Toxic exposure on military bases sparks battle for health benefits
Every day for 10 months in 2012, Peter Antioho walked through dense, black smoke from an open burn pit on his Army base in Afghanistan. Human and medical waste, plastic water bottles, ammunition and chemicals were among the materials burned with diesel fuel 24 hours a day.
Five years later, Antioho was diagnosed with an aggressive, terminal brain cancer called glioblastoma multiforme. The West Point graduate and Berlin resident was 31 when he was diagnosed, young for this cancer. He was second in command at his base, but now, with symptoms that include memory loss and impaired vision, speech and motor function, he can’t work.
He has submitted medical records and statements by doctors, his commander and others to prove a link between his cancer and the burn pits, but has been rejected for related federal disability benefits twice.
The burn pit “was always smoldering and there was no way to go around it,” Antioho said in a statement to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
He is in the process of requesting another review with the help of the Connecticut Veterans Legal Center.
Across the country, veterans are contending exposure to burn pits and other airborne toxins has made them sick. But of the 12,378 burn pit disability claims filed between June 2007 and last March 31, only 20 percent (2,425) were granted VA disability benefits.
After 9/11, open pits were the predominant method of waste disposal on Iraq and Afghanistan military bases. A wide range of items, including paint, petroleum, rubber and food waste, were burned. In 2010, Congress banned the pits except where there aren’t feasible alternatives.
A major concern is that burn pit exposure will be like Agent Orange exposure, which resulted in Vietnam War veterans fighting for decades for benefits for related illnesses, said Stephen Kennedy, Connecticut team leader of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). The hope is to avoid “turning it into this whole nightmare Vietnam veterans are going through,” said Kennedy, of Fairfield.
Veterans are pinning their hopes on Congressional action. The proposed Burn Pits Accountability Act would require the Department of Defense to track burn pit exposure of service members, include it in all medical and military records, and share it with the VA. All exposed veterans would be enrolled in the VA’s Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pit Registry, now a voluntary questionnaire. Another bill would permit designees to add cause of death to registry data on deceased veterans. Both registry proposals aim to determine the extent of exposures, illnesses and clusters.
According to the VA, 3.5 million veterans who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East are eligible to record their exposure in the burn pit registry, a tool to help identify health conditions possibly related to burn pits. As of April 1, there are 173,195 veterans enrolled. State breakdowns updated to Dec. 31, 2018, show 832 from Connecticut. Advocates contend many veterans aren’t aware of the registry.