Biden administration expands benefits for veterans with cancer exposed to burn pits
The Biden administration expanded benefits for veterans with cancer believed to be linked to burn pits where tens of thousands of service members were exposed to toxic waste.
The new step, announced by the White House on Wednesday, expands the PACT Act, a 2022 law that widened access to benefits and care for veterans exposed to burn pits used to dispose of trash and waste on military bases.
The new step lowers the burden for veterans deployed to the Middle East during the Gulf War and after 9/11 to prove certain cancers are related to their service. If they are approved for disability benefits, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) fully covers their related cancer treatment.
PACT "has been transformational and has enabled VA to serve more veterans, more quickly than ever before," President Joe Biden said in a statement.
Biden believes his son Beau's cancer came from Iraq burn pits
For Biden, the law also has a personal dimension. The president has said he believes the brain cancer that killed his son Beau at age 46 in 2015 stemmed from exposure to burn pits while he served in Iraq.
After he was sent to Iraq in 2008, Beau Biden served at Balad Air Force Base, where as much as 200 tons of waste was burned every day in one of the country's largest burn pits, according to Pentagon estimates.
The Biden administration estimates that tens of thousands of veterans diagnosed with the newly added cancers will become eligible for benefits over the next decade, a senior official said. Over that time, the expansion is budgeted at $4.5 billion.
Rejected veterans can reapply for benefits
The expansion took effect last week for some cancers and will take effect for others this week. It applies to veterans who served beginning on Aug. 2, 1990, and covers acute and chronic leukemias, multiple myelomas, cancers of the bone marrow and cancers of the bladder and urinary tract, according to the department.
Veterans whose claims for those cancers have been denied should reapply, the department said.
Tens of thousands exposed in Iraq, Afghanistan
Disposing of trash in open-air burn pits was a common practice, especially at U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, which together burned trash in more than 270 pits in 2010, according to an estimate by the U.S. Defense Department's Central Command.
Another Pentagon estimate found large bases produced 60,000 to 85,000 pounds of waste a day. Waste burned in the pits included chemicals, plastic, rubber, paint, medical waste and feces. The pits produced toxic fumes that soldiers at the bases inadvertently inhaled, which had short and long-term consequences on their health.
Thousands of soldiers exposed to the toxic pits later reported they had contracted serious health problems, including respiratory and neurological conditions, and cancer.
But the VA had not codified any connection between burn pits and these health problems, a link the department website says researchers are still "actively studying." Many veterans exposed to the pits were repeatedly denied coverage for treatment.
After decades of advocacy efforts and campaigns, the PACT Act linked 23 respiratory conditions and cancers to burn pits, expanding eligibility for veterans diagnosed with those illnesses. It also required that health officials provide toxic exposure screenings at all VA medical appointments.
Exposure at asbestos pit in Kuwait
Had she been diagnosed after the PACT Act, Cpl. Katie Benson would not have had to "fight the VA" to have her cancer connected to her service, said her husband, Sri Benson.
The former Army medic from Portland, Oregon, died three years after she was diagnosed, at 35, with biphasic mesothelioma. Her diagnosis of a rare cancer caused by asbestos exposure came a decade after she had been exposed to an asbestos pit at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait.
"Deployment killed her. We just didn't know it yet," Sri Benson said.
But because the condition was rare, her husband said, "the VA was just like, 'Oh, we can't treat you.'" She eventually resorted to private coverage.
K2 veterans covered in new expansion
In the two years since the act passed, more than 1 million veterans and their survivors have received disability benefits under the law, according to the VA.
But other veterans still struggled to get coverage for their conditions.
They included some veterans who served at Karshi-Khanabad Air Base, or K2, a former Soviet base in Uzbekistan bordering Afghanistan where more than 15,700 servicemembers were deployed between 2001 and 2005, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The base was contaminated with a toxic mix of chemicals and radioactive material left over from its years under Soviet rule. Environmental assessments picked up uranium levels 24,000 times higher than those found in nature, according to data obtained by The Associated Press. Cyanide was found in the showers and jet fuel in the soil, according to the nonprofit DAV, formerly Disabled American Veterans. A 2015 U.S. Army study found veterans stationed at the base had a 500% greater chance of developing cancer than their colleagues who hadn't been there.
In 2023, veterans groups sued the Pentagon seeking information about contamination of the base. And "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart, who advocated for the PACT Act, returned to lobby last year for the VA to cover K2 veterans' illnesses caused by radiation exposure.
The plaintiffs identified in the suit are included in the new expansion, and the VA promised last year to expand benefits for K2 veterans diagnosed with "multi-symptom illness" and other unexplained conditions. More than 13,000 K2 veterans are enrolled in VA health care, including more than 11,800 whose conditions are linked to their service, according to the department.
The 31-year wait
The work of expanding the PACT Act and establishing links to additional conditions isn't done.
The senior administration official said the findings of some studies initiated by the PACT Act may not be available until 2027.
Waiting for these links to be made is not a new phenomenon.
A study from DAV and the Military Officers Association of America found it takes the VA an average of 31.4 years for servicemembers' exposure to a toxic chemical to be acknowledged by the government.
Since Katie Benson's death, her husband has been advocating for veterans suffering from illnesses after burn pit exposure. Sri Benson also works for the American Legion as a veterans health policy analyst. The process of getting more conditions covered comes down to "political pressure," he said. "They have to raise their voice and make a stink."
Contributing: Donovan Slack