Question

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 the Department of Veterans Affairs that his bladder cancer was the result of exposure to Agent Orange almost 50 years ago in Vietnam.

The Army vet has filed three claims with the agency, most recently in 2014, since a doctor told him the cancer was likely tied to the toxic herbicide.

Each time, even as he found additional doctors to vouch for the link between his cancer and his service, the VA rejected Eller’s claim, arguing there was no proof.

But a report last month (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. by a prominent committee of scientists said there’s now research suggesting otherwise. As a result, the VA is studying whether it should reverse its position and add the condition to the list of illnesses it presumes to be linked to Agent Orange, which the U.S. sprayed across Vietnam during the war.

The VA has no legal obligation to do this and has previously declined to cover other conditions despite research supporting a connection. But if it does this time, the shift could mean thousands of dollars a year for some vets, and even more for those like Eller, who filed claims years ago. In such cases, the agency is required to pay (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. disability benefits retroactively, dating back to the day a veteran first applied.

Possible answers:

No legal obligation

Political and financial

required to prove causation

correlation suggests a causal relationship

__________________________________________, but do not establish a causal mechanism.

The Veteran's Administration claims that finding out how agent orange 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 easier to meet) than 'beyond a reasonable doubt.' Legal battles are often won by having the judge rule that the prosecution is _______________________

The decision to accept a lower or higher standard of proof is often a ____________________ question.

Eller is one of about 5,000 veterans and family members who’ve shared their Agent Orange exposure stories Links to an external site. with ProPublica and The Virginian-Pilot over the past several months. More than 125 of them said they’ve been diagnosed with bladder cancer. Hundreds more reported having one or more of the other conditions being reviewed by the VA. For many of them, having their illnesses added to the VA’s list could end years of struggle to convince the federal bureaucracy they were harmed by their service and deserve to be compensated. Suggestive evidence is not proof and the VA is under _________________________to change its ruling.

Answer 1

Correlation suggests a causal relationship, but do not establish a causal mechanism. The Veteran's Administration claims that finding out how agent orange works to cause bladder cancer is required to prove causation .Various standards of proof are used in the law. The 'preponderance of the evidence' is a lower standard (and so easier to meet) than 'beyond a reasonable doubt.' Legal battles are often won by having the judge rule that the prosecution is political and financial.The decision to accept a lower or higher standard of proof is often an unanswerable question. Eller is one of about 5,000 veterans and family members who’ve shared their Agent Orange exposure stories Links to an external site. with ProPublica and The Virginian-Pilot over the past several months. More than 125 of them said they’ve been diagnosed with bladder cancer. Hundreds more reported having one or more of the other conditions being reviewed by the VA. For many of them, having their illnesses added to the VA’s list could end years of struggle to convince the federal bureaucracy they were harmed by their service and deserve to be compensated. Suggestive evidence is not proof and the VA is under no legal obligation to change its ruling.