Asbestos exposure and lung disease: a claim map

The claim map

A claim map follows one veteran's route: what happened in service, the condition that follows from it, and the conditions claimed secondary to that one. Each box shows how the Board ruled at that step. Few asbestos decisions also ruled on a secondary claim, so the second step counts all veterans who claimed a condition secondary to an asbestos-related lung disease.

What happened in service

Asbestos exposure

Work around asbestos in service: ships' boiler and engine rooms, shipyards, insulation, construction, or brake and vehicle repair

9,152 Board decisions that record asbestos exposure

exposure must be shownM21-1 VIII.iii.7

Step 1 · exposure must be shown

Asbestos-related lung disease

17.5% granted

226 of 1,289 veterans · all asbestos-related lung disease claims 20.8%

secondary38 CFR 3.310(a)

Step 2 · claimed secondary to asbestos-related lung disease (all veterans)

• Sleep apnea DC 6847

  14.6% · 14 of 96

• COPD DC 6604

  19.1% · 18 of 94

• Hypertension DC 7101

  7.7% · 3 of 39

• Coronary artery disease DC 7005

  35.0% · 7 of 20

• Diabetes DC 7913

  6.7% · 1 of 15

Step 1 bars: share granted in Board decisions that record asbestos exposure; the red mark is all veterans. Step 2 bars: all veterans who claimed the condition secondary to asbestos-related lung disease. One count per veteran; a remand counts as not granted. Conditions with at least 15 veterans.

Is there a presumption for asbestos exposure in the military?

No. To win, the evidence must show the exposure in service, a diagnosed disease that has been tied to asbestos, and a medical link between the two (M21-1 VIII.iii.7.A.1.a). VA does help with the first step: its claims manual rates Navy jobs by how likely they were to involve asbestos, and tells raters to concede that probability for a veteran of any branch who held one of those jobs (M21-1 VIII.iii.7.C.1.b). For other jobs, any credible evidence can show it: personnel records, the veteran's own account, buddy statements (M21-1 VIII.iii.7.C.1.c). In decisions that record asbestos exposure, the Board granted 17.5% of these lung claims (226 of 1,289), against 20.8% for all veterans with the same conditions.

9,152 Board decisions from 2020 to 2025 record asbestos exposure. This page counts their claims for the lung conditions VA's claims manual ties to asbestos (M21-1 VIII.iii.7.A.2): asbestosis, pleural plaques or effusion (rated like asbestosis), interstitial lung disease, and lung cancer or mesothelioma of the lung lining.

Condition, in decisions that record asbestos exposure	Granted	Veterans	Share	All veterans
Asbestosis	135	865	15.6%	14.9%
Interstitial lung disease	41	196	20.9%	20.5%
Lung cancer or mesothelioma	43	225	19.1%	26.5%
Pleural plaques or effusion	12	29	41.4%	27.9%

Almost every asbestosis claim at the Board comes with a record of asbestos exposure, so the two columns match there. Lung cancer did worse in asbestos decisions than for all veterans with the claim. Respiratory cancers are on the herbicide and burn pit lists, so some other veterans did not have to prove a link; asbestos never carries that presumption.

Decisions that record asbestos exposureAll veterans, same conditions

2020

12.3%

16.7%

2021

17.6%

17.7%

2022

19.5%

19.5%

2023

17.8%

22.1%

2024

21.2%

26.4%

2025

21.9%

23.7%

Share of decided claims granted; a remand counts as not granted. One count per veteran. Service-connection claims only: asbestosis (DC 6833), pleural plaques or effusion (6845), interstitial lung disease (6825), and lung cancer or mesothelioma (6819, claims that name a cancer).

The share granted rose from 12.3% in 2020 decisions to 21.9% in 2025, while the number of claims fell from 318 to 137. The data does not show why.

The exposure decides most cases

Why are asbestos lung claims denied?

Mostly over the exposure. For 318 denials, the Board's note named the exposure or the service in 80.8% of them, the medical link in 66.4% and the diagnosis in 37.1%. When the decision found the exposure established, the Board granted 28.8% of the lung claims (214 of 744); when it did not, 2.2% (12 of 545).

Share granted

Exposure established

28.8%

Exposure not established

2.2%

Share of decided claims granted; a remand counts as not granted. One count per veteran. Whether the exposure was established is an AI-extracted flag for the whole decision.

The split is partly built in: the Board cannot grant without finding the exposure, so a grant almost always comes with that finding. The useful part is the other side. Once the exposure was accepted, 71.2% of the claims still were not granted. In the denials read for this page, the Board weighed a long smoking history, later asbestos work in civilian jobs, or imaging that did not confirm asbestosis.

Which Navy jobs does VA treat as exposed to asbestos?

VA's claims manual lists Navy ratings with a probability of exposure. Highly probable includes boiler technicians and boilermakers, firemen, pipefitters, water tenders, hull maintenance technicians, fire control and sonar technicians, instrumentmen and utilitiesmen; probable includes machinist's mates, enginemen, electrician's mates, aviation machinist's and structural mechanics, builders and painters (M21-1 VIII.iii.7.C.1.b). The list is not exclusive, and other common sources are shipyards, insulation, demolition, construction and brake and clutch repair (M21-1 VIII.iii.7.C.1.d). Navy veterans' lung claims were granted 21.9% of the time (114 of 521), against 12.3% for Army veterans (15 of 122).

Only 110 of the lung claims have a summary that names a shipboard or trade job, or the Navy job table, and they were granted 33.6% of the time, against 16.0% for the rest. The branch is not recorded for 537 of the claims.

The second step: conditions that follow asbestos-related lung disease

What conditions are claimed secondary to asbestosis?

Across all veterans, COPD claimed secondary to an asbestos-related lung disease was granted for 18 of 94 (19.1%), sleep apnea for 14 of 96 (14.6%), coronary artery disease for 7 of 20 and hypertension for 3 of 39. VA's claims manual notes that significant asbestosis leads to cor pulmonale, heart disease from the strain of the lung disease (M21-1 VIII.iii.7.A.2.c).

Claimed secondary to an asbestos-related lung disease (all veterans)	Granted	Veterans	Share
Sleep apnea	14	96	14.6%
COPD	18	94	19.1%
Hypertension	3	39	7.7%
Coronary artery disease	7	20	35.0%
Diabetes	1	15	6.7%

The numbers are small. VA does not rate most lung conditions separately from each other: one rating goes to the predominant condition, raised a level when the whole disability warrants it (38 CFR 4.96(a)). A COPD claim on top of asbestosis can still matter when the COPD is the worse of the two.

Does the lung disease have to be granted first?

In practice, yes. Among asbestos decisions that ruled on both, the Board granted 10 of 17 secondary claims when it granted the lung condition, and 1 of 29 when it did not.

Where the lung condition was not on appeal, usually because it was already service connected, 19.0% of the secondary claims were granted. Those claims stood on a medical opinion about the link.

Read the decisions

Recent decisions, with the Board's reasoning as summarized by AI and checked against the decision text:

• A25107305, December 2025: asbestosis granted for an Army veteran who served from 1961 to 1964. The Board found credible the testimony about repairing brakes and working in welding booths lined with asbestos blankets in vehicle maintenance, which the service records supported; the VA examiner had looked only at the infantry job.
• A25096093, November 2025: pleural plaques with pleural thickening granted for a Navy boiler technician and firefighter. VA had conceded the exposure from the job; the Board found the VA opinions inadequate because they turned on the lack of an asbestosis diagnosis, and weighed a private physician's opinion as equal, so the benefit of the doubt applied.
• A25083777, September 2025: pleural plaques, asbestosis, interstitial lung disease and COPD granted for a Navy boilerman who served from 1966 to 1969, a job conceded as highly probable for exposure; the claim was carried on by the surviving spouse.
• A25107883, December 2025: asbestosis denied for a Navy aviation boatswain's mate. The exposure was conceded from the job, but the Board found the veteran did not have asbestosis: exposure alone is not a disability.
• A25094137, October 2025: lung cancer denied for a World War II seaman whose exposure was conceded. The VA opinion weighed more than thirty years of smoking and thirteen years at a foundry with asbestos after service.

What the data cannot tell you

The asbestos group comes from an AI-extracted flag for asbestos exposure in each decision, so it includes decisions where the exposure was only claimed. Whether the exposure was established is also an AI-extracted flag, set for the whole decision. The lung conditions are matched by rating code; lung cancer counts only when the claim names a cancer, because the same code also holds general respiratory claims. Service-connection claims only; rating appeals are left out. The second step counts all veterans, not only those in this group, and only claims the Board marked as secondary to one of these lung conditions. Denial notes are AI-extracted. These are historical outcomes, not predictions.

For representatives

• Build the exposure first: the job title and duties from personnel records, the Navy job table in M21-1 VIII.iii.7.C.1.b, and a detailed statement of where and how the veteran worked around asbestos, with buddy statements where possible.
• Get imaging that shows the disease. Some denials here turned on a CT scan that did not confirm asbestosis seen on an earlier X-ray; ask for a pulmonologist's reading.
• Ask the examiner to address the in-service exposure against smoking and any civilian asbestos work. The manual notes that the latent period runs ten to forty-five or more years and that the length of exposure is not a factor (M21-1 VIII.iii.7.A.2.d).
• After the grant, screen for COPD and heart problems from the lung disease, and claim them secondary to it.