Biden announces plan to ID, treat vets’ ills from toxic air

President Joe Biden, whose son Beau was an Iraq war veteran, used his first Veterans Day in office to announce an effort to better understand, identify and treat medical conditions suffered by troops deployed to toxic environments.

The effort centers on lung problems suffered by troops who breathe in toxins and the potential connection between rare cancers and time spent overseas breathing poor air, according to senior White House officials. Federal officials plan to start by examining lung and breathing problems but say they will expand the effort as science identifies potential new connections.

"They are going to make it easier to make the claims that someone has been exposed to a burn pit or toxic chemicals, it was harder to make the case before," U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said.

Klobuchar says it’s a key step to getting veterans care.

"I’m excited for our veterans that have been shouldering this, many times on their own, their exposure to burn pits," Klobuchar said.

Amie Muller, of Woodbury, deployed to Iraq twice during her military career with the Minnesota National Guard. It was there where Muller was believed to have been exposed to toxins from burn pits, causing the pancreatic cancer that led to her death in 2017.

"She was loving and caring and full of life," SMSgt (Ret.) Julie Tomaska, a Minnesota veteran, said of Muller.

"She didn’t fit any of the criteria for pancreatic cancer, I think when people see it, they reflect, this could be my sister, this could be my mother," Tomaska added.

Tomaska served with Muller overseas and now helps with The Amie Muller Foundation and the nonprofit Burn Pits 360, which help raise awareness of the health effects of the burn pits on those who served.

"It’s a step in the right direction — I look at it more symbolic more than anything else," Tomaska said.

As far as Biden’s announcement, Tomaska says more needs to be done to get benefits and care more quickly to those who are suffering.

"We’re just asking to be heard… we’re asking, just access to care… it’s a very simple ask."

The new federal effort is also designed to make it easier for veterans to make claims based on their symptoms, to collect more data from troops who are suffering and to give veterans more time to make medical claims after symptoms such as asthma and sinus problems develop.

“We’re discovering there is a whole host of lung conditions related to deployment,” said Dr. Richard Meehan, an immunologist and rheumatologist. The retired U.S. Naval Reserve officer, who served in the Mideast during the 1990s and again in 2008, is co-director of the Denver-based National Jewish Health Center of Excellence on Deployment-Related Lung Disease.

Biden has hypothesized about a potential link between his son Beau’s death from an aggressive brain cancer after returning from Iraq and his exposure to toxins in the air, particularly around massive pits where the military disposes of waste by burning. There’s no scientific evidence to suggest that link.

Beau Biden’s death was a defining moment for Joe Biden, one he said affected his decision to sit out the 2016 presidential race. The younger Biden deployed from October 2008 until September 2009 as a captain in the Delaware Army National Guard. In 2013, he was diagnosed with a tumor, and he died two years later at age 46.

Meehan, who along with his colleagues is investigating the role of inhalation exposures among military personnel who were deployed to Southwest Asia, said it isn’t only burn pits that are the issue — the air quality in some countries is so poor that troops would not be allowed to work there under civilian federal workplace guidelines. The center receives funding from the Department of Defense, along with private donors.

Meehan has worried that troops who came back with breathing problems are being compared with other Americans to determine whether there is a higher rate of lung illness. But those deployed with the U.S. military are in peak physical condition, stronger and more fit than average Americans. To come back unable to make it up stairs without getting winded or unable to lift anything without breathing heavily is highly unusual.

“When you compare them to another group, you have to compare them to another healthy, fit group,” Meehan said. “That’s one of the problems overlooked in surveys that have shown no higher incidence of cancer."

The new rules will allow veterans to make claims within 10 years of service, and the government has changed how it determines what symptoms count and why.

The U.S. military has been aware for years of health risks associated with open-air burn pits. In 2013, federal investigators found a military camp in Afghanistan was operating a pit for more than five years, nearly four times longer than Pentagon rules allowed. The Defense Department has said burn pits should be used only as a temporary last resort when no other alternative trash disposal method is feasible, still they have persisted for years.