VA rebuked for balking on Agent Orange care
A court says the agency must provide benefits to Vietnam veterans with a type of leukemia.By Henry Weinstein, Times Staff Writer
July 20, 2007
In a stinging ruling, a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ripped into the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on Thursday for its continued resistance to paying benefits to veterans suffering from chronic lymphocytic leukemia because of their exposure to Agent Orange.
Thursday's 3-0 decision marked the sixth major ruling against the government by the appeals court or a federal trial judge in a case that started in 1986. It stemmed from a clash between Vietnam veterans and the government over a chemical defoliant used by U.S. armed forces to clear dense jungle in Southeast Asia.
"What is difficult for us to comprehend is why the Department of Veterans Affairs, having entered into a settlement agreement and agreed to a consent order some 16 years ago, continues to resist its implementation so vigorously, as well as to resist equally vigorously the payment of desperately needed benefits to Vietnam War veterans who fought for their country and suffered grievous injury as a result of our government's own conduct," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote in the opinion.
"Whether the Vietnam War was just or not, whether one favored or opposed it, one thing is clear. Those young Americans who risked their lives in their country's service and are even today suffering greatly as a result are deserving of better treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs than they are currently receiving," said Reinhardt, an appointee of President Carter.
"We would hope," he concluded, "that this litigation will now end, that our government will now respect the legal obligations it undertook in the consent decree 16 years ago, that obstructionist bureaucratic opposition will now cease, and that our veterans will finally receive the benefits to which they are morally and legally entitled."
Judges John Noonan, an appointee of President Reagan, and Milan D. Smith, who was named by President George W. Bush, joined in the opinion.
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