 Hi, I'm Mary Deaver with DAV. I'm here with Shane Learman, our Deputy National Legislative Director, and we have some great news about the new National Defense Authorization Act that has just become into law. This is going to implement some much needed changes into the new year 2021. So Shane, can you tell me a little bit about this and what it means for our members? Thanks Mary, and thanks for having me a part of this today. Yeah, there are so many great parts of the National Defense Authorization Act this year that's going to impact disabled veterans and their families. As an inclusion into the package, they're adding three presumptive diseases to age and orange exposure. So this is big news. They're adding bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, and Parkinson's ism. These conditions were recommended and noticed by a report from the National Academy of Sciences in 2016. So it's so exciting to see these three presumptive diseases actually made a part because thousands of veterans are impacted by these three diseases. So this is huge for Vietnam veterans exposed age and orange. And this is something that we as an organization, as well as other major veterans organizations, we've been talking about this for a while. What does this mean for the veteran that may have been in waiting all this time who has one of these presumptive diseases? Well, for those that have been waiting, if they haven't filed a claim for it, they should be doing so now. The VA is going to start implementing the rules and the changes to allow these claims and start processing them. But if a veteran has one of these three diseases, again, the hypothyroidism, the bladder cancer, the Parkinson's ism related to age and orange, they should follow those right now. They shouldn't wait, shouldn't delay because this will get them access to VA benefits and most importantly, VA health care for those conditions. Why is this a big deal for us? Well, Mary, age and orange was widely spread and used throughout all of Vietnam. Over 50 years after Vietnam War ended, veterans are still experiencing long term negative impacts caused by that exposure. So when science relates to those conditions, this is a very big deal because some of these veterans may not be able to get health care through the VA. This allows them to get in and get the treatment and the resources they need as well as their families. Fantastic. It's finally coming to fruition. What else in the National Defense Authorization Act for coming up 2021? What else is in there that is going to be a particular interest to disabled veterans and their families? Well, there are a few new things, a few other things also directly related to other types of toxic exposures. For example, there is a study based on veterans who served at the air base in Pakistan called K2 veterans. There's a study, the VA will be required to study them and their health impacts. And some of the other things that are part of this have to do with other toxic exposure that's just going to make it easier for veterans to either get health care or potentially benefits in the future based on some of these studies and these other provisions within NDAE. So we're looking at this kind of taking effect as soon as possible within the new year, correct? That's correct. It says it has been passed into law. It is now mandated upon VA to implement these. There is no effective date that was mandated in here. So once the law goes into effect, this goes into effect. Is there anything else that you would like to say about the National Defense Authorization Act? Well, DAV is very pleased and excited about this being included. We want to make sure we thank Senator Tester, who's the ranking member on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, who we've worked with very much over the last four years to get these added. And this has been a huge push by DAV, our grassroots efforts, and a lot of our supporters and members. We've been fighting for this for a long time. So I just want to thank you to everybody who was involved and it's about time. Thank you so much, Shane. And happy new year. We're excited to see this legislation passed into law. Thank you, Mary. Happy new year as well.