MORE COUNTRY WATER

Here’s another one of those Nashville Cats via the Jackson, Mississippi RO-JACKRO if you will. Even with an attorney repping him. this Vet still manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. He has everything he needs and then starts adding to it after the denial. Jetguns are a risk. We all know that and vA is adamantly deaf on the subject. As I always counsel, file all of your claim risks at the same time for a claim. There are rare reasons where you might not, but this case isn’t one of them. Mr. Nashville has medical worker risk, sexually transmitted diseases in service and nary a nexus on this.

He does have an ARNP sister who claims he looked jaundiced when he came home from service and probably had HCV. Layno v. Brown allows her to say medically that he had some of the symptoms associated w/ HAV, HBV and HCV. Period. She has no lab tests for AST/ALT to prove it so its just her opinion. We have a Vet reporting history of “viral hep ” in service with no SMRs corroborating it. His wife has HCV and vA chooses to blame her.

What are we missing? How long has he been married to his current, HCV-positive spouse? By proven CT-guided Liver Biopsy, what is the stage and grade of the disease progression? This determines the age of the infection to within 5-8 years, so who sent out for the test? The lawyer, the vA or the Veteran? What’s that? Nobody did?

vA chooses to accept rank speculation from a VHA “expert” yet a simple test will remove all doubt? What if the spouse has only been around for 10 years and the infection, by biopsy, reflects a long-standing 35 year old Stage 3, Grade 3?

Beware this ploy with vA. Asking for a biopsy from vA is doable- or was when they answered your calls back before the recession started. Getting one is almost a prerequisite for this situation. Without it, a good MRI will suffice, but a core biopsy is the gold standard. When faced with these circumstances, it can mean the difference between winning and losing.

One last note, there is not much talk of the degree of disability the Vet currently exhibits. Were he ill over a long term, we would hear of some medical records  supporting his contentions. Where is the discussion of his MOS? The whole decision comes down to one contention that his wife is the culprit. Oddly, science and VHA experts most often discount this vector of infection when denying these claims based on it being statistically insignificant. The CDC vehemently disputes that theory pointing to the high co-infection rate with HIV. Everything in this decision points to a “deny and make up any story you think fits”. The BVA buys it hook, line and sinker and VLJ Michelle L. Kane (no relation to Erica) puts her imprimatur on it. The testimony of the Veteran’s sister, a trained medical nurse, is quickly eviscerated to destroy any credibility. No, the smart money says the fix was in on this one. Not all of them are, but this was. It’s ripe for a CAVC remand if he appealed it.

http://www.va.gov/vetapp/wraper_bva.asp?file=/vetapp11/Files2/1118107.txt