The Board denied the claim for service connection for the cause of the Veteran’s death, finding that there is no evidence linking his in-service asbestos exposure to his death.
The deciding factor: The medical evidence does not link the Veteran's causes of death (respiratory failure, bullous emphysema, and mycobacterium avium intracellulare) to his in-service asbestos exposure.
- Claimed conditions
- respiratory failure, bullous emphysema, mycobacterium avium intracellulare
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- April 3, 2019
- Citation
- 19124990
What this means for you
A denial is a starting point, not the end of the road. You can see why this claim fell short — and, if you are still inside the one-year window, the appeal lanes that may remain open to you.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Partly granted
The Board granted service connection for squamous cell cancer and denied the claims for an earlier effective date, service connection for implanted cardiac pacemaker, and several other conditions.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the claim for a medical opinion on whether the Veteran's acute hypoxemia, respiratory failure, and pneumonia were related to service or toxic exposure under the PACT Act.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the case to obtain additional evidence, including service treatment records and private medical records, and to obtain an addendum medical opinion regarding the Veteran's causes of death.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the issue of entitlement to service connection for the Veteran's cause of death, for purposes of entitlement to dependency and indemnity compensation (DIC), due to pre-decisional duty to assist errors.
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