Posted on Mar 9, 2022
Sick veterans demand medical coverage for illnesses caused by burn pits
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https://www.npr.org/2022/03/09/ [login to see] /sick-veterans-demand-medical-coverage-for-illnesses-caused-by-burn-pits
Army veteran Rafael Rivera didn't always think much about his future or his health, especially while on patrol in southern Afghanistan, smoking cigarettes when he was deployed there for 13 months starting in May 2010.
"Having made your last will and testament three times by the time you're 20, you don't have thinking, long-term," Rivera said.
When he came home from Afghanistan, Rivera focused on his health, quit smoking and changed his diet. He also started teaching yoga. Despite these efforts, he said he never started to feel healthy.
"A year went by without having smoked a cigarette. And like, 'I'm still a coughing up this (expletive),'" said Rivera, who was a mechanic and driver while in Afghanistan. "Like, wait a minute, two years goes by and I'm still struggling?"
Like millions of troops, Rivera was exposed to open pits of trash burned with jet fuel, which is a known carcinogen. Now he gets winded from seemingly simple exercise; his doctors tell him he's got constrictive bronchiolitis.
Army veteran Rafael Rivera didn't always think much about his future or his health, especially while on patrol in southern Afghanistan, smoking cigarettes when he was deployed there for 13 months starting in May 2010.
"Having made your last will and testament three times by the time you're 20, you don't have thinking, long-term," Rivera said.
When he came home from Afghanistan, Rivera focused on his health, quit smoking and changed his diet. He also started teaching yoga. Despite these efforts, he said he never started to feel healthy.
"A year went by without having smoked a cigarette. And like, 'I'm still a coughing up this (expletive),'" said Rivera, who was a mechanic and driver while in Afghanistan. "Like, wait a minute, two years goes by and I'm still struggling?"
Like millions of troops, Rivera was exposed to open pits of trash burned with jet fuel, which is a known carcinogen. Now he gets winded from seemingly simple exercise; his doctors tell him he's got constrictive bronchiolitis.
Sick veterans demand medical coverage for illnesses caused by burn pits
Posted from npr.org
Burn Pits
Afghanistan
Hazmat
Cancer
Posted 2 y ago
Responses: 2
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."When he came home from Afghanistan, Rivera focused on his health, quit smoking and changed his diet. He also started teaching yoga. Despite these efforts, he said he never started to feel healthy.
"A year went by without having smoked a cigarette. And like, 'I'm still a coughing up this (expletive),'" said Rivera, who was a mechanic and driver while in Afghanistan. "Like, wait a minute, two years goes by and I'm still struggling?"
Like millions of troops, Rivera was exposed to open pits of trash burned with jet fuel, which is a known carcinogen. Now he gets winded from seemingly simple exercise; his doctors tell him he's got constrictive bronchiolitis.
The United States Department of Veterans Affairs routinely denies the vast majority of claims for a long list of cancers and other maladies linked to toxic exposure. It took 50 years for the VA to accept all the conditions caused by Agent Orange in Vietnam, and history is repeating itself, pulmonologist Dr. Anthony Szema said.
"That's putting all the soldiers who actually have constrictive bronchiolitis in a quagmire - that they're never going to get diagnosed and they're never going to get treated," Szema said.
Szema, who directs the International Center of Excellence in Deployment Health and Medical Geosciences, says he is glad the Biden administration has been adding new illnesses to the VA's list of diagnoses connected to burn pits. Biden added several more in his first State of the Union address this month but at this piecemeal rate, Szema said many vets will die of cancer before the VA accepts their claims.
"Soldiers have a ticking time bomb that it will get progressively worse over time," he said."...
..."When he came home from Afghanistan, Rivera focused on his health, quit smoking and changed his diet. He also started teaching yoga. Despite these efforts, he said he never started to feel healthy.
"A year went by without having smoked a cigarette. And like, 'I'm still a coughing up this (expletive),'" said Rivera, who was a mechanic and driver while in Afghanistan. "Like, wait a minute, two years goes by and I'm still struggling?"
Like millions of troops, Rivera was exposed to open pits of trash burned with jet fuel, which is a known carcinogen. Now he gets winded from seemingly simple exercise; his doctors tell him he's got constrictive bronchiolitis.
The United States Department of Veterans Affairs routinely denies the vast majority of claims for a long list of cancers and other maladies linked to toxic exposure. It took 50 years for the VA to accept all the conditions caused by Agent Orange in Vietnam, and history is repeating itself, pulmonologist Dr. Anthony Szema said.
"That's putting all the soldiers who actually have constrictive bronchiolitis in a quagmire - that they're never going to get diagnosed and they're never going to get treated," Szema said.
Szema, who directs the International Center of Excellence in Deployment Health and Medical Geosciences, says he is glad the Biden administration has been adding new illnesses to the VA's list of diagnoses connected to burn pits. Biden added several more in his first State of the Union address this month but at this piecemeal rate, Szema said many vets will die of cancer before the VA accepts their claims.
"Soldiers have a ticking time bomb that it will get progressively worse over time," he said."...
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If only they had some of these cheap surgical mask, I'm sure they would be fine now, if the mask stops virus's it would surly have stopped any of those contaminates .
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