Colorado's U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet has written to the Trump
Administration in protest of its decision to exclude several health conditions
from automatic veterans benefits despite a link to a well-known Vietnam War-era
chemical.
“The Office of
Management and Budget’s (OMB) decision to exclude bladder cancer, hypertension,
Parkinsonism and hypothyroidism as diseases linked to Agent Orange is
frustrating and unfair,” said the letter dated Nov. 27.
U.S. Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., also signed on.
The previous Trump-appointed secretary of veterans affairs,
David Shulkin, agreed to include three of those four conditions, but Military
Times reported that the White House blocked him from doing so.
A 2016 report from the National Academies of Medicine found
there is “sufficient” evidence to link hypertension to Agent Orange, and
“limited” evidence for the other conditions.
Bennet and Casey asserted that the exclusion would affect
83,000 veterans.
No comments:
Post a Comment