Who’s dumber? The Vet who eats rat poison for almost a year and goes blind or the VAMC who should have cut him off after six months? Regardless, the damage is done. It reads a lot like my problems list. Add Cryoglobulinemia and it would be a perfect match. The major difference is that it only took one shot to put me in the hospital.

Vets would be wise to read this decision. First of all, it shows the inability of the BVA to keep track of its own judicial endeavours. Our Okie Vet is up at the Court getting a Joint Remand and a Mandate while they are busy fashioning a noose down the street at 810 Vermin Ave. NW. They not only forgot to include new evidence he submitted in his 2010 appeal, but decided to re-deny him yet again while he’s in the middle of the appeal to the CAVC. How asinine is that? Re-deny is not a legal term but I find myself grasping to employ another term to describe it. When vA goes off the legal reservation, you have to be flexible in how you word it. Just because it’s rarelybeen done doesn’t mean there’s no way to verbalize it.

Legal decisions have a natural ebb and flow (or should). When appealed, everyone is notified. The Record On Appeal (ROA) must be assembled and shipped out in sixty days to the attorney of record. The BVA is apprised of this and everyone is on the same page. Or not. How this became such a clusterclaim is remarkable. Two courts deciding the same claim and issuing orders is unheard of. For that reason I choose to publish it.

Of more interest was the sleuthing of the Vet who uncovered evidence that his doctor had some criminal judicial issues with the State courts in Oklahoma. What they entailed is not discussed but it illuminates the proclivity of the VA to hire anyone with a medical degree regardless of how checkered.

The state criminal court docket report that the Veteran submitted to possibly show that his VA treating physician may have a criminal record has no bearing on his claim, and does not tend to show that the claimed side effects of Interferon treatment were the result of carelessness, negligence, lack of proper skill, error in judgment, or similar instance of fault by VA medical personnel or that they were due to an event not reasonably foreseeable in furnishing the Veteran’s medical treatment. Thus, it is not material to the Veteran’s claim. Similarly, the March 2010 private medical treatment letter which reflects the results of an eye examination does not suggest that the claimed side effects of Interferon treatment were the result of carelessness, negligence, lack of proper skill, error in judgment, or similar instance of fault by VA medical personnel or that they were due to an event not reasonably foreseeable in furnishing the Veteran’s medical treatment and is therefore not material to the Veteran’s claim.

Nosiree, Bob. No flies on us or our doctors. Just because Dr. Haboob killed a couple of patients by forgetting to check in on them has nothing to do with the instant case. We think he’s suuuuuuuuper. We told you that your vision might get slippery and the Rheumatoid Arthritis? Same thing. Interferon is a horrible drug but we warned you ahead of time. Eyes wide open was the operable phrase. Hindsight is 20-20 (sorry, no pun intended) and everyone was on the same page here.

I see this one heading up to the Big House again and not just because they retained mandate on it. This one will need special handling to see who stepped on their necktie. That way the proper person can be congratulated and promoted for his/her inefficiency.