Released 5/11/20 | Tags: Agent Orange, Veteran's Benefits
The National Veterans Legal Service Program (NVLSP) and Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School (VLSC) provide this white paper and detailed appendix for veterans who served in Guam from 1962 to 1975 to submit to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as evidence in support of their service-connected disability claims for Agent Orange-related diseases. The appendix provides selections from relevant sources to support the conclusions of the white paper.
NVLSP partnered with VLSC to determine whether the available evidence of herbicide usage in Guam from 1962 to 1975 satisfies the VA standard for service-connected injuries based on exposure to Agent Orange and other dioxin-containing herbicide agents. After a nearly two-year review of government, private, archival, and oral history accounts, including a site visit to Guam, NVLSP and VLSC concluded that existing evidence does establish that it is, at the very least, “as likely as not” that veterans who served in Guam from 1962 to 1975 were exposed to Agent Orange and other dioxin-containing herbicides. Accordingly, the VA should grant presumptive service-connected compensation to these veterans for any diseases that the Secretary has associated with exposure based on findings from the Health and Medicine Division of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
