Citation Nr: 21072930
Decision Date: 12/06/21	Archive Date: 12/06/21

DOCKET NO. 17-13 531
DATE: December 6, 2021

ORDER

Entitlement to service connection for hypertension, to include as due to herbicide exposure, is remanded.  

REASONS FOR REMAND

The Veteran served on active duty from May 1968 to April 1970.

This matter comes before the Board of Veterans' Appeals (Board) on appeal from a November 2016 rating decision by a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Regional Office (RO).

In June 2020, the Veteran testified at a Board hearing before the undersigned.  A copy of the transcript of that hearing has been associated with the claims file.

The Board remanded this issue in June 2021.  

Although an examination was obtained in August 2021, it is inadequate.  Therefore a remand is necessary to obtain an addendum.

The matter is remanded for the following:

1.  With any necessary identification of sources by the Veteran, request all VA treatment records not already associated with the file from the Veteran's VA treatment facilities, and all private treatment records from the Veteran not already associated with the file. Specifically attempts should be made to obtain records from Dr. Andrea Cerone, to include records dated from approximately May 1970 through July 2012, and any VA records dated from 1970 to the present, to include any archived records.

2.  Obtain an addendum to the August 2021 VA examination.  The examiner should opine as to whether it is at least as likely as not that the Veteran's hypertension is etiologically related to his in-service presumed herbicide exposure.  Please explain why or why not.

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In answering the opinion, the examiner should review pertinent documents in the Veteran's claims file in connection with the examination, to include the articles purporting a link between hypertension and herbicide exposure, received as Correspondence dated in December 2016.

The examiner should also address Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 11 (2018), the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NAS) found sufficient evidence of an association for hypertension and exposure to Agent Orange and other herbicides used during the Vietnam War.  Hypertension has been upgraded from its previous classification in the category of "limited or suggestive" evidence of an association to the category of "sufficient" evidence of an association.  According to NAS, "[t]he sufficient category indicates that there is enough epidemiologic evidence to conclude that there is a positive association" between hypertension and herbicide exposure.

 

 

S. HENEKS

Veterans Law Judge

Board of Veterans' Appeals

Attorney for the Board	Nadia Kamal, Counsel

The Board's decision in this case is binding only with respect to the instant matter decided. This decision is not precedential and does not establish VA policies or interpretations of general applicability. 38 C.F.R. § 20.1303.