Adds glioblastoma multiforme to the list of diseases the Department of Veterans Affairs will presume is service‑connected for veterans who served in specified Vietnam‑era locations. It also records factual findings about the scope of U.S. herbicide (including Agent Orange) spraying in Southeast Asia and the continuing harms to veterans, Vietnamese people, Vietnamese Americans, and their children.
Between 1961 and 1971, approximately 19,000,000 gallons of 15 different herbicides were sprayed over the southern region of Vietnam by the United States Armed Forces, including 13,000,000 gallons of Agent Orange.
Between 1968 and 1971, a total of 6,500 spraying missions were carried out in an area of about 1,500,000 hectares, representing about 12 percent of South Vietnam and portions of Laos and Cambodia.
Studies have found that tens of thousands of Americans were exposed to Agent Orange during the spraying operations.
Agent Orange exposure continues to negatively affect the lives of veterans of the United States Armed Forces, Vietnamese people, Vietnamese Americans, and their children; it has shortened the lives of many victims and left others living with disease, disabilities, and often untreated or unrecognized pain.
Amend 38 U.S.C. 1116(a)(2) by adding a new subparagraph (N) that lists "Glioblastoma multiforme."
Primary beneficiaries are Vietnam‑era U.S. veterans (and, where applicable, their survivors) who are diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme and who meet the statute's location and service criteria. For those veterans, the presumption of service connection simplifies claims: it shifts the burden away from proving exposure‑causation in each individual case and can speed access to disability compensation, VA health care eligibility, and related benefits. The Department of Veterans Affairs will need to update regulations, examiner guidance, and claims workflows, and VA adjudicators may see an increase in claims and associated workload. The legislation does not allocate funding or set an effective date, so implementing costs (including any retroactive payments) would come through existing VA budgets or subsequent appropriations. The historical findings in the bill describe harms to veterans, Vietnamese people, Vietnamese Americans, and children of exposed people, but the operative amendment extends legal benefit presumptions only to qualifying U.S. veterans (and their statutory survivors) rather than creating direct new federal benefits for non‑U.S. civilians.
Last progress June 5, 2025 (8 months ago)
Introduced on June 5, 2025 by Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick
Referred to the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs.