Imagine arriving at the RO with all the goodies. Disease? Check. Disease in service? Check. Nexus? Got them (2). Good to go, right? Caluza Triangle-Hickson Elements- everything’s copacetic. Back the boat back up to the dock and refuel it, Gilligan. We’re taking the SS Minnow to D.C.  VA Speculator

The only other medical opinion on this question was that of the November 2007 VA examiner. She reviewed the claims file, noted        in-service hepatitis A and B diagnoses, and concluded that she could not “make a determination without mere speculation” as to the current hepatitis C was caused by service. She noted that there were no positive markers for non-A, non-B viral hepatitis infection, that the Veteran had separate infection of hepatitis A and hepatitis B, and that hepatitis A is a self limiting viral infection and does not lead to hepatitis B. The examiner concluded that, although the risk factors for hepatitis B and C are similar, hepatitis B does not convert into hepatitis C. 

You have to admit that is the worst case of logic ever conceived and pawned off on a judge.  It’s somewhat like a 3 card Monte game and the huckster is poor at handling the cards.VLJ Shwartz wasn’t buying it:

The November 2007 VA examiner’s statement that
hepatitis B does not convert to hepatitis C is beside the point, as there is no argument that such a “conversion” occurred, but, rather, that the hepatitis B diagnosis was in fact an erroneous diagnosis of what was actually hepatitis C. Moreover, in Jones v. Shinseki, 23 Vet. App. 382 (2009), the Court held that, before the Board can rely on an examiner’s conclusion that an etiology opinion would be speculative, the examiner must explain the basis for such an opinion or the basis must otherwise be apparent in the Board’s review of the evidence. Id. at 390. It must also be clear that the physician has considered “all procurable and assembled data.” Id (citing Daves v. Nicholson, 21 Vet. App. 46 (2006)). Finally, the physician must clearly identify precisely what facts cannot be determined. Id. the November 2007 VA examiner’s conclusion does not appear to meet these criteria, as she did not indicate that she had considered the evidence  regarding jet gun injections or the possibility that the hepatitis B diagnosis was an erroneous diagnosis of what was actually hepatitis C. In regard to the comment that there were no markers, we are unable to determine whether there were markers that were negative for non-A non-B or that there was an absence of testing for markers.

I am not a conspiracy freak. I never have been nor will I ever become one. There is a rational explanation for everything in the world except the voices I hear in my head occasionally. Excluding them, I see a pattern of collusion where “VA examiners” tend to deny based on very faulty logic. This is just one of a long line of them. The doctor presenting this sequence of rationale cannot even hold a coherent thought process together for one complete paragraph. Where, exactly, would HBV ever morph into HCV and just who put forth the proposition that it had?

This is just about the most humorous nexus opinion ever put forth by the VA. It should be immortalized in one of those General Hospital soaps.