This record is based on the en banc order denying review and the accompanying dissent. The dissent addresses the meaning of the Veterans’ Dioxin and Radiation Compensation Act of 1984 and 38 C.F.R. § 3.311b, arguing that the statute did not create an exclusive avenue for proving service connection for radiation-exposure claims. It reasons that the governing service-connection provisions in title 38 required individualized adjudication on a case-by-case basis, that the 1984 Act did not expressly or impliedly repeal those provisions, and that VA’s regulation should not be read to foreclose direct proof of causation through scientific or medical evidence. The dissent also discusses later legislation and VA’s 1993 amendment to the regulation as further support for the view that claimants should retain the ability to establish service connection outside the special radiogenic-disease process. The practical significance is that radiation-exposed veterans should not be confined to presumptive or listed-disease theories when the record can support direct service connection.

Radiation-exposure regulations do not necessarily foreclose direct service connection; a claimant may attempt to prove causation with competent scientific or medical evidence even when the disability is not on the regulatory list.

Advocates should treat radiation claims as potentially supporting both the special regulatory route and direct service connection, and should develop evidence for causation rather than stopping at the radiogenic-disease list.

It is an important authority for the proposition that special statutory or regulatory radiation procedures should not be read as eliminating the veteran’s ordinary right to prove service connection by evidence of actual causation. That distinction can be decisive when a disability is not listed as presumptive or radiogenic.

Treating the radiogenic-disease process as the only way to establish service connection for a radiation claim.

A veteran exposed to ionizing radiation develops a condition not listed in VA’s radiogenic-disease regulation and is denied because the disease is not presumptive. Under this principle, counsel can argue that the veteran may still establish direct service connection with a persuasive medical nexus opinion and supporting scientific evidence.

Use this case to oppose categorical denials based solely on the absence of a diagnosis from the radiogenic-disease list and to preserve direct-service-connection arguments in radiation-exposure cases.