The Board remands the claim for a new medical opinion to address whether the Veteran's Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was related to his exposure to contaminated meat while serving in England.
The deciding factor: The previous medical opinion was found inadequate due to lack of confirmation of CJD diagnosis and failure to consider incubation period of the disease.
- Claimed conditions
- Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- October 15, 2025
- Citation
- A25088707
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,113 · Granted: 47% (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 A25088707.
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.
- Dismissed
The Board dismissed the appeal for service connection for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The Veteran's claims for tinnitus, lumbar spine disorder, left knee disorder, and right knee disorder were denied as there was no evidence of a nexus to service.
- Granted
The Veteran's service-connected major depressive disorder is found to be the primary cause of her insomnia, and she is already in receipt of a 30% rating for anemia. The claims for fibromyalgia, diabetes mellitus type II, radiculopathy and peripheral neuropathy, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and mouth trauma are remanded.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has decided that the Veteran's claims for service connection are remanded due to missing medical records and uncorroborated in-service stressors. The VA is instructed to obtain additional records, including from SSA and private providers, and to schedule a PTSD examination if corroborated stressors are found.
- Denied
The Veteran's cause of death, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), is not considered to be service-connected as it was not incurred or aggravated by active duty service and there is no evidence that the CJD had its onset during service. The Board finds that the preponderance of the evidence does not support a finding that the Veteran's CJD was caused by his military service.
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