that were not service connected. The Chief Benefits Director may request an advisory medical opinion from the VA Chief Medical Director or from an outside consultant selected according to the provisions of its final rules. The Chief Benefits Director then submits his decision on the claim to the regional office of jurisdiction, which will make the final determination (12). The VA requests assistance from the NTPR teams in documenting partic- ipation and determining radiation dose. The NTPR teams research all claims for the VA that have participation in the atmospheric nuclear tests as a basis. Chapter 2 identifies statistics on the numbers of these claims researched by the teams. Tables 5 through 8 provide statistics on NTPR responses to administrative claims for compensation from the VA. As noted in table 5, NIPR has given radiation dose information to the VA for 736 claims diagnosed as possibly radiogenic and for 1,566 claims diagnosed as non-radiogenic. Until September 1985, the VA always requested radiation dose information from NTPR on veterans of the atmospheric nuclear testing even if the veterans did not report an illness considered to be possibly radiogenic. The NTPR, in turn, sent letters to the VA asking if reported symptoms, such as dizziness or shortness of breath, were related to a radiogenic illness. Less than one percent of the replies from VA indicated an illness that could be radiogenic. At the time this volume went to press, the VA had yet to respond to 483 such requests for clarification. These 483 claims are listed in tables 5, 7, and 8 as non-radiogenic because of the information previously supplied by VA to DOD. According to the VA, 83 of the veterans have been compensated, although only 23 have been compensated solely as a result of their radiation exposure. The remaining 60 veterans were compensated for other reasons, such as evidence that the illness became manifest while the veteran was still on active duty (13). 61