White House plan could expand burn pit benefits

The White House wants Veterans Affairs to adjust how they review disability claims. This review targets burn pit exposure. One goal is to increase the numbers of those would qualify for burn pit related compensation. The initiative also looks at including a trend of veteran burn pit exposure related claims, along with scientific studies, to justify related compensation awards.

From the Military Times:

The move, scheduled to be announced as part of the White House’s Veterans Day commemoration, comes just a few months after VA officials for the first time began granting presumptive benefits status to some victims of burn pit smoke at overseas combat posts.

But the new initiative looks to go even further, according to senior administration officials familiar with the plan.

Under Biden’s direction, VA leaders have developed a new model for how to add more illnesses to the list of service-connected environmental injuries and will spend coming months using it to see how many conditions — and veterans — could benefit from additional presumptive decisions.

Officials said those decisions would take into account not only available scientific studies but also other sources, including illness trends compiled from veterans claims.

How many veterans could benefit from the changes is unclear. In the past, Veterans Affairs officials have estimated more than 3.5 million troops were exposed to the toxic smoke from burn pits during overseas deployments over the last 20 years.

But only about 250,000 veterans have signed up for the department’s Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pit Registry, designed to track illnesses related to burn pit exposure and ease access to veterans benefits.

And since few overseas combat sites routinely monitored air quality and chemical exposure of troops, directly linking those pits to health issues later in life has proven difficult.

Veterans advocates for years have accused the VA of reacting too slowly to reports of widespread respiratory failures and rare cancers among veterans exposed to the smoke, relying too much on partial scientific studies of the problem.

Typically, for veterans to receive disability benefits (which can total thousands of dollars a month) they must prove that their ailments are directly connected to injuries or illnesses which happened as a direct result of their military service. In toxic exposure cases, that usually means combing through military medical and duty records.

The Military Times has more information in this article.

Category: Veterans Issues