Ah, I see. I've only been dealing with them since 2005, when I was diagnosed with Leukemia which is "presumed" to be caused by Agent Orange if you were on land even for 1 minute, but not if you were serving on the gun line or on an carrier.
The cute part is that the Blue Water Navy has a much higher incidence of these "Presumed" diseases than those who served "in-country". (Something about sailors eating, washing in, and drinking TCDD contaminated water which was concentrated by the flash-distillers on shipboard.)
Check out the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine report on Agent Orange diseases as it relates to Navy veterans.
Agent Orange claims have been an uphill battle from the beginning- the claims criteria is strange to say the least- there were many in the military at different locations where it was used and stored that never were in Vietnam, so the criteria sure doesn’t work for them either. Some in the Air Force have the same issue you Navy people do- they handled the stuff, but were never in country so they don’t meet criteria either.
It will take a lot of pressure from somewhere for the VA to change their criteria about things like agent orange- someone will have to produce the research and the medical profession will have to line up, then records will have to be located that show where and when it was actually used, stored, etc. PTSD was impossible until the American Psychiatric Association changed their Diagnosis guidelines and VA had to use them in the claims process.
We have not had the hard times many have with the VA, but hubby’s deal was fairly straight forward- he was blown up by a mine, so it was obvious he had parts missing, and parts damaged. Really hard for them to argue about that; our only real issue was health issues that came later as a result of- we managed to get through, but I never said it was easy.