A new law will expand health care coverage to millions of veterans exposed to burn pits and other military toxins.
According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, military burn pits were used in Iraq and Afghanistan to dispose of things like chemicals, rubber, plastics and medical and human waste among other items.
The Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Promises to Address Comprehensive Toxics bill, known as the PACT Act, was signed into law by President Joe Biden on Aug. 10 after first failing and then passing in the Senate 86-11 last month.
Previously:Senate passes PACT Act to help US vets exposed to burn pits, heads to Biden for signature
Read this:Tillis, Klobuchar introduce legislation to help troops exposed to toxic burn pits
Here’s what you need to know about the new law
In his remarks before signing the act into law, Biden said the 1991 Agent Orange Act for veterans exposed to the toxic substance in Vietnam “laid the groundwork” for the newest law. Biden was a co-sponsor of the Agent Orange Act.
That said that when he was vice president, he visited Iraq more than 20 times and saw the burn pits.
“You could actually see some of it in the air — burn pits the size of football fields that incinerated wastes of war, such as tires, poisonous chemicals, jet fuel, and so much more I won’t even mention,” Biden said.
The pits, the president said, were less than half a mile from where soldiers slept or ate.
“Toxic smoke, thick with poison, spreading through the air and into the lungs of our troops,” he said.
The president said service members came back from war with “headaches, numbness, dizziness and cancer, and counted his late son Maj. Beau Biden as one of them.
While the VA has acknowledged that smoke from the burn pits “may have short-term and long-term health effects,” there is “conflicting and insufficient research” to show that the health problems result from the pits.
A Rutgers University article identifies one of the school’s professors as being tapped to work with the VA to create an evidence-based database that tracks the different diseases affecting veterans who served in the Gulf wars.
North Carolina senator opposes act
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, who has filed past legislation and hosted a virtual town hall meeting about burn pits, voted against the bill.
In a statement last month, Tillis said he drafted portions of the legislative text that includes the Toxic Exposure in the American Military Act that he filed in 2020, proposing to improve healthcare for veterans exposed to toxic substances.
“Congress has an obligation to ensure the VA can effectively and efficiently implement any comprehensive toxic exposure legislation and, unfortunately, I continue to have reservations about the Department’s ability to do so,” Tillis said.
Tillis said he recently heard VA Secretary Denis McDonough “describe the challenges the VA is facing in meeting current obligations.”
“It’s clear that the Department does not have the capacity to properly implement the PACT Act,” Tillis said. “This legislation will have adverse operational and administrative impacts, and I remain concerned that it will result in increased wait times, delays in receiving care, and a substantial increase in the claims backlog.”
Shortly after Biden signed the act into law, McDonough issued a statement saying the VA is ready to implement the act.
“We at VA will stop at nothing to make sure that every veteran and every survivor gets the PACT Act-related care and benefits they deserve,” he said.
Veteran advocacy groups like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, American Legion and Association of the U.S. Army have backed the act.
What does the act do
The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America advocacy group estimates that up to 3.5 million veterans have been exposed to burn pits and said the VA previously…
Read More: VA details how veterans can now file toxic exposure claims