THE HOLY GRAIL OF JETGUNS–A WORD-SEARCHABLE MANUAL

Posted on May 8, 2015 by asknod

sylvia PriceEverything you ever wanted to know about jetguns. How to use them. How to repair them. How to put your foot in the box and pump the foot pedal with blood on the bottom of your shoe. Nurse Sylvia Price sent me the jetgun manual today that will revolutionize our Hep C claims. The manual is now .pdf word searchable. In the “find” window at the top in the center, simply enter the word you are looking for, click on the little arrow to the right and choose “find in next .pdf”. Bingo. Keep on  clicking to see each one. 

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Thousands of pictures of jetguns being used on recruits and not  one showing the arm of the recipient being firmly grasped whilst being shot. Remember, legally according to Layno v. Brown (1994), a Veteran is competent to testify about that which comes to him or her via their fives senses. You can testify as to whether the jetgun was immediately taken out of action and sent to the autoclave for sterilization when the recruit two ahead of you jerked violently and started bleeding profusely. If they wiped it off and kept on shooting as we know they did, then the next few recruits were tagged with the blood of the bleeding soldier. I went through that with one in each arm on two different occasions for a total of four jetguns shots. I do not recall anyone in front of me bleeding. That cannot be said for most of us.

darlingshot1aaaaThis manual is useful for all you NOVA lawyers to access to rebut the presumption of regularity of medical practices that the high standards of sanitary inoculations were not followed. Hell, the usage of the gun in thousands of “yearbooks” shows jetguns being used one-handed or at an angle oblique to the skin rather than a perfect 90 degree angle in both vertical and horizontal planes  as demonstrated in the manual.

Jetgun Manual Word Searchable

The manual is damning evidence and worth its weight in gold. Please thank Sylvia every time a Veteran wins with this. The cost was in thousands of Veterans’ lives who lost their claims and have since succumbed to the disease. I have observed Nurse Price over the years and her zeal for this is unparalleled. At one point she was shopping Craigslist for every military “yearbook” showing recruits in Basic getting their baptism by jetgun. She is now the only private owner of one I know. My kind of Nurse. Sylvia and I go back to 2008 and the old Delphi Forums HCVETS page.  I think I kinda helped her get her DIC. My brain fog was a mite thick from that era so I may be wrong.

Capture 22The important thing to keep in mind is the evidentiary value of this document in a court of law. It sets the metric for what is sanitary and acceptable. No ifs, ands or buts. If protocol is violated, there is no “wipe it off and shoot a couple of blanks to clear the nostril”. Once the blood is on and/or in it, the gun is toast until  properly autoclaved. Since blood was one of the prime memories of most of us who ran the line remember, if the pecker checkers kept using it, then they were doing so illegally and violating sanitary protocol.  Considering most of the guys pulling the trigger were FNG E-2s right out of Pecker checker school, you have a recipe for an unsanitary disaster at six hundred victims per hour and maybe faster according to the manual. Think about that. “One operator, without special training…”

And if all the blood spilled occurred in the vicinity of the gun operator, the higher the probability that he/she stepped in in it and transferred it into the carrying case via the sole of his/her shoe on the pedal. The gun physically comes in contact with the pedal when the case is shut. Sounds about as intelligent as DOW Chemical  developing an herbicide that killed both friend and foe alike. Here’s one doctor’s opinion of all this . In fact, he thinks if you got tagged with one of these you ought to be tested for… duh… HCV. Go figure. 10% of Vets have it versus 1.6% of the general population. 63% more if you are a Vietnam-era Veteran. Who would have thunk it. Certainly not VA.

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Posted in Jetgun Claims evidence, Jetgun Manual, Tips and Tricks, VA Medical Mysteries Explained, Vietnam Disease Issues | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

5/7/1975–THE NIGHT THEY DROVE OLD DIXIE DOWN

Posted on May 6, 2015 by asknod

saigon-and-wwz.jpg 1One day of the year, one seminal moment of introspection. My plaint that day was ” WTF? We were winning when I left”. What could have happened? Greed, bribery, buying a officer’s commission for your son, the list is endless. The outcome was just as inevitable.

I look back in retrospect 45 years later and see a far different perspective than what I subscribed to in 1970. To put this in focus, our forefathers weren’t exactly enchanted to see Hessians landing in Trenton New Jersey in 1777. Hired guns and mercenaries never elicit much sympathy in a downtrodden population. How difficult then was it for the NVA and their VC following not to perceive us as just more of the same speaking English instead of Japanese or French?

May 7th, 1975  will always be the Band of Brothers Day for my Veterans and me. There can be no more definitive date in spite of the spectacle of the Marines’ ignomious striking of the colors just hours ahead of the T-54’s coming down Le Duan Street on 30 April.  Perhaps that is what make it akin to Dunkirk, to Waterloo, to Bataan and Corregidor or a host of other military mishaps. The sheer rapidity of the fall, the pandemonium and ensuing fog of war rapidly replaced in short order by a new government-one very vindictive and hell bent on evening the score.

I’ve only been in one war and it’s unfortunate it had to be the one we took a Bronze in instead of the Gold. It  is often said no one will remember who came in third at the Olympics in a few decades. How sad that metric doesn’t attach to Vietnam. We 2.9 million souls, now diminished to barely 850,000, will carry the onus of that loss to our graves. For lack of a shoe the horse was lost. Losers don’t get yellow ribbons around the tree.

Blaming poor generals and defective political leadership is all well and fine for post-Vietnam armchair quarterbacks who were never there. The one burning thought that May 7th, 1975 drives home for many of us was how pointless it all was. Either an ideal or belief was worth defending…or it wasn’t. You can sanction the loss of 58,220 of my brothers and a few sisters for either a just cause or that it was the “right thing to do”. Or, you can write it off to a geopolitical brain fart that backfired and smartly move on to the next one.

downloadWe now engage in a booming, robust $26 billion a year in trade with the DRV. Miz Fonda is undoubtedly still on Ho Chi Minh’s relative’s Christmas card list. The name Saigon has been “disappeared” Soviet style-airbrushed over. The reunification is as complete as it was inevitable. I just have a damn hard time getting over the 58,220 we pissed away only to cut and run. Worse, I can see a slow, similar accrual of deaths-a mere trickle now but nevertheless a small river- still emanating from Afghanistan and Iraq.

I remember late nights and talking with my friends about life and death. No one wanted the dubious honor of being the last one to come out in a box. When your time was short, you were pulled from point and sent back to the rear to count socks. You were taken off flight status and put in intelligence reading maps. For some, even that was no panacea. An errant B-40 could rearrange fate in a millisecond. If you were dumb like me, the testosterone kicked in and you signed up for a second tour.

imagesI raise a cup to cheer those who made it back and those who didn’t. To the ones who successfully zigged instead of zagged and dodged the golden BB, I salute your prescience. To those who should have been flying 300 feet higher and 8 knots faster but weren’t, I salute your sacrifice but question the need for it.

We are falling faster than any other cohort of combat Veterans before us who served in WW2 and Korea. Whether it be to the insidious diseases or Agents Orange, Blue and Pink or contaminated inoculations with jetguns, the toll the “conflict” took is stupendous considering what was not attained.

If you made it back, you probably find yourself reading your medical charts these days like the Wall Street Journal looking for some guidance, some hint, some harbinger of impending sickness. Hell, I know I do. I get laryngitis reciting them all to the nurse every time I visit the doctor. Well, at least the ones I actually know about.

Thank you, each and every one of you who fought with me in that war. Thank you for putting Tay Ninh ahead of Toronto.  Thank you for being selfless and putting America above a cool car and Dick’s Drive-in. May 7th, 1975. Another day that will live in infamy. Funny how them sevens come up a lot on the dice.

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P.S. As would be expected on May 7th, a chopper flew over about 1400.

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Posted in Food for the soul, From the footlocker, Milestones, Vietnam War history | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

FOOT LOCKER 2009–FISHER HOUSE IN SEATTLE

Posted on May 5, 2015 by asknod

downloadCupcake was cleaning out her pictures from whichever device held them and ran across these photos. VA personnel (or Fisher House hierarchy) allowed her to stay over far past the normal one-week Squatter Rights at most of the 64 Fisher houses in general. Maybe they just do that when they attempt to murder a Vet and fail. This was home away from home -the Cupcake Command Post- during my 57-day  staycation in ICU clinging to life. No one asked her to move on.  The fact is, she would have brought a tent and a sleeping bag in and camped out in the hallway anyway.

We had friends (Deb and Raypaul )move from  Salt Lick City back here to help take care of LZ Graham. Deb even did the class with Cupcake for administering antibiotic/ saline IVs into my 5-barrel PICC line when I occasionally escaped their clutches in summer 2009. Too many  abdominal cavity infections put me back in again each time until almost Christmas.

0319001642aOddly, being the patient, I was destined to never see the inside. Cupcake did intimate that the kitchens and bedrooms were the high-price spread. Pictures solved the problem but I never saw them until three or four days ago.

Allow me to show you just how much the Fisher family loves America’s Veterans. This one is in Seattle but I am told they have 64 currently and there are always more in the chute for building. If I had to choose one charity and forswear all others for life, I would gladly pick Fisher House as the penultimate one. It’s hard to argue with their technique and the more than over 90% of financial ordnance that regularly hits it’s intended victims- us Veterans and our spouses. That’s right. I find it awesome that the guy running gets paid a million a year to do it-which he promptly hands back to Fisher as another donation. Obviously, the Fishers are not starving to death and this endeavor is genuine.

I do not wish to denigrate other charities as all help is certainly welcomed. Veterans, and especially their spouses, of all stripes and all wars often need more attention and more assets due to their peculiar habit of getting hurt.

First, the rest of the entry

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The kitchen

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These are Subzero refers. I know. It looks like a bunch of stalls in a men’s room.

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The stairway and banisters

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The Cupcake boudoir

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All in all, a top drawer outfit. No corners were cut building these things.

Posted in All about Veterans, Food for the soul, From the footlocker, VA Health Care | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

THE FASTEST GUN IN THE WEST–THE JETGUN

Posted on May 3, 2015 by asknod

sylvia PriceAs many know, our famous nurse Sylvia Price has scored the ultimate eBay item. Yeppers. HCVets has it’s own jetgun now and all those skanky manuals that went with it. The revelations that are going to come out now will seriously compromise years of VA intransigence and insistence that these inoculation devices were clean and pure as the driven snow. 

Here’s a sampling of the new and material evidence that will be available soon to all Vets and their attorneys to rebut the insidious lies and the attempted rebuttal in the 2004 FAST Letter that opened the can of worms we still have today. As soon as Sylvia can fetch me a manual for reproduction, we’ll try to get it up in a word-searchable .pdf here if possible.

This is going to bust decades of VA HCV jurisprudence and reveal it for what it was-junk science to avoid paying Veterans their due for unsanitary inoculation practices.

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eBay find

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Das Gun

 

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“How-to” on sanitary protocols

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Documents we were never supposed to see.

 

 

 

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Foot-operated model. Pedal is inside the carrying case. If you stepped in dog poo and used the foot pedal, you in essence contaminated the carrying case including the jetgun. Brilliant. Now think of stepping in blood on the floor from some nervous recruit who flinched, and you have the perfect path to introduce HCV inside the case (and on the gun).

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Unsterility at it’s worst.

 

 

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replacement nozzles in case of sterility failure (blood)

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Repair parts for jetgun

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Extra nostril for gun in repair parts box.

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Sanitary parts repair tool.

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Slow death at 1400 psi

 

Posted in From the footlocker, HCV Health, HCV Risks (documented), Jetgun Claims evidence, Medical News, research, Tips and Tricks, VA Medical Mysteries Explained | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

ILP–THE GREAT BIG TRAVEL BOARD HEARING

Posted on April 30, 2015 by asknod

searo346Veterans Press-dateline April 29, 2015–Seattle VARO 346. Wowser. As I mentioned several weeks ago, VA opted to take me seriously and get me in to see a Travel Board Judge (VLJ) from the BVA at my earliest convenience. Since we know the VA does nothing for the personal convenience of Veterans, it appears this was a way to appease the big boys at the OGC that chewed their (Seattle’s) ass over their untimely delay of my 21 year claim. 

LawBob Squarepants flew in as expected and we set up the TUOC across the street in the Hotel Alexis coffee shop that morning to go over the order of battle. The assigned VLJ, Vito Clemente, I believe, is a Veteran-possibly of the immediate post-Vietnam era. Nevertheless, he’s the first one I have met that didn’t give me the piercing goldbrick stare. Face it. Veterans seeking compensation will always be viewed as charter members of the Safeway Slip on the Floor Club by VA personnel. We are considered trailer trash to put it mildly. Thus it was refreshing to be greeted by a Judge (Call me Vito) with no preconceived notions of my motives.

Judge Clemente first asked if he had the authority to grant me a greenhouse and asked where the authority emanated from. Obviously, this was all new to him. Once apprised of the legality of 38 USC §3120 and the ILP family of regulations, he replied with the greatest effervescence and said “Awesome. I’ve never awarded Vets anything but ratings. This will be interesting to say the least”. Boy howdy did we give him an education on ILP-or the extreme lack of it these days.

LawBob touched on the skin disease and cryoglobulinemia to make sure he understood the concept of photosensitivety and vasculitis (extreme pain associated with exposure of extremities to temperatures below 40 degrees). This was important on two fronts. It was important to prove a) I have both diseases and b)how they drive my need for protection from the elements outdoors (the greenhouse).

VA Visitor BadgeNext, we tackled the thorny issue of why VA seems unable to just cut the Gordian knot and grant a 100% rating for the porphyria. Never, in all the time of studying diseases and ratings, have I seen VA so recalcitrant about handing out what most would consider the proper analogous rating based on the predominant features of the disease. Following the C&P diagnosing total disability, they issued a paltry 10%. This didn’t shock me as I know VA tries to low ball. After a NOD requesting a DRO review, they clawed back the 10% (pyramiding) and gave me 40% for the phlebotomies. After the four-year CUE battle, they returned the 10% for skin and upped the porphyria to 60% following submission of the Writ.

Judge Clemente looked me in the eye and asked me what I thought was the most applicable code to apply for the Porphyria and why. I immediately made the analogy to blood cleansing ( §4.115a dialysis) and plebotomies. I was able to insert the American Red Cross’ admonition that donating blood may only be done every 57 days versus my monthly phlebotomies of the identical amount (800 ml=one pint). I also confessed that a 100% rating under the old DC 7700 anemia rating was also equally for application at 100% in spite of VA’s vain attempt to characterize phlebotomies as “acute events”. Veterans really have no idea how far VA will go in their attempts to characterize your illnesses/injuries as far more minor and insignificant than they really are. Hell, all you have to do is look at their initial 10% award for totally disabled to verify that.

Judge Vito summarized his hearing with a brief synopsis of what we’d covered, and then uttered the magic phrase to Bob. “I’m gonna approve your AOD request. It’s only fair here.” AOD, to all of you Vets and budding NOVA kids is Advancement on the Docket- as in 38 CFR §20.900 (c). This is the penultimate cherry on top and guarantees the decision will be promulgated within the next two months or so.

In sum, I refuse to count my chickens in their embryo form. It was my unpleasant experience to have VLJ Mark Hindin smile and tell me how speshull I was. Less than a month later, he refused my request for advancement (AOD) and then went on to deny using the same VARO logic to the point of plagiarizing the denial language. This proves my point about BVA staff attorneys top -sheeting claims and not bothering to investigate the contentions put forth by the appellant.

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Box #1-c-file (six files from 1989-2007)

I do wish to apologize for a misconception I have been aiding and abetting over the last year. Contrary to mys assertions, my VA c-file, which is still in it’s original brown file folders, is  not eleven folders thick. I lied. We ascertained it was only ten folders yesterday morning but the tenth file is almost full. It will be eleven by the time we have the hearing deposition typed up and the new decision from Judge Clemente. We also stuffed a bunch of new evidence into it in support of my greenhouse.

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Box #2 of c-file sans the VR&E files… check out the industrial strength cart

What was strangely absent was what I had specifically asked for and signed a request for on April 17th. I/we need a copy of my VR&E file and we were assured one would be copied and provided either before the hearing (mailed) or provided an hour or so beforehand to facilitate review and our argument/presentation at the hearing. Toward that end, we arrived early. VA’s travel Board coordinator, Ms. Tammy Skrinski, arrived empty-handed claiming she had disremembered to copy it and promised it in short order as the c-file cart containing my 80 pound file was in the hearing room. She pranced in and rescued it only to find there were no VR&E records within.  Ruh-oh Rorge. This prompted a VARO-wide search for them that turned up nothing. Someone ran across the street to the scanning vendor in charge of copying these things,  but alas-t’was not there. As most  know, it’s against the law in 56 states (and the AMC) to separate the contents of c-files.

2015-04-29 11.54.16My guess when we got to the elevator to go down after the hearing was that the VR&E files were very, very near and busy being revamped/shredded or in the process of being lost. A c-file travels like an army- together as one. Considering the VR&E offices are on the same 13th Floor where the hearing was held, the “misplaced” files would still legally be in the general vicinity of the rest of my c-file. Ms. Skrinski assures me that I’ll have them “soon” because her coach said I would. We have 60 days to submit additional evidence from the hearing. Remember, VR&E’s head honcho refused to issue a SSOC  (or SSSOC) rebutting the latest new and material evidence last May. That, too, is against the law across the VA’s fruited RO plain. Fortunately, Judge Clemente agreed to accept the new/old package of new and material evidence and forego a remand for a de novo denial in the first instance. I got the impression he wasn’t too enchanted with Seattle’s finest if they couldn’t even find a VR&E folder in a pile ten-high. By now, I expect I have my very own file cabinet so it’s not likely they stuck it in Alan Grant’s file. I  strongly expect he’s after me alphabetically because I have some of his in mine.

Stay tuned for the remains of the CAVC Writ and it’s gradual fallout.  For the moment, I remain at 180% disabled. Should Judge Clemente grant the extra 100% schedular and 30% for my skin, I’ll be officially 100%+100%+40% +30%+10%- or 270%. All I wanted was 20% remuneration for porphyria and 10% for my ears in 1994. I had no idea I had HCV back then. I suppose this is a classic example of get ‘er done early instead of waiting for the house to fall down in an earthquake.

SSOC rebuttal for greenhouse

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100% for PCT and a greenhouse-pronto.

Posted in BvA Decisions, BvA HCV decisions, Extraordinary Writs of Mandamus, Independent Living Program, Porphyria Cutanea Tarda, Tips and Tricks, VA Medical Mysteries Explained, VA security Breaches, vARO Decisions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

LZ CORK–BUTCH GETS HIS TEETH

Posted on April 30, 2015 by asknod

2015-02-14 14.19.39On behalf of myself and all you folks out there who made it possible with your generosity, I got Butch his new teeth (upper plate) that the Hospital threw away last November. Seems they didn’t think he needed them any more in ICU because he was starting to do the chicken. Considering what he survived at LZ Cork in 1969, I think the chowderheads at the hospital underestimated what it takes to snuff an 11 Bravo with a CIB.

I would also like to thank Jerri and Joey Berlanga of Parkland Dentures for bending over backwards to get Butch in so soon and manufacture them in a hurry. Four visits later and Butch is now armed and dangerous. I hear a Frag Order for Applebee’s is now in motion and will report the BDA back when I hear it. Butch intimated his parachute is packed and he’s back on flight status.

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Thanks again to the generosity of all you who contributed to make this happen. This is why Veterans are my favorite people. They are not selfish and often concern themselves about other Veterans to their own detriment. We are a very small club-we six percenters- and you cannot come back late in life and decide to join.

Posted in Inspirational Veterans, KP Veterans, Vietnam War history | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

BVA–COMBAT ENHANCEMENT UNDER 1154(b)?

Posted on April 26, 2015 by asknod

635646931319099161-veterans-administration-logoSomebody contact the DAV in New York, New York pronto. This combat Vet got screwed and he has about a month or more to saddle up for the NOA at the CAVC . In this day and age, one would think VSOs have accumulated some knowledge on what is located in 38 CFR and 38 USC. Sadly, that isn’t the case here.

http://www.index.va.gov/search/va/view.jsp?FV=http://www.va.gov/vetapp15/Files1/1505964.txt

 

 

Everyone in the legal arena is acquainted with the legal concept that anything that falls from your lips regarding your combat experiences is golden truth-untarnished by your financial desire for backsheesh. Our 11 Bravo Vet cum Medic in a pinch is denied all of this- notwithstanding a GSW in the thigh. What does it take to get traction at the VA? Granted, he may have sampled Peru’s finest, but the investigation cannot stop there. It doesn’t eviscerate his combat enhancement under 38 USC § 1154(b). It merely adds another risk factor to the equation.

Having been in combat, I’m fairly familiar with the concept of blood everywhere-some mine and often some of others. To deny this Son of War his due on only one facet and ignore the truly salient risk requires ignoring his valor and that Purple Nurple hanging somewhere in his house.

Regarding the Veteran’s assertions that he was exposed to others’ blood while working as a medic, the examiner noted that there is no evidence that the Veteran reported open wounds while treating other veterans, nor is there evidence that the Veteran presented with any symptoms of Hepatitis C (specifically jaundice) prior to his discharge in 1969. The examiner also noted that the Veteran reported abusing cocaine and that hepatitis C can be transmitted through the nose of cocaine users. The Board finds the November 2011 examination to be highly probative as it reflects consideration of all relevant facts.

I guess a GSW in the leg isn’t categorically an “open wound” as VA views it. We have Acting Veterans Law Judge S. Heneks for his probative analysis  and consideration of all the facts in the case. Welcome to VA justice folks.

 

Posted in 1154(b) combat presumptions, BvA HCV decisions, HCV Risks (documented), Veterans Law, Vietnam War history | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

BVA–OPEN MOUTH/INSERT LSD

Posted on April 26, 2015 by asknod

VeteransAdministration.12755109_stdIn what might be one of the largest wastes of judicial time in the history of the VA, we are saddled with PRC 100 repairman Johnboy Vet. Johnny has yet to meet any drug he doesn’t like. The cumulative effects seem to have clouded his judgment. He has somehow wandered all the way up to the hallowed halls of  BVA justice only to encounter the frightful reality that at some point in the past, his commanding officer decided he wasn’t “be all you can be” material.

http://www.index.va.gov/search/va/view.jsp?FV=http://www.va.gov/vetapp15/Files1/1505994.txt

Worse yet, they wrote it all down and preserved it for posterity on the off chance he might show up and claim it was all a big misunderstanding. I see and read a lot of these where the Vet claims PTSD due to experiences in Vietnam. Some are humorous such as the one where the wife testified to any number of stressors her hubster suffered (hearsay). The problem was he never left the United States. BVA records don’t tell us if a divorce was forthcoming after the combat deception was unmasked.

Acting VLJ L.M. Barnard summed it up thusly:

It is inconceivable that given this extensive use of drugs, which rendered him habitually disoriented, while in Vietnam he could possibly have participated in any meaningful combat role.

No Bozos

No Bozos

I feel compassion for these Vets but I have no sympathy for their utilizing the judicial system as a welfare lever to extract money. Lord knows, many of you wait an interminably long time for justice and a small part is due to these chuckleheads. The VFW should have better controls in place to “vet the Vet” and prevent this kind of abuse.

Posted in BvA HCV decisions, HCV Risks (documented) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

BVA–PERSONAL LAY TESTIMONY IS A VALID TECHNIQUE

Posted on April 26, 2015 by asknod

VeteransAdministration.12755109_stdI love BVA decisions for their simplicity. Here’s a great jetgun win that stands up on its own two legs because there’s really nothing to poke a hole in. It helps when the VA examiner quotes the FAST Letter in 2004 and lets slip the “plausible” word. That has probably helped more Vets than we can count and now it is becoming more prevalent. Use this decision as a template to a win. 

http://www.index.va.gov/search/va/view.jsp?FV=http://www.va.gov/vetapp15/Files1/1506800.txt

Posted in BvA HCV decisions, HCV Risks (documented), Jetgun BvA Decisions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

BVA–PADDING THE MEDICAL RECORD

Posted on April 26, 2015 by asknod

download (3)I do not know how many times I have seen this phenomenon occur in VA law. Johnny Vet goes to VAMC for ailment. Johnny Vet is tested for HCV and turns up positive. Mr. Vet’s doctor, in true VA style, inquires as to his personal recreational drug habits. Johnny Vet assiduously avers any such activity and cites ETOH abuse with maybe a side of Cannabis in the remote past. Follow on doctors decide to “improve on his statements” and ascribe all manner of drug abuse to him with no basis in fact. 

Several years/decades later, when applying for comp. benefits, Johnny gets tarred and feathered by things he never said- and  in this case, previously denied. This is a classic case but Johnboy upstaged them to his credit. He denied this activity in 1990 but it came back to haunt him in an unsubstantiated and undocumented remark eleven years later.

When called on it, VA physicians often shrug their shoulders and say “Well, maybe I got Johnny and Jimbo confused with each other. So sue me.” That’s how this happens. Too many patients and too little time for record keeping at the moment of interaction (exam).

http://www.index.va.gov/search/va/view.jsp?FV=http://www.va.gov/vetapp15/Files1/1506919.txt

Post service medical evidence reflects that at the time of a hospitalization in September 1990 for treatment of an unrelated condition, the Veteran denied intravenous drug abuse (IVDA). However, a November 2001 evaluation by a professor of medicine reflects that the Veteran “does have a history of multiple recreational drug use including intravenous but has not done this since 1975.” In correspondence received by the VA in August 2011, the Veteran explicitly denied any intravenous drug use.

Once the stain is on the sheets, nothing can stop the pell mell rush to denial as witnessed here.  I’ve discovered a lot of these things can begin in group therapy sessions with PTSD patients. Jimbo stands up and says “Hi. I was a door gunner in a Huey in I Corps in 67. I used to do a lot of smack. I’ve cleaned up”. Johnny stands up and says he liked to get Extremely Trashed Or Hammered too because it numbed him back then. Johnny now gets a check mark next to his name because the “professor of medicine” supervising the group disunderstood he was trying to say ETOH  as in regular old alcohol. Johnny is now a junkie and there’s no callin’ back them doggies.

The June 2011 opinion is inadequate because the examiner erroneously relied on a statistical generality about cause of Hepatitis C without specifically explaining why, in the Veteran’s case, other potential causes were not the likeliest cause of his Hepatitis C. Additionally, the examiner accepted intravenous drug use as a reality without crucially analyzing, considering, or addressing the other medical records that contradicted the assertion.

This is prima facie evidence of why you need your VA medical records as well as your c-file to investigate what will eventually be used against you. That the Vet prevailed and won is due in no small part to his “prepositioned”statement in 1990. Had this been absent, I wouldn’t be writing this. It also helps when idiot VA examiners get diarrhea of the mouth and run on about things they know nothing about.

Mostly, this decision illustrates what I have encountered over and over again in eight years of helping Vets. Robert, of Los Angeles, was similarly smeared by this technique but the chowderheads entered the damning notation in pen into VISTA records (which were printed) much like what happened to Phil Cushman. Quite simply, don’t like the diagnosis or the facts? What the hell. Write your own in. Who cares if they’re aftermarket and undated with no corroboration? We’re VA. We don’t need no stinkin’ corroboration. Incidentally, Robert won with no big deal at the BVA. That it had to go up to Vermin Ave. NW for that Cushman determination is the non sequitur.

Posted in BvA HCV decisions, HCV Risks (documented), VA Conspiracies | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments