed, I decided to write a book about

the

USS Calhoun County and her VA claim.

Deck logs and interviews with the ship's sailors, officers, and

scientists

suggested that the USS Calhoun County had carried excessively

radioactive

material and that the ship's decks had been contaminated. When I

discovered

a number of other sailors had experienced odd health problems, I

broadened

my inquiry to look at the VA cases of other USS Calhoun County veterans.

I interviewed Deane Horne, whose teeth and hair had fallen out after he

left

the ship and whose eldest son was born without a femur. I

interviewed

Richard Tkaczyk, who had also lost his teeth and whose first born son

had

seizures and brain damage. I interviewed George Albernaz, who was

half

paralyzed after suffering from an odd brain disease that his

physician

called radiation necrosis. All had filed claims with the VA. None had

made

any headway.

In all cases, the VA began the claims process by asserting that there was

no

proof that the USS Calhoun County had even carried atomic waste --

even

though there was ample evidence of the ship's mission in public

federal

archives. In all cases, the Navy forwarded personnel files to the VA

that

were missing a key radiation exposure document.

The treatment of these men's claims echoed what had happened with the

Lucas

claim. It was also entirely consistent with a vastly discouraging history

of

the VA's handling of hard-to-prove claims, including radiation,

asbestos,

Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome, and PTSD-based injuries. All such

cases

were and are handled centrally out of a special office in VA

headquarters.

All required Congressional or court intervention to force the VA to

grant

claims.

In the case of radiation-based claims, the military was found

omitting

incriminating documents from veterans' databases; veterans' documents

were

destroyed in a huge and mysterious fire at a military personnel

records

facility; the VA was found hiding and shredding more veterans' evidence;

and

whistleblowers were subjected to death threats and workplace retaliation.

As I unearthed this information, I was drawn into providing evidence for

the

claims of several USS Calhoun County veterans. In particular, I

began

helping George Albernaz, who had served with Lucas on the ship between

1957

and 1958.

To verify his claim, I sent the VA data on the ship's atomic loads,

noting

that my information came from deck logs in the National Archives. The

VA

called my information unsubstantiated. I sent Navy documentation on

them.

The Navy and the VA said that they still had no proof that Albernaz

himself

had ever been exposed to radiation. I sent information from the Lucas

claim

that challenged such " zero dose " exposure estimates. It was

deemed

irrelevant.

Looking for more evidence on Albernaz's behalf, I dug deeper in the

ship's

administrative archives. I came across a memo to the ship's

Commanding

Officer from 1956, indicating that the deck of the USS Calhoun County

had

become radiologically contaminated. I found another from 1958 stating

that

all attempts to remove the contamination had failed. But my breath failed

me

when I read a final memo from 1962, stating that the Navy had never, in

its

history, been able to render such a ship safe for use and recommending

that

the USS Calhoun County be sunk.

If I thought that such evidence would help win the Albernaz case,

however, I

was quite mistaken. Albernaz and I submitted the incriminating

documents

between 2005 and 2007. Yet the VA omitted the documents from the

" evidence

of record; " the Navy re-asserted that they had no proof of

Albernaz's

exposure but that he'd likely only received safe doses; and the VA

continued

to take the Navy at its word. As of this month, the VA was demanding a

long

list of additional evidence to support Albernaz's claim -- much of which

he

and I had already submitted.

The treatment of these sailors exposes a U.S. veterans' claims

adjudication

system that enshrines military-produced evidence as the only

" objective "

arbiter of claims, even when there is ample reason to doubt it. Evidence

--

even documents from the National Archives -- produced by the likes of

Harvey

Lucas and George Albernaz is viewed and treated as potentially

fraudulent.

And far from making any attempt to validate or verify claims through

databases, " buddy statements, " or consolidated claims reviews,

the VA

actively dismisses their compatriots' evidence as " irrelevant "

to their

claims. In sum, the veterans are treated as liars, told to prove their

own

cases to the government, and subject to having credible evidence

dismissed

when it contradicts military assertions.

Americans are now becoming increasingly concerned with the treatment of

Iraq

and Afghanistan war veterans, and they ought to be. Because unless the

U.S.

revamps its veterans claims system to allow for decisions made

independently

of the U.S. military, we are headed for another series of large VA

scandals.

Forwarded by:

Dan Cedusky, Champaign IL " Colonel Dan "

See my web site at:

http://www.angelfire.com/il2/VeteranIssues/

Change your email address when needed by signing in at

VeteranIssues/

Forward to other veterans, tell them to Sign up at:

VeteranIssues/join

Posted by: " Colonel Dan "

colonel-dan coloneldan1

Tue Nov 13, 2007 9:46 am ((PST))

++++++++++++++

Law Firms Massing to Help War Vets

Posted by: " Colonel Dan "

colonel-dan coloneldan1

Tue Nov 13, 2007 11:41 am ((PST))

<http://malcontends.blogspot.com/2007/09/law-firms-rushing-to-veterans-aid.h

tml>

http://malcontends.blogspot.com/2007/09/law-firms-rushing-to-veterans-aid.ht

ml

Many links at the above URL

Good Attorney at:

http://www.lawyers.com/Michigan/Battle-Creek/Robert-P.-Walsh-3292774-f.html

Law Firms Massing to Help War Vets

A 'staggering' need for representation

Lynne Marek

<http://www.nlj.com/> The National Law

Journal

September 26, 2007

<http://www.law.com/jsp/llf/PubArticleLLF.jsp?id=1190745422599>

http://www.law.com/jsp/llf/PubArticleLLF.jsp?id=1190745422599

The John Marshall Law School's Nicholas Henry

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr attorney John Harwood, who was a

Marine Corps platoon leader in the Vietnam War, and Nicholas Henry, a

third-year law student in Chicago and Iraq veteran, don't know each other,

but they now have a common mission: providing legal services to wounded

veterans.

They're not alone.

Law firms, corporate legal departments and law schools are setting out to

help thousands of disabled soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan

receive fair and timely benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans

Affairs.

Pro bono legal clinics and training sessions for lawyers have been cropping

up across the country this year, from Illinois to North Carolina to

California, in recognition of veterans' legal needs and a desire to create

models for more programs. One national program currently being crafted will

focus some of the country's largest law firms -- including WilmerHale and

Sidley Austin -- on the issue.

" We've all become much more acutely aware over the past six to nine months

of what's happening to our Marines and soldiers and of the needs they are

going to have when they return, " said Harwood, who is on the board of the

National Veterans Legal Services Program, an organization that helps

veterans apply for benefits.

DOZENS OF FIRMS

The Pro Bono Institute is enlisting support from 38 corporate legal

departments and law firms, including Morrison & Foerster and Morgan, Lewis &

Bockius, to assist discharged military personnel -- and those on the cusp of

being discharged -- in filing claims. The program would train lawyers in the

arcane area of veterans law and screen cases to identify those who would

benefit most from legal representation.

" With the rise in need, we are working to develop a firmwide initiative, "

said Morgan Lewis pro bono counsel Amanda Smith, noting that about 40

interested attorneys at her firm was an " exceptionally strong response. "

News reports earlier this year about the shabby treatment some veterans were

receiving at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other reports about

benefits being denied to some with post-traumatic stress disorder attracted

attorneys to the cause, said Esther Lardent, president of the Pro Bono

Institute. In July, a presidential commission recommended changes to address

those shortcomings.

" There's a sense, generally, that the sacrifices have fallen

disproportionately on a small number of people in uniform, " said Ron Flagg,

a Sidley attorney who is also chairman of the National Veterans Legal

Services Program.

While veterans have long received support in making claims from veterans'

organizations, pro bono lawyers aim to help ease an overload of cases that

could grow worse as more veterans return from Iraq and Afghanistan,

according to attorneys working in the area. The U.S. Department of Defense

reported 29,415 service members had been wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan as

of Sept. 12.

A 'STAGGERING NEED'

Veterans Affairs did not respond to requests for comment about its

processing of claims. It did provide data showing that the annual number of

disability-related claims for compensation has risen 20 percent during the

past six years, jumping to 806,382 last year from 674,219 in 2001.

" The need is staggering, " said Gordon Erspamer, a Morrison & Foerster

attorney in Walnut Creek, Calif., who has worked on veterans' cases since

the 1970s.

The firm expects to participate in the institute's new program when it gets

rolling. It is already involved in a Federal Circuit Bar Association pro

bono program for vets that started in July and an older Swords to Plowshares

program in San Francisco, said Kathi Pugh, Morrison & Foerster's pro bono

counsel.

A law passed by Congress last year may also encourage more attorneys to take

cases for a fee. Under the old law, attorneys couldn't charge a fee until

after a final decision by the Board of Veterans' Appeals. As of June,

veterans can hire a lawyer as soon as they file a notice of disagreement in

response to a department decision.

" Now lawyers can be hired earlier in the process, and they can be much more

proactive in shaping the case, " said Ron Abrams, a joint executive director

for the National Veterans Legal Services Program who trains attorneys.

Whether or not attorneys or law students support the war or the Veterans

Affairs Department, they share a belief that their skills and experience in

handling complex matters, researching cases and advocacy will aid veterans.

" For many of them, having a lawyer will be the difference between whether

they succeed or not, " said Sidley's Flagg.

REPRESENTATION PAYS OFF

Veterans who had some kind of representation got $6,225 more annually, on

average, than those who didn't, according to a 2005 Veterans Affairs

Inspector General report. That principle held true in the first case

resolved by the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law clinic, begun this

month. The clinic helped a Vietnam War veteran increase his monthly

disability compensation to $2,600 from $350 by helping him apply for a

benefit related to his inability to work, said professor Joon Sung.

North Carolina Central University School of Law started a veterans claims

clinic in January and is working on 30 cases, said Craig Kabatchnick, a law

professor overseeing the clinic.

Henry, who has served in the Basra and Anbar regions of Iraq, and two fellow

students at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago initiated a veterans pro

bono program that this month won a $100,000 grant from the Illinois

Department of Veterans' Affairs.

Students and pro bono attorneys working with the clinic will start training

next month and begin helping veterans file for disability and education

benefits in January.

Henry said he believes that the clinic's focus on initial filings will

result in fewer rejections for incomplete information and fewer appeals.

" If we did this 10, 100, 10,000 times, we're going to know the ins and outs

of it, whereas each individual veteran won't have faced the process before, "

Henry said. " You can get lost in it very easily because there is a great

deal of proof that needs to happen. "

The clinic will work with a network of lawyers being coordinated partly by

the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism and with the

Veterans Rights Project created in July by the Legal Assistance Foundation

of Metropolitan Chicago.

Abrams, who is conducting trainings in Chicago next month for the pro bono

program, as well as for attorneys who want to work for a fee, also is giving

courses this month at the University of Virginia Law School and an attorney

group in Boston.

Katten Muchin Rosenman has two of its lawyers signed up for the training in

Chicago, and they will, in turn, train other attorneys, said Jonathan Baum,

that firm's director of pro bono work.

" We are very glad to be involved in this, but we are very sad that something

like this is necessary, " said Mike Summerhill, a former Marine and one of

the Katten Muchin attorneys who will take the training.

Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice attorney Tim McClain, who joined the firm

last year after leaving his post as senior legal officer for the U.S.

Veterans Affairs Department, helped his firm build a veterans law training

program that so far has educated about 70 attorneys, including some from

other firms, and 35 law students in Raleigh, N.C., and Washington, D.C. A

third session is planned for this month.

Each of the classes was followed by a session during which veterans were

invited to meet with the lawyers and students about cases. There's a

particular need in the North Carolina area, where the firm was founded,

because of the many military bases there, said Craig Cannon, a senior

associate in the firm's Winston-Salem, N.C., office.

" We hope other firms will try to replicate this throughout the country

because it really helps veterans a lot, " Cannon said.

Ultimately, the Pro Bono Institute program will also seek to address

systemic problems through legislation or litigation if necessary, Lardent

said.

Morrison & Foerster's Erspamer is already helping veterans take the more

drastic step.

In July, Erspamer represented two veterans' organizations in their lawsuits

against the Veterans Affairs Department, claiming that the department has a

600,000-claim backlog and sometimes takes more than 10 years to process a

claim. Veterans for Common Sense v. Nicholson, No. 07-3758 (N.D. Calif.).

********************

At 12:49 PM 11/14/07, you wrote:

There are many thousands of Veterans' disability claims that have been mishandled and/or intentionally sabotaged by the VA and/or military....... Guess what........ Social Security is also guilty of similar behavior...... SunToads

+++++++

The VA's (Veterans Administration) Claim Dodge

<http://www.prospect.org/site/_media/_common/spacer.gif>

Beyond the awful conditions at Walter Reed hospital, something smells fishy

in the government's handling of veterans' claims. One appalling case study

suggests what might be happening and why.

<http://www.prospect.org/site/_media/_common/spacer.gif>

Deb Derrick | November 12, 2007 | web only

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_vas_claim_dodge

<http://www.prospect.org/site/_media/_common/spacer.gif>

<http://www.prospect.org/site/_media/_common/divider_h_752.gif>

The two signature injuries of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are traumatic

brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). An estimated 26,000

U.S. veterans from these wars have had their brains traumatized from nearby

explosions. Another 45,000 have initiated post traumatic stress disorder

claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

These claims concern real disabilities that are medically hard to prove. In

each VA case, it is up to the military and the Department of Veterans'

Affairs to decide if and how much any given soldier's mental faculties have

been impaired. These are also precisely the kinds of claims that the U.S.

government has actively thwarted in the past -- and recent news and health

articles suggest that a repeat performance is underway. The Defense

Department is being accused of under-funding studies of traumatic brain

injuries. The VA and Defense Departments are refusing to make their brain

injury data public. Current PTSD claimants are finding their medical and

service records missing, lost, or subject to challenge. A class action

lawsuit was recently initiated on behalf of PTSD claimants.

My recent investigation on the VA claims of a Navy waste disposal ship, the

USS Calhoun County, provides a cautionary tale about what might be happening

and why.

Harvey Ray Lucas served in the late 1950s on the USS Calhoun County, a

low-ranking Navy ship whose primary mission was to dump atomic and other

military waste into the Atlantic Ocean. Lucas spent four years heaving

radioactive materials over the side of the ship. After leaving the military,

he suffered from chronic health problems and sired five children with birth

defects. Lucas's testimony made my jaw drop. He described one baby whose

skin oozed " bloodwater. " He described the birth and death of another whom

physicians termed an " anencephalic female monster. " A couple years after his

testimony, Lucas died of a rare cancer associated with radiation exposure.

I came across Lucas's story in 1998, when I worked in a U.S. Congressional

office and read the transcript of his Board of Veterans Appeals hearing.

Lucas's widow, Barbara, and my boss, Congressman David Skaggs (D-Colo.),

both felt that Harvey Lucas and his family's illnesses stemmed from

radiation exposure in the Navy. But Barbara Lucas had been pursuing a

compensation claim with the VA for 18 years without success. The VA always

seemed to need more or different evidence. When our office dug up a key

final document and Barbara prevailed, I decided to write a book about the

USS Calhoun County and her VA claim.

Deck logs and interviews with the ship's sailors, officers, and scientists

suggested that the USS Calhoun County had carried excessively radioactive

material and that the ship's decks had been contaminated. When I discovered

a number of other sailors had experienced odd health problems, I broadened

my inquiry to look at the VA cases of other USS Calhoun County veterans.

I interviewed Deane Horne, whose teeth and hair had fallen out after he left

the ship and whose eldest son was born without a femur. I interviewed

Richard Tkaczyk, who had also lost his teeth and whose first born son had

seizures and brain damage. I interviewed George Albernaz, who was half

paralyzed after suffering from an odd brain disease that his physician

called radiation necrosis. All had filed claims with the VA. None had made

any headway.

In all cases, the VA began the claims process by asserting that there was no

proof that the USS Calhoun County had even carried atomic waste -- even

though there was ample evidence of the ship's mission in public federal

archives. In all cases, the Navy forwarded personnel files to the VA that

were missing a key radiation exposure document.

The treatment of these men's claims echoed what had happened with the Lucas

claim. It was also entirely consistent with a vastly discouraging history of

the VA's handling of hard-to-prove claims, including radiation, asbestos,

Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome, and PTSD-based injuries. All such cases

were and are handled centrally out of a special office in VA headquarters.

All required Congressional or court intervention to force the VA to grant

claims.

In the case of radiation-based claims, the military was found omitting

incriminating documents from veterans' databases; veterans' documents were

destroyed in a huge and mysterious fire at a military personnel records

facility; the VA was found hiding and shredding more veterans' evidence; and

whistleblowers were subjected to death threats and workplace retaliation.

As I unearthed this information, I was drawn into providing evidence for the

claims of several USS Calhoun County veterans. In particular, I began

helping George Albernaz, who had served with Lucas on the ship between 1957

and 1958.

To verify his claim, I sent the VA data on the ship's atomic loads, noting

that my information came from deck logs in the National Archives. The VA

called my information unsubstantiated. I sent Navy documentation on them.

The Navy and the VA said that they still had no proof that Albernaz himself

had ever been exposed to radiation. I sent information from the Lucas claim

that challenged such " zero dose " exposure estimates. It was deemed

irrelevant.

Looking for more evidence on Albernaz's behalf, I dug deeper in the ship's

administrative archives. I came across a memo to the ship's Commanding

Officer from 1956, indicating that the deck of the USS Calhoun County had

become radiologically contaminated. I found another from 1958 stating that

all attempts to remove the contamination had failed. But my breath failed me

when I read a final memo from 1962, stating that the Navy had never, in its

history, been able to render such a ship safe for use and recommending that

the USS Calhoun County be sunk.

If I thought that such evidence would help win the Albernaz case, however, I

was quite mistaken. Albernaz and I submitted the incriminating documents

between 2005 and 2007. Yet the VA omitted the documents from the " evidence

of record; " the Navy re-asserted that they had no proof of Albernaz's

exposure but that he'd likely only received safe doses; and the VA continued

to take the Navy at its word. As of this month, the VA was demanding a long

list of additional evidence to support Albernaz's claim -- much of which he

and I had already submitted.

The treatment of these sailors exposes a U.S. veterans' claims adjudication

system that enshrines military-produced evidence as the only " objective "

arbiter of claims, even when there is ample reason to doubt it. Evidence --

even documents from the National Archives -- produced by the likes of Harvey

Lucas and George Albernaz is viewed and treated as potentially fraudulent.

And far from making any attempt to validate or verify claims through

databases, " buddy statements, " or consolidated claims reviews, the VA

actively dismisses their compatriots' evidence as " irrelevant " to their

claims. In sum, the veterans are treated as liars, told to prove their own

cases to the government, and subject to having credible evidence dismissed

when it contradicts military assertions.

Americans are now becoming increasingly concerned with the treatment of Iraq

and Afghanistan war veterans, and they ought to be. Because unless the U.S.

revamps its veterans claims system to allow for decisions made independently

of the U.S. military, we are headed for another series of large VA scandals.

Forwarded by:

Dan Cedusky, Champaign IL " Colonel Dan "

See my web site at:

http://www.angelfire.com/il2/VeteranIssues/

Change your email address when needed by signing in at

VeteranIssues/

Forward to other veterans, tell them to Sign up at:

VeteranIssues/join

Posted by: " Colonel Dan " colonel-dan coloneldan1

Tue Nov 13, 2007 9:46 am ((PST))

++++++++++++++

Law Firms Massing to Help War Vets

Posted by: " Colonel Dan " colonel-dan coloneldan1

Tue Nov 13, 2007 11:41 am ((PST))

<http://malcontends.blogspot.com/2007/09/law-firms-rushing-to-veterans-aid.h

tml>

http://malcontends.blogspot.com/2007/09/law-firms-rushing-to-veterans-aid.ht

ml

Many links at the above URL

Good Attorney at:

http://www.lawyers.com/Michigan/Battle-Creek/Robert-P.-Walsh-3292774-f.html

Law Firms Massing to Help War Vets

A 'staggering' need for representation

Lynne Marek

<http://www.nlj.com/> The National Law Journal