How is a condition added to VA’s list of presumptive disorders?
Every two years, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) reviews the body of peer reviewed scientific data about a wide variety of medical conditions and determines what, if any, causative link can be made between these conditions and the herbicide Agent Orange. The findings of the IOM are published in the “Veterans and Agent Orange Update”. Conditions can be found to fall under several categories including Sufficient Evidence of an Association, Limited or Suggestive Evidence of an Association, and Inadequate or Insufficient Evidence to Determine an Association. Conditions previously found to be classified in a category can be upgraded to a higher category if later peer reviewed research supports the classification. In the report Veterans and Agent Orange Update: 2008, IOM found B cell leukemias, such as hairy cell leukemia to meet the criteria for Sufficient Evidence of an Association, while Parkinson’s Disease and Ischemic Heart Disease met the crite
