§1173 Formal Evaluation of Recommendations

Summary

The Secretary must set up a formal review process for every recommendation the Working Group makes. Each review must look at scientific studies (like human, animal, toxicology, and methods research), claims data (such as claim rate, grant rate, and how common service connection is), and other things the Secretary thinks are needed — for example, how severe or deadly the illness is, how much and how good the information is, how long it would take to get more evidence, whether the health effect is combat- or deployment-related, how common the effect is, and any time window when the effect shows up. The scientific review must follow rules for scientific honesty and must not hide or change results. Each review must judge how likely it is that a toxic exposure caused an illness during active military service. The reviewers must put the evidence into one of four categories: "sufficient" (enough to say a positive link exists), "equipoise and above" (at least as likely as not, but not enough to be sure), "below equipoise" (not enough to say it is likely), or "against" (evidence points to no link). Within 120 days after the review starts, the part of the Department that did the review must send the Secretary a recommendation about creating or changing a presumption that the illness is related to service.