The Five VA Exposure Families, Side by Side

Burn pits and fine particulate matter. Assignment to a duty station in a listed country, including the airspace above it. 38 USC 1119(c) sets two cohorts: Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and the United Arab Emirates on or after August 2, 1990; and Afghanistan, Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Uzbekistan, or any other country the Secretary determines relevant, on or after September 11, 2001. There is no minimum number of days.

Herbicides. Covered service in a listed place during a listed window. 38 USC 1116(d) sets the Republic of Vietnam from January 9, 1962 through May 7, 1975; Thailand at any U.S. or Royal Thai base from January 9, 1962 through June 30, 1976; Laos from December 1, 1965 through September 30, 1969; Cambodia at Mimot or Krek, Kampong Cham Province from April 16, 1969 through April 30, 1969; Guam or American Samoa or their territorial waters from January 9, 1962 through July 31, 1980; and Johnston Atoll or a ship that called there from January 1, 1972 through September 30, 1977. Korean DMZ service is covered separately under 38 USC 1116B from September 1, 1967 through August 31, 1971.

Camp Lejeune water. Thirty days of service, and the regulation says the days may be consecutive or nonconsecutive. 38 CFR 3.307(a)(7) covers service anywhere within the borders of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station New River between August 1, 1953 and December 31, 1987, as established by military orders or other official service department records. The contaminants named in the regulation are trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene, benzene, and vinyl chloride.

Ionizing radiation. Participation in an enumerated radiation-risk activity, listed at 38 CFR 3.309(d)(3)(ii)(A) through (H) and at 38 USC 1112(c)(3)(B). Those include onsite participation in atmospheric nuclear testing, the occupation of Hiroshima or Nagasaki from August 6, 1945 through July 1, 1946, internment as a prisoner of war in Japan in that period, gaseous diffusion plant service at Paducah, Portsmouth, or K-25 at Oak Ridge, Amchitka Island before January 1, 1974, the Enewetak Atoll cleanup from January 1, 1977 through December 31, 1980, the Palomares response from January 17, 1966 through March 31, 1967, and the Thule response from January 21, 1968 through September 25, 1968.

Gulf War undiagnosed illness. Service in the Southwest Asia theater of operations during the Persian Gulf War, which 38 CFR 3.317(e) defines as Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the neutral zone between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, and the airspace above. The trigger here is not a named disease but a qualifying chronic disability that cannot be attributed to a known clinical diagnosis.

Burn pits sit in statute. The exposure presumption is 38 USC 1119 and the disease list is 38 USC 1120(b). Neither was codified in the CFR. Three narrower regulations do exist: 38 CFR 3.320 for asthma, rhinitis, sinusitis and nine rare cancers of the larynx, trachea and lung; 3.320a for urinary bladder and ureter cancer; and 3.320b for acute and chronic leukemias, multiple myelomas including MGUS, myelodysplastic syndromes, and myelofibrosis.

Herbicides sit in both places, unevenly. 38 USC 1116(a)(2) lists 13 diseases. 38 CFR 3.309(e) lists 14, using older wording and a different set. The regulation and the statute overlap heavily but are not the same list.

Camp Lejeune's eight presumptive disability conditions are regulatory. They come from VA rulemaking at 38 CFR 3.307(a)(7) and 3.309(f), not from a statute that enumerates them. The separate health care eligibility list is statutory, at 38 USC 1710(e)(1)(F), and it is a different list.

Radiation sits in both, and here they agree. The 21 diseases at 38 USC 1112(c)(2) and the 21 at 38 CFR 3.309(d)(2) are identical in content and order, including the three activities the PACT Act added. Radiation also has a second regulation with no statutory twin: 38 CFR 3.311, a dose-based procedure covering 24 radiogenic diseases, which is not a presumption at all.

Gulf War sits in 38 USC 1117 and 1118, with the operative detail in 38 CFR 3.317. Note that 1118 was amended by the PACT Act: the National Academy of Sciences review process that used to sit there was removed, and determinations now run through subchapter VII of chapter 11.

Four of the five turn on location and dates. Burn pits, herbicides, Camp Lejeune, and radiation all ask the same underlying question: was this person in this place during this window. That makes orders, a personnel file, unit records, deck logs, travel vouchers, or a campaign medal the operative evidence, not a medical opinion.

Camp Lejeune adds a duration element that the others do not have. Thirty days, cumulative, established by military orders or other official service department records.

Radiation splits into two proof shapes. The presumptive path at 3.309(d) needs cohort membership and one of the 21 diseases. The 3.311 path needs a dose assessment: VA obtains dose data from the Department of Defense for atmospheric testing and occupation claims, and otherwise from records including DD Form 1141 and service records, then refers the file to the Under Secretary for Benefits and, if needed, to an outside consultant drawn from a National Cancer Institute list.

Gulf War undiagnosed illness is the exception, and its evidence rule is unusually favorable. 38 CFR 3.317(a)(3) states that objective indications of chronic disability include both medical signs and 'other, non-medical indicators that are capable of independent verification.' Employment records showing lost time can serve. So can lay statements describing observable change. The disability must also be chronic, which 3.317(a)(4) defines as existing six months or more, or showing intermittent episodes of improvement and worsening across a six-month period.

This is the part that gets missed, and it runs in the same direction in both families.

Herbicides. 38 CFR 3.307(a)(6) ends at subparagraph (v). It has paragraphs for Vietnam, the Korean DMZ, and C-123 aircraft, and nothing else. There is no regulatory paragraph for Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Guam, American Samoa, or Johnston Atoll. Those six exist only in 38 USC 1116(d). The 12 nautical mile offshore rule for Blue Water Navy service exists only in 38 USC 1116A(d) and appears nowhere in 3.307(a)(6)(iii). The Korean DMZ dates differ outright: the regulation says April 1, 1968 through August 31, 1971, the statute at 1116B says September 1, 1967 through August 31, 1971, and VA's public page follows the statute.

Burn pits. 38 USC 1119(c) covers Somalia on the 1990 cohort and Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Yemen on the post-2001 cohort. The location list in 38 CFR 3.320(a)(5) covers none of those five. It reaches the Southwest Asia theater during the Persian Gulf War, and Afghanistan, Syria, Djibouti, or Uzbekistan on or after September 19, 2001. That September 19 date is correct as written in the regulation and is not a typo for September 11. The newer regulation at 3.320a(c) uses September 11, 2001 and does include Somalia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Yemen, so two regulations in the same family carry different cohorts.

Both gaps are the subject of proposed rules that have not been finalized. The herbicide rule, RIN 2900-AR10, was published February 12, 2024. The toxic exposure rule that would rebuild 3.320 around the statutory disease list was published October 1, 2024 and its comment period closed December 2, 2024. As of August 21, 2026 neither has been replaced by a final rule, and VA administers the statutes in the meantime.

VA publishes more than one list per family, and they are not identical. This is not a trap; it is what happens when a health care statute, a compensation regulation, and a plain-language web page are all maintained separately.

Burn pits. The va.gov disability eligibility page for specific environmental hazards lists 12 cancers and folds kidney cancer into 'genitourinary cancer,' although 38 USC 1120(b)(2)(G) names kidney cancer outright. The PACT Act page on publichealth.va.gov lists 17 cancers and names kidney cancer, the leukemias, multiple myelomas, myelodysplastic syndromes, myelofibrosis, and bladder and ureter cancer explicitly. The longer list reflects the regulations added in January 2025.

Camp Lejeune. Eight conditions are presumptive for disability compensation under 38 CFR 3.309(f): kidney cancer, liver cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, adult leukemia, multiple myeloma, Parkinson's disease, aplastic anemia and other myelodysplastic syndromes, and bladder cancer. Fifteen conditions are covered for health care under 38 USC 1710(e)(1)(F). Six appear on both. Liver cancer and Parkinson's disease are on the disability list only. Esophageal cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, renal toxicity, hepatic steatosis, female infertility, miscarriage, scleroderma, and neurobehavioral effects are on the health care list only.

Agent Orange. VA's public page names 19 conditions, matching 38 USC 1116(a)(2) rather than the 14 in 38 CFR 3.309(e).

Gulf War. VA's public page presents recognized locations as the union of 38 CFR 3.317(e) and 38 USC 1117(f), which adds Afghanistan, Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, and Jordan to the regulation's theater definition. Use the regulation's list when the question is 3.317(a), and the statute's when the question is 1117.

Yes, and it is common. A veteran who served in Iraq after August 2, 1990 is inside the 38 USC 1119(c) burn pit cohort and inside the 38 CFR 3.317(e) Southwest Asia theater at the same time. Those are two separate legal routes with two separate sets of conditions and two different timing rules.

Radiation has two internal routes for the same person: the 3.309(d) presumption for the 21 listed diseases, and the 3.311 dose path for a broader set of 24 radiogenic diseases including prostate cancer, skin cancer, kidney cancer, and posterior subcapsular cataracts, none of which are on the presumptive list.

A free accredited Veterans Service Organization representative can work out which routes a service history touches and file them, and does not charge for it.