The Veteran's claim for a compensable disability rating for erectile dysfunction is denied, and the Board has remanded his service connection claim for hypertension due to insufficient medical opinion addressing direct or secondary service connection.
The deciding factor: The VA examiner did not provide an opinion regarding whether the Veteran’s hypertension is related to his service in Vietnam or aggravated by diabetes mellitus. The National Academy of Sciences concluded that there is sufficient evidence of an association between hypertension and herbicide exposure, but a new medical opinion is needed to address these issues.
- Claimed conditions
- Erectile Dysfunction, Hypertension
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- October 8, 2020
- Citation
- 20065531
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,569 · Granted: 26% (granted or partly granted, in the vetted decisions on this site)
Judge attribution: 2025 complete; earlier years partial.
This is a plain-language summary generated by AI from a public Board of Veterans’ Appeals decision. It can contain errors — always verify against the original. Look up the original decision on VA.gov (opens in a new tab) using citation 20065531.
What this means for you
A remand is not a loss. The Board sent the case back for more development — often a new exam or missing records — before making a final decision. Many remands later end in a grant, and the decision spells out exactly what the Board wanted to see.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Denied
The Board denied the claim of service connection for hypertension, finding that it did not manifest during service and is not causally related to the Veteran's exposure to herbicides or service.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for service connection for hypertension, finding that there was no evidence of a nexus between his current condition and active duty service or herbicide exposure.
- Granted
The Board has determined that the Veteran's erectile dysfunction is secondary to his service-connected major depressive disorder, and thus grants service connection for this condition.
- Denied
The Board has denied service connection for hypertension and has remanded the issue of an increased rating for skin condition.
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