Establishing Proof for linked (correlated) requires a mechanism(high standard, often too high to meet).
Alan Eller has spent more than a decade trying to convince theDepartment of Veterans Affairs that his bladder cancer was theresult of exposure to Agent Orange almost 50 years ago inVietnam.
The Army vet has filed three claims with the agency, mostrecently in 2014, since a doctor told him the cancer was likelytied to the toxic herbicide.
Each time, even as he found additional doctors to vouch for thelink between his cancer and his service, the VA rejected Eller’sclaim, arguing there was no proof.
But a report last month (Links to an external site.)Links to anexternal site. by a prominent committee of scientists said there’snow research suggesting otherwise. As a result, the VA is studyingwhether it should reverse its position and add the condition to thelist of illnesses it presumes to be linked to Agent Orange, whichthe U.S. sprayed across Vietnam during the war.
The VA has no legal obligation to do this and has previouslydeclined to cover other conditions despite research supporting aconnection. But if it does this time, the shift could meanthousands of dollars a year for some vets, and even more for thoselike Eller, who filed claims years ago. In such cases, the agencyis required to pay (Links to an external site.)Links to an externalsite. disability benefits retroactively, dating back to the day aveteran first applied.
Possible answers:
No legal obligation
Political and financial
required to prove causation
correlation suggests a causal relationship
__________________________________________, but do not establisha causal mechanism.
The Veteran's Administration claims that finding out how agentorange works to cause bladder cancer is____________________________.
Various standards of proof are used in the law. The'preponderance of the evidence' is a lower standard (and so easierto meet) than 'beyond a reasonable doubt.' Legal battles are oftenwon by having the judge rule that the prosecution is_______________________
The decision to accept a lower or higher standard of proof isoften a ____________________ question.
Eller is one of about 5,000 veterans and family members who’veshared their Agent Orange exposure stories Links to an externalsite. with ProPublica and The Virginian-Pilot over the past severalmonths. More than 125 of them said they’ve been diagnosed withbladder cancer. Hundreds more reported having one or more of theother conditions being reviewed by the VA. For many of them, havingtheir illnesses added to the VA’s list could end years of struggleto convince the federal bureaucracy they were harmed by theirservice and deserve to be compensated. Suggestive evidence is notproof and the VA is under _________________________to change itsruling.
