ALS Association

Special Section: Combined Federal Campaign 2009

Veterans with ALS and Their Family Members
Eligible for Veterans Benefits

By Lynn Feigenbaum
ALS Board of Directors member, DC/MD/VA chapter

If there is a personification to ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), it is Yankees’ slugger Lou Gehrig, wearing his familiar striped baseball uniform, who died at 37 of the illness that adopted his name.

Today that image may be changing. All too often, the person with Lou Gehrig’s disease wears a military uniform. In fact, military personnel are approximately twice as likely to be diagnosed with ALS as civilians. Why? There are hunches, but no one knows for sure. The search for a cure is still in medical laboratories.

But, since ALS was declared a service-connected disability last September, help is available for current and former military families who have poured a lot of their resources into fighting and living with the disease.

Who is eligible? People like Mike Oyer of Virginia Beach, who served for 23 years as a Navy SEAL in duty stations around the world. He was diagnosed with ALS last year, widows like Sharon Harrison of Chester, Va., whose husband Gilbert was in the Army for 26 years, and Betsy Medlin, whose Marine husband Jim later became a policeman in the Richmond area. They are among 16 veterans and 19 surviving spouses in the ALS Association- DC/MD/VA Chapter who so far have been granted benefits.

If you were diagnosed with ALS and served at least 90 consecutive days in the military, even years ago like my husband, you or survivors are eligible for veterans’ benefits. And with the help of the ALS Association and veterans organizations like the Paralyzed Veterans of America and the American Legion, applying for those benefits is not difficult.

“One of the great things about the benefit is that there is no time limit,” said Patrick Wildman, director of communications and public policy for the ALS Association in Washington, D.C. “The VA (Department of Veterans Affairs) doesn’t generally have this type of blanket presumption.”

For ALS, now all you need to prove is that you have ALS and served on active duty. It does not matter when or where you served or when you were diagnosed after leaving the service.

For years, the ALS Association’s public policy team, based in Washington, pushed for the benefits on Capitol Hill. Also instrumental were people even closer to the front line, advocates like Sharon Harrison, whose husband had gotten Agent Orange benefits for his skin cancer but was turned down for veterans’ benefits after he was diagnosed with ALS.

Sharon wrote letters to congressional representatives and to the president and went to ALS Association advocacy days in Washington with her husband and Sarah Stein, a patient and family services coordinator for the ALS Association- DC/MD/VA Chapter. Their goal: to get ALS designated a service-related illness.

“It was a long fight,” says Harrison. She is now collecting monthly benefits that have doubled her income.
The benefits are critical according to Wildman. “They can do so much to help veterans in terms of disability compensation and health benefits, and that includes coverage for prescription drugs and durable medical equipment and anything they need to help them fight the disease.”

The link between ALS and military service had been evident for years, particularly after the 1991 Gulf War, when studies showed that military personnel returning from the Gulf area were twice as likely to get ALS as those who had not. But a key factor making ALS a service-connected disability for all military was a 2005 Harvard study showing an increase in ALS incidence no what matter where or when you served.

“That was really a big piece of evidence,” said Wildman. On Sept. 23, 2008, the VA established ALS as a service-connected disease.

The link between military service and ALS is still a mystery, but there are suspected connections: exposure to chemical weapons, neurotoxins and munitions; vaccinations, and excessive physical activity (ALS often hits athletes or people who are physically fit). None of these factors are limited to any one conflict. Mike Oyer, for example, served as a Navy SEAL in Egypt, Afghanistan, Israel, Australia, Thailand and the Philippines. Jim Medlin served two tours in Okinawa.

The benefits are already making a big difference in these difficult financial times. When Sarah Stein began spreading the word to eligible families, “A couple of my surviving spouses thought that I was kidding,” she said. “They started crying when I told them that I wasn’t joking and that it was real.”

For more information about ALS and the ALS Association – DC/MD/VA Chapter, visit www.alsinfo.org or call (866) 348-3257.

To support the ALS Association – DC/MD/VA Chapter, designate # 37909 in the Peninsula CFC campaign or # 67013 in the South Hampton Roads CFC campaign.