Checklist

What the literature links to a condition

A secondary condition is one caused or made worse by a condition already service connected, under 38 CFR 3.310. That regulation covers aggravation as well as causation, a prong most guides drop. What matters medically is whether the literature establishes a mechanism, and at what strength.

The lookup

Start from a condition

Which condition to start from

This stays on this device. The condition is never sent anywhere, never written to the address form, and never attached to an email. The list is short because every condition on it has literature that was retrieved and read before it was added.

If the condition is not on the list

Nine conditions is a short list and most people will not find theirs on it. That is a fact about what has been checked here, not about what medicine knows. Every condition on this list is one where the research was pulled up and read before it was added, and adding the next one takes the same work.

The method is more useful than the list anyway, and it takes about five minutes with no subscription and nothing to sign up for. It is written out in full on the page below on why the popular lists get this wrong.

How to check a claim about two conditions

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Sources

38 CFR 3.310, Disabilities that are proximately due to, or aggravated by, service-connected disease or injury (Electronic Code of Federal Regulations)
PubMed (National Library of Medicine)
PubMed Central (National Library of Medicine)

Accuracy

Last checked 2026-08-23. Reviewed on a quarterly cycle and maintained by Veteran Health Network's compliance team, who are accountable for what is on this page. Written and reviewed under Veteran Health Network's institutional review process.