Citation Nr: 0001091 Decision Date: 01/13/00 Archive Date: 01/27/00 DOCKET NO. 98-02 865 ) DATE ) ) On appeal from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Regional Office (RO) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania THE ISSUE Entitlement to service connection for heart disease, Buerger's disease, and Raynaud's disease, claimed as secondary to tobacco use and nicotine addiction. REPRESENTATION Appellant represented by: The American Legion ATTORNEY FOR THE BOARD M. Cooper, Associate Counsel INTRODUCTION The veteran had active service from December 1948 to December 1951. This case comes before the Board of Veterans' Appeals (Board) on appeal from an October 1997 decision of the VA RO which denied service connection for heart disease, Buerger's disease, and Raynaud's disease, claimed as secondary to tobacco use and nicotine addiction during active duty. The Board notes that an unappealed October 1994 RO decision denied service connection for these disabilities on a direct basis; such decision is final and the question of direct service connection is not on appeal. At the time of the October 1994 decision, the RO deferred action on service connection for these conditions on the theory of tobacco use/nicotine addiction, and, as noted, service connection on this theory was denied by the RO in October 1997, and the veteran appealed that determination. The present Board decision is limited to service connection for these disabilities on the theory of tobacco use and nicotine addiction. FINDING OF FACT The veteran has not submitted competent evidence to show plausible claims for service connection for heart disease, Buerger's disease, and Raynaud's disease, claimed as due to tobacco use and nicotine addiction. CONCLUSION OF LAW The veteran's claims for service connection for heart disease, Buerger's disease, and Raynaud's disease, claimed as due to tobacco use and nicotine addiction, are not well grounded. 38 U.S.C.A. § 5107(a) (West 1991). REASONS AND BASES FOR FINDING AND CONCLUSION Factual Background The veteran served on active duty in the Army from December 1948 to December 1951. Available service medical records do not refer to smoking or the conditions now claimed for service connection. The December 1951 service separation examination noted no pertinent abnormality; the heart and vascular system were normal. Post-service private and VA medical records (including doctor's statements), dated from 1983 to 1997, are on file. According to statements from the veteran's private physician, Dr. R.C. McLucus, the veteran presented with finger symptoms in 1980 and was then diagnosed with Raynaud's phenomenon, which is, according to the doctor, associated with smoking. The 1983-1997 medical records show diagnoses of Raynaud's disease, Buerger's disease, and heart disease. As to heart disease, such was first reported in late 1983 when the veteran had a myocardial infarction (heart attack), and treatment thereafter included coronary artery bypass surgery in 1984 due to coronary artery disease. The records include a history that the veteran smoked about a pack of cigarettes a day for 36 years until his 1983 heart attack, when he quit smoking. In statements dated from 1993 to 1999, the veteran and his representative collectively asserted that heart disease, Buerger's disease, and Raynaud's disease were due to tobacco use and nicotine dependence which started in service. The veteran related that during service he received free cigarettes from the Army, and also cigarettes at low cost, and he became addicted to tobacco. He said he continued to smoke for years after service, about 1 1/2 packs per day, until he was found to have Buerger's disease in the 1970s, and he then quit for a long time, but he resumed smoking until finally quitting when he had a heart attack in 1983. Analysis The veteran claims service connection for heart disease, Buerger's disease, and Raynaud's disease, on the theory that they were caused by tobacco use/nicotine addiction which started in service. Service connection may be granted for disability resulting from disease or injury which was incurred in or aggravated by active military service. 38 U.S.C.A. §§ 1110, 1131; 38 C.F.R. § 3.303. The Board notes that service connection for a disabililty, on the basis that it resulted from a disease or injury attributable to tobacco products during service, is prohibited as to claims filed after June 9, 1998, but the veteran's claims were filed before then, and thus consideration may be given to his claims under the prior law which permitted service connection when nicotine addiction, leading to diability, began in service. See 38 U.S.C.A. § 1103; VAOPGCPREC 19-97. The threshold question, with regard to the veteran's claims for service connection, is whether he has met his initial burden of submitting evidence to show that his claims are well grounded, meaning plausible. 38 U.S.C.A. § 5107(a); Murphy v. Derwinski, 1 Vet.App. 78 (1990). If he has not done so, there is no VA duty to assist in developing the claims, and the claims must be denied. Id. For a service connection claim to be well grounded, there must be competent evidence of a current disability (a medical diagnosis), of incurrence or aggravation of a disease or injury in service (medical evidence or, in some circumstances, lay evidence), and of a nexus between the in-service disease or injury and the current disability (medical evidence). Caluza v. Brown, 7 Vet.App. 498 (1995). There is no evidence of heart disease, Buerger's disease, or Raynaud's disease during the veteran's 1948-1951 service or for decades later. Beginning in the 1980s, there are diagnoses of these conditions. The available service medical records do not refer to smoking, although the veteran now says he began smoking at that time, and recent medical records include a history from the veteran of heavy smoking since about the time of service (if not before service). Medical records appear to link some, if not all, of the conditions at least in part to smoking. However, no medical evidence has been submitted to show that, even if the veteran smoked during service, he developed a chronic addiction to nicotine during service. Moreover, no medical evidence has been submitted to show that the diseases, which first appeared decades after service, are due to smoking during service as opposed to many years of smoking after service. As a layman, the veteran does not have competence to give an opinion on diagnosis or etiology of a condition, and his statements on such matters do not serve to make his claims well grounded. Without competent medical evidence, as described above, the claims for service connection on the smoking theory are not well grounded. Davis v. West, No. 97-1057 (U.S. Vet.App. Nov. 19, 1999); Caluza, supra. For these reasons, the claims for service connection for heart disease, Buerger's disease, and Raynaud's disease, claimed as due to tobacco use and nicotine addiction, must be denied as not well grounded. 38 U.S.C.A. § 5107(a). ORDER Service connection for heart disease, Buerger's disease, and Raynaud's disease, claimed as due to tobacco use and nicotine addiction, is denied. L.W. TOBIN Member, Board of Veterans' Appeals