VA, DoD seek better data on burn-pit exposure - Military News | News From Afghanistan, Iraq And Around The World - Military Times

VA, DoD seek better data on burn-pit exposure

As Veterans Affairs Department officials laid out a plan for the Institute of Medicine to look for links between certain symptoms and burn-pit exposure, they also quizzed Defense Department scientists about what they’ve already done in that regard.

“We have a particular need to solve this as best as we can,” said Victoria Cassano, acting director of VA’s Environmental Agents Service. “You tell us what the science is. You tell us what the evidence is. Do we have enough to [move] forward with a presumption or not?”

At the first meeting of the IOM’s Committee on the Long-Term Health Consequences of Exposure to Burn Pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, Cassano asked the panel to help VA determine if the symptoms of several sick service members could be linked to exposure to smoke from open-air burn pits in the war zones.

If so, Congress could create a law saying veterans potentially connected could automatically receive a “presumption of service connection” for those ailments, similar to a law that assumes service connection for Vietnam Veterans whose diseases could have come from exposure to the defoliant Agent Orange in Vietnam.

After Military Times first began writing about the 24-acre burn pit at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, in late 2008, more than 500 people came forward to say they believe they had been sickened by the burn pits. Their issues range from respiratory — including more than 50 cases of bronchiolitis documented by a doctor at Vanderbilt University, as well as several cases of chronic bronchitis, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder — to neurological conditions to cancer.

R. Craig Postlewaite, the Pentagon’s acting director for force health protection and readiness, quickly went over a series of studies conducted by the Defense Department that found that air samples taken at Balad should cause no long-term health effects.

But he acknowledged that respiratory issues had gone up in service members who had deployed — although not specifically chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma. He also said a study of 25 serum samples showed no elevated levels of dioxin from service members at Balad.

Postlewaite said that in the past, the onus has been on veterans to prove exposure for disability benefits purposes.

“We’re trying to move beyond that,” he said, adding that the Defense Department is trying to be more open and transparent.

Postlewaite did not discuss the research done at Vanderbilt University.

One of the scientists in charge of the air sampling at Balad several years ago, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Darrin Curtis, told Military Times the data from that sampling was “worthless” because the data-gathering equipment depended on weather patterns and power supplies that could not always be predicted or controlled.

Postlewaite acknowledged some limitations on the data that is in hand. “We can’t assume everyone was exposed to the same concentrations,” he said. “We do acknowledge there are shorter-term effects, and that service members have reported long-term effects, as well. It is plausible that a smaller number of service members may be affected by longer-term health effects.”

Commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan have said they will replace burn pits with incinerators wherever feasible, but some say it will not be possible, Postlewaite said.

But as he and other Defense Department officials spoke, the questions began. Scientists worried that many of the military studies had not been peer-reviewed, that some had not been published, that a “study” of 25 serum samples shouldn’t be called a “study,” that the military had not conducted air-dispersion models to see where the smoke from the Balad burn pit might travel, and that even a couple of years’ worth of air sampling data would not qualify as enough to make any conclusions had the information been gathered in the U.S.

Coleen Baird, program manager for the Army’s Environmental Medicine Program, explained that the serum study was really just a pilot program to see if a broader study was warranted, and she agreed that she does not yet have enough data — which she has been saying all along, even as she has worked to gather more. She said military researchers still need to determine whether gathering air samples is even worthwhile, or if they should look in another direction.

“We did it to see what we would find,” she said of the air sampling.

Baird also said she believed the respiratory study Postlewaite mentioned used “very combined rates” that didn’t show a true picture of what was happening to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

First, “deployed” meant anywhere without a permanent medical facility — so it could include places beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.

Second, when she visited Iraq in the fall, medical providers told her that if troops believe their watery eyes or runny nose are caused by something — sand, wind or burn pit — they generally won’t go see a doctor. So most people who had ailments they now believe are connected to burn-pit exposure would not have been reported in databases for the study.

And third, she said, officials did, in fact, find a measurable increase in the rate of post-deployment chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder — from about 20 per 1,000 people-years to 30 per 1,000 people-years.

Rep. Tim Bishop, R-N.Y., also briefed the IOM committee about what Congress has done over the past year to try to ban the burn pits, create a registry of possibly exposed service members, and educate VA doctors about the potential exposures and symptoms. He read off a list of service members Military Times documented who lived in Balad’s H6 housing area — one mile from the base’s 10-acre burn pit, which was closed last October — who are now sick.

“Our country’s difficult experience with Agent Orange and the Gulf War have taught us we have to be vigilant,” he said. “This study by the National Academies is an important step forward. My colleagues and I in Congress will continue to monitor this situation very closely.”

For more coverage

• War-zone burn pits