Pilot Veterans!! Any truth to letters being sent out in ref VA DISABILITY

Btw, there is a difference between disclosing that an Individual is getting a disability check from ssi or Va (a bookkeeping & antifraud issue) and disclosing what that disability is for (health). The only question here is did you lie when you answered question 18y in the medical.
 
rhkennerly said:
Btw, there is a difference between disclosing that an Individual is getting a disability check from ssi or Va (a bookkeeping & antifraud issue) and disclosing what that disability is for (health). The only question here is did you lie when you answered question 18y in the medical.
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Right?!?! At the end of the day it boils down to yes or no of the HAVE YOU EVER....I personally think the FAA is going to lower the boom on the folks that falsified the document...Dr. Bruce said it early here..
 
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Llewtrah381 said:
Impacted for childbearing? Absolutely. Impacted for her military role? Much harder to argue that. In fact, at the risk of getting flamed, lost duty time for pregnancy and whatever symptoms prompted the medical justification for the procedure could suggest an overall benefit to duty time.

But to automatically give 30% regardless of military impact just made me scratch my head.
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My wife is a retired Captain, Navy Nurse Corps. This question comes up fairly often in conversation. the question is not: did this disease/condition happen while on active duty? but: did the conditions of service likely cause this injury? Including ovarian cancers & conditions leading to hysterectomies.

Military personnel are exposed to any number of hormone disrupting & endocrine disrupting chemicals, often before we know they are dangerous. Brain cancers, breast cancers, testicular cancers, ovarian cancers. The epi-genetic links that some of these chemicals trigger in gene expression are just now being understood.

Maintainers use exotic solvents, firefighters are exposed to toxic fire suppression chemicals (which we now known are "forever chemicals" polluting soil on bases around the world--and aboard ship. On a ship, every sailor is a firefighter), the fuel powering jet engine emergency APUs is often the highly toxic & gene reacting hydrozine. Jet fuel handlers & line personnel are exposed to special additives in fuels. Female Vietnam vets working in medical on base in rear areas were still exposed to the hormone-disrupting agent orange in drinking water & on the clothing of wounded. In more modern times, toxic smoke from burn pits affect the endocrine systems of everyone on base, regardless of assignment. Printshop solvents used to clean equipment is particularly toxic to women.

E2 Hawkeye pilots--men & women--,we know now, have higher lifetime rates of cancers from sitting just forward of a powerful radar (sailors working in the fuselage under the radome were more protected). Radiomen & flight line personnel participate in impromptu microwave cooking demonstrations when hoisted aloft Next to improperly secured radar antennas or walking out in front of a jet who left their radar on while taxiing.

the list is endless.

Again, the question is not: is a hysterectomy a cause for a disability claim, but did conditions of military service likely cause or hasten the condition that brought on the need for a hysterectomy? Or an orchidectomy (removed diseased testicles).
 
rhkennerly said:
Again, the question is not: is a hysterectomy a cause for a disability claim, but did conditions of military service likely cause or hasten the condition that brought on the need for a hysterectomy? Or an orchidectomy (removed diseased testicles).
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I don’t disagree. And if there’s data to support a particular disability claim, even loosely, I fully support that. But an automatic 30% disability for a hysterectomy still seems odd to me.

It should not be based just on what someone was exposed to but also on the impact of the exposure. A relevant exposure of a 22 year old woman to a chemical known to cause problems - and if she was not able to appropriately protect herself (and I’d contend the US military is one of the best organizations for occupational safety - and heavily scrutinized for that) - should be appropriately managed and, if appropriate, compensated, to include consideration of her childbearing situation. But a 45 year old with fibroids? What’s being compensated? What loss of childbearing or anything else, even if there was a chemical exposure?

IMHO the system is incredibly over-generous. It assumes anything that starts on Active Duty was actually caused by the service. That’s just not the case in many situations. Many compensated conditions are due either to lifestyle issues the Services actually try to prevent or to natural “aging” regardless of the occupation.

My dad did 4 years in the Navy during the Korean War. YEARS later he developed hearing loss which he believed was due to his time in the Navy. The VA has provided him with state-of-the-art hearing aids for at least a decade - plus pharmacy benefits(?!?). It kinda cracks me up he’s so opposed to people getting “handouts” when he’s getting them, in my opinion.

My dad’s not abusing the system. The system is set up to be generous to veterans (and I’m a veteran). But there are others worthy of similar support - and some veterans who abuse that generosity, in my opinion.
 
I mostly object to the unevenness of the process. Buddy of mine is circling the drain as I write this. He Was blue water navy in Vietnam, and retired from the service. Because the log book from his ship disappeared, he & his sick shipmates can’t document being in port in Vietnam & their ship taking on drinking water from shore. So, despite having 3 of the 5 “signal” cancers for agent orange exposure, they’ve all been denied by the Va, until just recently. (now that they are mostly dead).

As far fibroids go in your subject, there is a hormonal disruption component. The problems with a lot of chemicals is exposure can be years or decades beforehand. PFAS firefighting foam was thought safe for decades. And you really can’t do the job without skin & fume exposure to the stuff (even if it’s the aircrew firefighters are rescuing who get the biggest doses).

Camp Lejuene’s water was contaminated 1957-87 with concentrations of perc 3500 ppm greater than safe, causing thousands of cancers & deaths among the Corps, including women & children living in base housing & troops in barracks. But it’s just now being addressed.

still, I’m like you. I don’t like it when I see people grifting. Otoh, in an organization like the VA that is still working thru Vietnam era claims, backtracking to shake grifters off the hind tit is probably too expensive for the amount they’d save. And the “look” is bad in the era of an all volunteer service having trouble attracting & keeping recruits.

I do find it amusing, however, when citizens get wrapped around the axle over individuals grifting the Va system, but don’t have a clue about corporate grifting in the services.
 
All excellent points and synopsis of the state of affairs regarding carcinogenics in military life. The one that hits close for me is radar. To this day the scientific community continues to fight the notion radar is carcinogenic, under the rationalization the wavelength of RF is in the non ionizing range. Meanwhile my peers continue to experience testicular and thyroid cancers at rates and early ages that make the pushback against the carcinogenic causation rather offensive.

Airline guys are not far behind btw, especially those who like to dabble on widebody duration and altitude profiles, and WOCL graveyard flying. That stuff is radioactive, pun very much intended, especially for a 50+ year old endocrine system.

Ditto on the F-16 APU/EPU being jumpstarted by hydrazine. That stuff is nasty, cant believe they would keep using that.
 
hindsight2020 said:
All excellent points and synopsis of the state of affairs regarding carcinogenics in military life. The one that hits close for me is radar. To this day the scientific community continues to fight the notion radar is carcinogenic, under the rationalization the wavelength of RF is in the non ionizing range. Meanwhile my peers continue to experience testicular and thyroid cancers at rates and early ages that make the pushback against the carcinogenic causation rather offensive.

Airline guys are not far behind btw, especially those who like to dabble on widebody duration and altitude profiles, and WOCL graveyard flying. That stuff is radioactive, pun very much intended, especially for a 50+ year old endocrine system.

Ditto on the F-16 APU/EPU being jumpstarted by hydrazine. That stuff is nasty, cant believe they would keep using that.
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I agree.

seems like there is a natural experiment going on here, if somebody would just collect the data.

I was in the EP-3 community (in the back, not a pilot). We flew long patrols but not very high, so we were protected from stratospheric radiation, & we didn’t emit any high power radar.

People flying Lookinglass had long patrols and flew high, but didn’t emit much RF. But AWACS flew long patrols, flew high, & emitted tons of high power radar. Then throw in the commercial stuff.
b-52s flying station in the Cold War, etc.

I’m not for burning 5G towers, I know that power, wavelength, proximity, & length of exposure are key. But this is an understudied issue.
 
Velocity173 said:
Speaking of burn pits. The Pact Act just passed and finally approves presumptive claims on a slew of cancers.

Spent a year in Iraq not even a 1/4 mile away from the base burn pit. Gotta wonder what’s in store for the future because of my exposure.

https://www.va.gov/resources/the-pact-act-and-your-va-benefits/
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yeah, that uncertainty sucks. I’m glad that this generation of troops won’t have to fight for burn pit recognition the way my generation did for agent orange recognition, but i’d really prefer it had never happened. It’s one thing to catch a round from the enemy. It’s another to be poisoned by your own command. At least with agent orange, there was ignorance on the part of leadership, the science wasn’t there yet. But they can’t say that about burn pits.

I imagine the burn pit toxicity issue dominate military medicine for the next 20 yrs. I’m sorry.
 
hindsight2020 said:
Airline guys are not far behind btw, especially those who like to dabble on widebody duration and altitude profiles, and WOCL graveyard flying. That stuff is radioactive, pun very much intended, especially for a 50+ year old endocrine system.
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My dermatologist asked me last visit if I was a pilot. Told him yes but at less than 10K these days and all my high altitude flying I had been covered in Nomex, mask and helmet so likely not an issue.

We had the gold plated canopies in the Prowler to protect us from the radiation off the ALQ-99 pods but they had so many scratches them I can't imagine they were much protection. I know a guy who took a microwave leak detector flying once and turned it on with 6 transmitters radiating. He said we didn't want to know the results. Perhaps my wife and I not being able to have kids isn't coincidence. :eek:
 
I can’t remember which CVN it was, but I recall hearing stories of how several Navigators in a row had developed cancer and died after their Nav tours. Most of us have no clue what we’ve been exposed to.
 
Fearless Tower said:
I can’t remember which CVN it was, but I recall hearing stories of how several Navigators in a row had developed cancer and died after their Nav tours. Most of us have no clue what we’ve been exposed to.
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yeah, the system is designed to favor granting immediate claims while making retroactive VA claims nearly impossible. This is why, in a lot of ways, I don’t begrudge service members taking what they can get when they can get it. A lot of vets are going to have substantially shorter lives filled with illness & misery much sooner than non-vets. And those who avoided filing disability claims when they left the service frequently bankrupt their family on the way to the grave. All the while fighting the V A over service related disabilities.

Agent orange, hydrazine, burn pits, high powered radar & transmitters, all unknown hazards at the time. Throw in 9-11 responders being thrown under the bus, and “the thanks of a grateful nation” ring hollow. Thank God for Jon Stewart! At least the 911 responders & burn pit victims won’t have to fight now.
 
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Fearless Tower said:
I can’t remember which CVN it was, but I recall hearing stories of how several Navigators in a row had developed cancer and died after their Nav tours. Most of us have no clue what we’ve been exposed to.
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Anyone with a radio on the deck did. The loud buzz of the alpha scan of the SPS-48 and 49 so loud in headset that it blocked cockpit conversation and showed up on video tape back when we had VHS recorders and the nav is 20 feet from it for a lot more hours than we flew. :rolleyes:
 
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