Overexposed: How veterans can get help for toxic chemical poisoning

Over the past several years The Bee has permitted me to rant about the long-term effects of Agent Orange on Vietnam veterans, their children and grandchildren.

I am grateful, but I have been neglectful in sharing the full story of how our servicemen and women, and their families, have been exposed to an inventory of toxic chemicals the “rainbow herbicides” of Vietnam are only a part of.

For 35 years ending in 1985, Marines and their families who worked and lived at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, were exposed to two highly toxic chemicals that leeched into drinking water supplies for the base.

The water used by Marines and their families to cook, bathe and even prepare baby formula was contaminated with perchloroethylene (PCE), a dry-cleaning solvent improperly disposed of by an off-base dry cleaner, and tricholorethylene (TCE) due to spills and leaks from on base underground storage equipment.

Like those affected by Agent Orange, the health impact of this poisoning is profound. The list of diseases presumed to be caused by exposure is familiar: adult leukemia, aplastic anemia and other myelodysplastic syndromes, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, liver cancer, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Parkinson’s disease.

It doesn’t end with those who were directly exposed. Their children are casualties as well. Miscarriage, stillbirth, birth defects plague the wives and women Marines stationed at Lejeune. It is estimated that a million people passed through Camp Lejeune from 1950 through 1985.

In 2012 Congress reluctantly expanded VA health care to veterans, reservists and National Guard members suffering as a result of their exposure to the poisoned water supply at Camp Lejeune from Aug. 1, 1953 through Dec. 31, 1987.

The proposal included a narrow plan for family members suffering from conditions linked to the polluted water. This was a first ever admission of the harm it caused. The Obama administration followed in January 2017 with a plan to provide $2 billion in disability benefits to Lejeune veterans.

If you worked, lived, or were stationed at Camp Lejeune between those dates, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has a page dedicated to Camp Lejeune, and you are encouraged to go to: https://bit.ly/2DXWjTw for more information.

Were you ever stationed at Fort McClellan, Alabama? You may have been exposed to some of the most volatile chemical, biological, and radiological materials used by the military.

Ratcheting up to World War I, the property was purchased by the government and used to train our doughboys on their way to the Great War. When the War to end all Wars concluded in 1918, returning troops were mustered out at Fort McClellan until 1922, when the base became the Army’s Chemical Warfare training center.

McClellan and the surrounding area is the trifecta of chemical contamination.

In addition to the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear (CBRN) issues on the base, Monsanto has a plant in nearby Anniston where they manufactured olychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) from 1929 until 1971.

PCBs are a persistent organic pollutant whose manufacture has been banned in the U.S. since 1979 because they are a probable human carcinogen. Some PCBs share a similar structure and toxic mode of action with dioxins.

The Anniston Army Depot opened in 1942 and has been where the Army tested and stored mace, tear gas, mustard gas, white phosphorus, Cobalt (Co-60), uranium, plutonium, Cesium (Cs-137) Napalm-B, nerve and blister agents, and Agent Orange.

Over a half million troops were exposed between 1927 and 1999 to the wide spectrum of toxins in the water, air, and soil. In 2003 Monsanto settled a class-action lawsuit with Anniston residents but the agreement did not include veterans.

In 2013, an assessment by the ATDSR stated the property was not an increased cancer risk or other harmful effects for folks living outside the old Monsanto PCB manufacturing facility.

Since being listed on the EPA Superfund Priorities List in 1989, the Army and EPA agreed to tackle the entire depot for heavy metals and trichloroethylene in ground water and soils.

Ground water that has been contaminated has been pumped and treated, and contaminated soil has either been dug up or capped, and land use controls have been put in place.

If you served at Fort McClellan, or Anniston Army Depot and want additional information, go to: https://bit.ly/2DXjflK.

The reality is if you served in the military, anywhere inside or outside the U.S., you have been exposed to toxic chemicals that will harm your health and the health of your children.

Whether Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana or Fort Hood in Texas, Camp Eagle in Vietnam or Firebase Fiddler’s Green in Helmand province, you’ve been exposed.

Andersen Air Force Base in Guam or Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti to the Marine barracks in Washington, D.C., you’ve been exposed.

There is help available, but you have to go get it, it’s not going to come looking for you. Check out the VA site: https://bit.ly/2GbUaK0.

This story was originally published March 30, 2018 at 2:10 PM with the headline "Overexposed: How veterans can get help for toxic chemical poisoning."