Approval of ischemic heart disease expected to clog VA's already backlogged disability benefits system.

by Larry Scott, VA Watchdog dot Org

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Yesterday we presented an article from The New York Times about the VA adding three new presumptive diseases to the Agent Orange exposure roster.  That article is here ...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/09/nf09/nf
oct09/nf101309-5.htm

Now, the VA has confirmed this and issued an explanatory press release.

The diseases are:  Parkinson's disease, hairy-cell leukemia and ischemic heart disease. 

The addition of ischemic heart disease caught many, including myself, by surprise as it opens the door to what could be a tidal wave of claims.

Veterans' Advocate Jim Strickland has similar thoughts and offers the following:

At first glance I couldn't believe that James Dao of The New York Times had made such a mistake. And I told him so. There wasn't enough evidence for Secretary Shinseki to declare Ischemic Heart Disease as a presumptive condition to Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam veterans for one thing. The medical definitions and causes of ischemic heart disease also make it impossible to single out ischemic heat disease and ignore carotid artery disease or claudication.

Ischemic heart disease is caused by conditions that affect the arteries supplying blood to the heart. Most often that condition is referred to as atherosclerosis, sometimes known as hardening of the arteries. If those arteries in the heart are diseased, so too are the arteries in the rest of the body. In other words, you don't have heart disease, you have artery disease. Even if the arteries in your heart are affected first, you're likely to have a sort of total body disease of all the major arteries.

Obstructive Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) is the most common cause of ischemic heart disease. Coronary Artery Disease is caused by atherosclerosis, more commonly known as "hardening of the arteries". Atherosclerosis is a progressive disease that affects all the arteries in the body. Due to known risk factors like hypertension (high blood pressure), smoking, high cholesterol, family history, male gender and obesity, CAD is the leading cause of death in America.

CAD (or ischemic heart disease) isn't a single disease that's easy to define and separate from other closely related issues. A patient with CAD often has similar disease processes in the nearby carotid arteries. The carotids are the vessels in the neck that take fresh blood to the brain. When those vessels are obstructed by atherosclerosis, a stroke may occur. The similarity is such that strokes are sometimes called "brain attacks", similar in nature to heart attacks.

Ischemic heart disease can lead to arrhythmias...those unsynchronized heart beats that may require powerful medicines or even a pacemaker to treat. In some very deadly arrhythmias an Automatic Implantable Cardiac Defibrillator (AICD) can be required to prevent sudden death syndrome.

Now that Secretary Shinseki has approved that "ischemic heart disease" is a presumptive condition for the Vietnam veteran, the mind boggles with the associated conditions that must also apply.

If you are a Vietnam veteran and have angina, shortness of breath, any arrhythmia, any vascular disease (heart, renal, carotid, leg, ED), or any other condition that might be associated with ischemic heart disease, you should begin to file and set your effective date.

If you've ever been denied a benefit for heart disease of any sort, you should begin to file and protest the earlier denial.

The kinks will be ironed out as we see what this brings to us. My bet is that there are easily tens of thousands of veterans who will be eligible for the ischemic heart disease benefit and that many more who will see associated benefits come their way.

If you thought VA was behind in processing claims before...wait a few months, you ain't seen nothing yet.

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The Institute of Medicine (IOM) report which brought about these changes can be found here ...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/09/nf09/nfjul09/nf072609-2.htm

Use our search engine for more about Agent Orange ... click here ...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearch.
php?q=agent+orange&op=ph

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TOPICS: veterans, veterans' benefits, VA, Department of Veterans' Affairs, Agent Orange, presumptive