delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case we decide whether a regulation of the Department of Veterans Affairs, 38 CFR § 3.358(c)(3) (1993), requiring a claimant for certain veterans’ benefits to prove that disability resulted from negligent treatment by the VA or an accident occurring during treatment, is сonsistent with the controlling statute, 38 U. S. C. § 1151 (1988 ed., Supp. V). We hold that it is not.
I
Fred R Gardner, a veteran of the Korean conflict, received surgical treatment in a VA facility for a herniated disc unrelated to his prior military service. Gardner then had pain and weakness in his left calf, ankle, and foot, which he alleged was the result of the surgery. He claimed disability benefits under § 1151,
1
which provides that the VA will compensate for “an injury, or an aggravation of an injury,” that occurs “as the result of hospitalization, mediсal or surgical treatment, or the pursuit of a course of vocational rehabilitation” provided under any of the laws administered by the VA, so long as the injury was “not the result of such veteran’s own willful misconduct. . . .” The VA and the Board
*117
of Veterans’ Appeals denied Gardner’s claim for benefits, on the ground that § 1151, as interpreted by 38 CFR § 3.358(c)(3) (1993), only covers an injury if it “proximately resulted [from] carelessness, negligence, lack of proper skill, error in judgment, or similar instances of indicated fault” on the part of the VA, or from the occurrence during treatment or rehabilitation of an “accident,” defined as an “unforeseen, untoward” event. The Court of Veterans Appeals reversed, holding that § 1151 neither imposes, nor authorizes adoption of thе fault-or-accident requirement set out in § 3.358(c)(3),
Gardner
v.
Derwinski,
II
Despite the absence from the statutory language of so much as a word about fault
2
on the part of the VA, the Government propоses two interpretations in attempting to reveal a fault requirement implicit in the text of § 1151, the first being that fault inheres in the concept of compensable “injury.” We think that no such inference can be drawn in this instance, however. Even though “injury” can оf course carry a fault connotation, see Webster’s New International Dictionary 1280 (2d ed. 1957) (an “actionable wrong”), it just as certainly need not do so, see
ibid.
(“[d]amage or hurt done to or suffered by a person or thing”). The most, then, that the Government could claim on the basis of this term is the existence of an ambiguity to be resolved in favor of a fault requirement (assuming that such a resolution would be possi
*118
ble after applying the rule that interpretive doubt is to be resolved in the veteran’s favоr, see
King
v.
St. Vincent's Hospital,
Textual cross-reference confirms this conclusion. “Injury” is employed elsewhere in the veterans’ benefits statutes as an instance of the neutral term “disability,” appearing within a series whose other terms exemplify debility free from any fault connotation. See 38 U. S. C. § 1701(1) (1988 ed., Supp. V) (“The term ‘disability’ means a disease, injury, or other physical or mental defect”). The serial treatment thus indicates that the same fault-free sense should be attributed to the term “injury” itself.
Jarecki
v.
G. D. Searle & Co.,
In a second attempt to impose a VA-fault requirement, the Government suggests that the “as a result of” language of § 1151 signifies a proximate cause requirement that incorporates a fault test. Once again, we find the suggestion implausible. This language is naturally read simply to impose the requirement of a causal connection between the “injury” or “aggravation of an injury” and “hospitalization, medical or surgical treatmеnt, or the pursuit of a course of vocational rehabilitation.” Assuming that the connection is limited to proximate causation so as to narrow the class of compensable cases, that narrowing occurs by eliminating remote consequences, not by requiring a demonstration of fault. 3 See generally W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Pros-ser and Keeton on Law of Torts §42 (5th ed. 1984). The eccentricity of reading a fault requirement into the “result *120 of” language is underscored by the incongruity of applying it to the fourth category for which compensation is available under § 1151, cases of injury resulting from a veteran’s “pursuit of vocational rehabilitation.” If Congress had meant to require a showing of VA fault, it would have been odd to refer to “the pursuit [by the veteran] of vocationаl rehabilitation” rather than to “the provision [by the VA] of vocational rehabilitation.”
The poor fit of this language with any implicit requirement of VA fault is made all the more obvious by the statute’s express treatment of a claimant’s fault. The same sеntence of §1151 that contains the terms “injury” and “as a result of” restricts compensation to those whose additional disability was not the result of their “own willful misconduct.” This reference to claimant’s fault in a statute keeping silent about any fault on the VA’s part invokes the rule that “[w]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusiоn or exclusion.”
Russello
v.
United States,
In sum, the text and reasonable inferences from it give a clear answer against the Government, and that, as we have said, is “‘the end of the matter.’”
Good Samaritan Hospital
v.
Shalala,
The Government contends that Congress ratified the VA’s practice of requiring a showing of fault when it reenacted the predecessor of § 1151 in 1934, or, alternatively, that Con
*121
gress’s legislative silence as to the VA’s regulatory practice over the last 60 years serves as an implicit endorsement of its fault-based policy. There is an obvious trump to the reenactment argument, however, in the rule that “[w]here the law is plain, subsequent reenactment does not constitute an adoption of a previоus administrative construction.”
Demarest
v.
Manspeaker,
Congress’s post-1934 legislative silence on the VA’s fault approach to § 1151 is likewise unavailing to the Government. As we have recently made clear, congressional silence “ ‘lacks persuasive significance,’ ”
Central Bank of Denver, N. A.
v.
First Interstate Bank of Denver, N. A.,
Finally, we dispose of the Government’s argument that the VA’s regulatory interpretation of § 1151 deserves judicial deference due to its undisturbed endurance for 60 years. A regulation’s age is no antidote to clear inconsistency with a statute, and the fact, again, that § 3.358(c)(3) flies against the plain language of the statutory text exempts courts from any obligation to defer to it.
Dole
v.
Steelworkers,
Ill
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Notes
Section 1151 is invoked typically to provide benеfits to veterans for nonservice related disabilities, although it is not so limited by its terms. See Pet. for Cert. 6, n. 3. The statute’s history begins in 1924 when Congress enacted § 213 of the World War Veterans’ Act, 1924, ch. 320, 43 Stat. 623. Section 213 was repealed in 1933, as part of the Economy Act оf 1933, ch. 3, Tit. I, § 17, 48 Stat. 11-12, and reenacted in nearly the same form in 1934, Act of Mar. 28, 1934, ch. 102, Tit. Ill, §31, 48 Stat. 526.
“Fault” is shorthand for fault-or-accident, the test imposed by the regulation. Section 3.358(c)(3) leaves the additional burden imposed by the “accident” requirement unclear, defining thе term to mean simply an “unforeseen, untoward” event. Although the appropriate scope of the “accident” requirement is not before us, on one plausible reading of the regulation some burden additional to the statutory obligation would be imposed as an alternative to fault.
We do not, of course, intend to east any doubt on the regulations insofar as they exclude coverage for incidents of a disease’s or injury’s natural progression, occurring after the datе of treatment. See 38 CFR § 3.358(b)(2) (1993). VA action is not the cause of the disability in these situations. Nor do we intend to exclude application of the doctrine volenti non fit injuria. See generally M. Bigelow, Law of Torts 39-43 (8th ed. 1907). It would be unreasonable, for example, to beliеve that Congress intended to compensate veterans for the necessary consequences of treatment to which they consented (i. e., compensating a veteran who consents to the amputation of a gangrenous limb for the loss of the limb).
At the time of the 1934 reenactment, the regulation in effect precluded compensation for the “ ‘usual after[-]results of approved medical care and treatment properly administered.’” See Brief for Respondent 31.