Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 116 Part 4.djvu/394

 116 STAT. 2822 PUBLIC LAW 107-330—DEC. 6, 2002 (2) by striking "total deafness" the second place it appears and inserting "deafness". Deadlines. SEC. 104. ASSESSMENT OF ACOUSTIC TRAUMA ASSOCIATED WITH MILITARY SERVICE FROM WORLD WAR II TO PRESENT. Contracts. (a) ASSESSMENT BY NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. —The Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall seek to enter into an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences for the Academy to perform the activities specified in this section. The Secretary shall seek to enter into the agreement not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act. (b) DUTIES UNDER AGREEMENT. — Under the agreement under subsection (a), the National Academy of Sciences shall do the following: (1) Review and assess available data on hearing loss that could reasonably be expected to have been incurred by members of the Armed Forces during the period from the beginning of World War II to the date of the enactment of this Act. (2) Identify the different sources of acoustic trauma that members of the Armed Forces could reasonably be expected to have been exposed to during the period from the beginning of World War II to the date of the enactment of this Act (3) Determine how much exposure to each source of acoustic trauma identified under paragraph (2) is required to cause or contribute to hearing loss, hearing threshold shift, or tinnitus, as the case may be, and at what noise level. (4) Determine whether or not such hearing loss, hearing threshold shift, or tinnitus, as the case may be, is— (A) immediate or delayed onset; (B) cumulative; (C) progressive; or (D) any combination of subparagraph (A), (B), and (C). (5) Identify age, occupational history, and other factors which contribute to an individual's noise-induced hearing loss. (6) Identify— (A) the period of time at which audiometric measures used by the Armed Forces became adequate to evaluate individual hearing threshold shift; and (B) the period of time at which hearing conservation measures to prevent individual hearing threshold shift were available to members of the Armed Forces, shown separately for each of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, and, for each such service, shown separately for members exposed to different sources of acoustic trauma identified under paragraph (2). (c) REPORT. —Not later than 180 days after the date of the entry into the agreement referred to in subsection (a), the National Academy of Sciences shall submit to the Secretary a report on the activities of the National Academy of Sciences under the agreement, including the results of the activities required by subsection (b). (d) REPORT ON ADMINISTRATION OF BENEFITS FOR HEARING Loss AND TINNITUS.—(1) Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall submit to the Committees on Veterans' Affairs of the Senate and the House of Representatives a report on the claims submitted

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