Department of Veterans Affairs November 3, 2008 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) published a direct final rule amending our medical regulations to designate weight management counseling (individual and group sessions) as a service that is not subject to VA's co-payment requirements. VA received no significant adverse comments concerning this rule or its companion substantially identical proposed rule published on the same date. This document confirms that the direct final rule became effective on June 16, 2008. In a companion document in this issue of the Federal Register, we are withdrawing as unnecessary that proposed rule.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is proposing to amend its adjudication regulations concerning presumptive service connection for a certain disease based on the most recent National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Institute of Medicine committee report, ``Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 2006 (Update 2006).'' This proposed amendment is necessary to implement a decision of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs that there is a positive association between exposure to herbicides used in the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam era and the subsequent development of AL amyloidosis. The intended effect of this proposed amendment is to establish presumptive service connection for AL amyloidosis based on herbicide exposure.

This document adopts, with changes, a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) interim final rule that implemented provisions of the Veterans Benefits, Health Care, and Information Technology Act of 2006 concerning disclosure of information to organ, tissue and eye procurement organizations. The regulation will provide authority for VA to provide individually-identifiable VA medical records of veterans or dependents of veterans who are deceased or whose death is imminent to representatives of organ procurement organizations, eye banks, and tissue banks to determine whether the patients are suitable potential donors. This document modifies the interim final rule to clarify the definition of ``near death'' and to correct a grammatical error in the definition of ``procurement organization.'' This document also clarifies that eye bank and tissue bank registration with FDA must have an active status.