UPDATE: As of January 2020, Blue Water claims are being processed.
On many forums and Facebook groups online, disabled veterans gather to help each other with their disability claims, offering experience and research they have gathered throughout their own fight against the VA. One problem many veterans face is how to connect their current disability with exposure to Agent Orange. Now that thousands of blue water veterans are presumed to have been exposed to Agent Orange, their fight has renewed hope, and they are gathering evidence to support their claim that their disability is connected to their Agent Orange exposure.
What is the Zumwalt Report?
One piece of evidence I have seen vets provide to other vets is the “Zumwalt Report.” This is a formerly Classified May, 1990 report by Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, titled “Report to Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs on the Association Between Adverse Health Effects and Exposure to Agent Orange.” Admiral Zumwalt was assigned by the then Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs, Ed Derwinsky to “evaluate the numerous data relevant to the statistical association between exposure to Agent Orange and the specific adverse health effects manifested by veterans who saw active duty in Vietnam.”
The report is a scathing indictment of the VA as well as the Advisory Committee on Environmental Hazard’s research related to the health effects of Agent Orange and CDC reports on the health effects of Agent Orange.
Key Quotes
“Without exception, the experts who reviewed the work of the Advisory Committee disagreed with its findings and further questioned the validity of the Advisory Committee’s review of studies on non—Hodgkin’s lymphomas .”
“a decision which should have been based on scientific data was reduced to vague impressions”
[One impartial review team’s results were] “a stunning indictment of the Advisory Committee’s scientific interpretation and policy judgments”
“1987 Followup Examination Results,” described statistically significant increases in health problems among Ranch Handers including all cancers”
“The work of the Veterans’ Advisory Committee on Environmental Hazards, as documented in their November 2, 1989 transcript, has little or no scientific merit, and should not serve as a basis for compensation or regulatory decisions of any sort.”
“the Air Force could just as easily have concluded that the health problems associated with the Ranch Handers were not necessarily related to eating beer nuts.”
“Shamefully, the deception, fraud and political interference that has characterized government sponsored studies on the health effects of exposure to Agent Orange and/or dioxin has not escaped studies ostensibly conducted by independent reviewers, a factor that has only further compounded the erroneous conclusions reached by the government.”
Zumwalt’s conclusion states:
“It can, in my judgment, be concluded, with a very high degree of confidence, that it is at least as likely as not that the following are caused in humans by exposure to TCDD: non-Hodgkin’ s lymphoma, chloracne and other skin disorders, lip cancer, bone cancer, soft tissue sarcoma, birth defects, skin cancer, lung cancer, porphyria cutanea tarda and other liver disorders, Hodgkin’s disease, hematopoietic diseases, multiple myeloma, neurological defects and auto-immune diseases and disorders.
In addition, I am most comfortable in concluding that it is at least as likely as not that liver cancer, nasal/pharyngeal/esophageal cancers, leukemia, malignant melanoma, kidney cancer, testicular cancer, pancreatic cancer, stomach cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer, brain cancer, psychosocial effects, and gastrointestinal disease are service– connected..”
Many of the above disabilities HAVE since been added to the VA’s list of presumption list, lending credence to Zumwalot’s claims, however several of the above are still routinely rejected by the VA.
Submitting Zumwalt as Evidence
I have seen many vets recommending using the paper as evidence in their fight for diseases listed by Zumwalt above, but not yet presumed to be caused by Agent Orange by the VA. The report was written by an Admiral specifically entrusted by the secretary of the VA to orchestrate the research, and the research was performed by independent experts such as:
– Columbia University professor of Clinical Epidemiology Steven Stellman, as well as Professor Emerita of Health Policy and Management Dr. Jeanne Hager Stellman, also of Columbia University.
-The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center of Seattle, Washington, who count no less than three Nobel prize winners among their ranks.
So, any rational person would conclude that submitting this report as evidence in a fight for service connection should be a slam dunk. Unfortunately, my research has concluded the opposite. Upon reviewing the fifty cases in the Board of Veteran’s Appeals archives, the report was only viewed in a positive light a small number of times. Most often, the VA treats Zumwalt as a layperson: “while the Admiral was highly educated, he did not have any medical training” read one decision. “The only evidence suggesting a possible link between skin cancer and stomach cancer and presumed herbicide exposure are the Veteran’s statements and Admiral E.R. Zumwalt, Jr.’s statements. Cancer is not a disease entity subject to lay diagnosis” read another. It seems more likely than not that the report was not subjected to a close reading by the VA.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that the VA has slowly but surely added some of the Zumwalt’s report’s disabilities to their presumptive list, the average veteran’s fight will likely not be helped by submitting this report as evidence.
UPDATE: As of January 2020, Blue Water claims are being processed.
