Hello.
My name is Zack Evans and I'm a VA Disability Benefits attorney with Woods and Woods Attorneys
in Evansville, Indiana.
Today, we're going to be talking about Gulf War Syndrome claims.
This is a pretty broad topic.
There's a lot of moving parts to Gulf War claims.
What I want to do is specifically talk to those veterans who served in the Persian Gulf
Conflict, maybe in the Iraq War beginning in 2003.
There are some provisions that apply to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
If you've severed in any of these Southwest Asia theaters of operations and you came back
with a multi-symptom illness or an undiagnosed illness, and you don't have a good medical explanation for what's
going on with you, there are several theories of recovery for VA compensation benefits that
may apply to your claim.
Of course, we would need to get into your medical evidence to make specific strategic
decisions.
But, what we want to start out with is a top down introduction to this topic so that we
can sort of get our feet wet.
The reason that presumptive service connection is so important with Gulf War Syndrome claims
is because there's no nexus requirement, which means you don't have to have a doctor say
that your illness is related to your time in service.
The VA will allow you to skip that element of proof.
Now, there are some important caveats to that, but I think the policy reason behind this sort
of a distinction is it makes sense because a lot of times the veterans that are dealing
with these illnesses or these ailments don't really have a good explanation from a medical
professional as to exactly what has been going on with them since they returned home from
the military.
Just very basically here we have three requirements for presumptive service connection of Gulf
War Syndrome claims.
The first is that the veteran must qualify as a Persian Gulf War veteran.
The second is that the vet must suffer from a qualifying chronic disability and the third
is that the disability must have become manifest during active service in Southwest Asia or
to a degree of 10% since return from service.
The VA has set a stop on when that window closes.
As of right now, that's in 2021, but they keep extending it.
For the purposes of this video, as of this publication date, it's going to be since return
from service since the stop date has been placed in the future.
I think the most important thing that we can discuss right now in terms of those three
requirements is what qualifies as a chronic disability.
A qualifying chronic disability is an undiagnosed illness or a medically unexplained chronic
multi-symptom illness defined by a cluster of signs or symptoms.
Some examples of these would be chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia is a big one, we see
that unfortunately a lot with veterans who served in Desert Storm, and functional gastrointestinal
disorders.
Good example of that would be irritable bowel syndrome.
Then, the signs or symptoms that we're looking for in an undiagnosed illness or a chronic
multi-symptom illness, we've got a listing here that's straight out of the code of federal
regulations 38 CFR section 3.317.
Some examples of these things that veterans may be dealing with whenever they are enduring
Gulf War Syndrome is fatigue, skin symptoms, so thinking in terms of rashes or flushing
events of the skin if you have some sort of a strange flare-up where you develop a rash
a couple of times a month.
That's one of these signs and symptoms as outlined in the CFR.
Another one is headaches, muscle pain, joint pain, neurological signs and symptoms, respiratory
signs and symptoms, sleep disturbance, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular issues, abnormal weight loss,
and menstrual disorders.
One of the sort of strange things about these Gulf War Syndrome claims is that often our
veterans have conflicting medical evidence.
Maybe your primary care physician gave you a migraine diagnosis for your headaches or
suggested it could be migraines without giving you a hard diagnosis.
Let's say you went to see a specialist and he thought maybe there was a neurological
component to your headache problem that you're dealing with and he sent you for some MRIs
and your MRIs came back negative.
Maybe you were sent to another specialist or you sought out another one for a second
opinion.
Same result.
Nothing came back on MRIs.
Your CAT scans are clear.
There's nothing structurally going on in the skull.
Maybe an ear, nose, throat doctor determined that your sinuses are healthy.
Essentially, if you're getting a mysterious collection of "we don't know's" from doctors
and you are a Gulf War veteran, you are uniquely positioned for a presumptive service connection.
Because doctors can't exactly describe what causes the onset of these ailments, the VA
is willing to wave your nexus requirement.
From a functional, I guess, practical consideration, what we often see in VA examinations for Gulf
War Syndrome is an attempt for examiners to shoehorn these conditions into a not very
well-founded diagnosis and there is a legal reason why they do this is because if it is
due to a superseding or an intervening condition, if they can put a stamp on it and give you
a diagnosis right here, right now, then that removes the presumption and you then must
seek the nexus requirement.
They're able to effectively raise your standard of proof, if they give you an ill-conceived
medical report.
Unfortunately, we see some claims that feature examinations that are just of that type.
We need to get into the medical evidence to determine what have you been told by doctors
for the past 20 or 30 years versus what is the VA saying now after 20 or 30 minutes.
If you have any questions about your Gulf War Syndrome claims or about your examinations
that were provided to you during the pendency of your Gulf War Syndrome claims, please give
us a call or go online at Woods Lawyers.
We'd love to help.
Thank you.