Va Expands Time Limit For Gulf War Claims

Regulations announced by the Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday will allow Gulf War veterans to claim disability compensation for war-related illnesses through 2001.

The regulations, which will go into effect immediately, broadly expand the current system in which veterans have been eligible for compensation only if their symptoms appeared within two years of their service in the 1991 war.

“This rule broadens the VA’s ability to give disabled Gulf War veterans the benefit of the doubt for a more realistic period of time as scientific research moves closer to answers about the causes of their health problems,” VA Secretary Jesse Brown said in a statement.

Brown said he has instructed the Veterans Benefits Administration to review all compensation claims of Gulf War veterans that previously have been denied because of the two-year rule.

President Clinton announced his intentions last March to extend eligibility to 10 years, saying that “Gulf War veterans who became ill as a result of their service should receive the compensation they deserve, even if science cannot yet pinpoint the cause of their illnesses.”

Thousands of service members returned from the war against Iraq suffering from a variety of ailments, some of which have defied diagnosis and have come to be called Gulf War syndrome.