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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Bayh proposes bill for veterans affected by chemical hazards

Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., recently introduced a bill that would extend health care coverage to veterans exposed to hazardous chemicals in the line of duty.

The bill, called Health Care for Veterans Exposed to Chemical Hazards Act of 2009, would extend veterans’ eligibility for medical services and would recognize a veteran’s report of exposure as sufficient proof to receive medical care.

“The Indiana National Guard is all for any legislation that will provide health care to service members who were subjected to these chemicals,” Lt. Col. Deedra
Thombleson said.

Thombleson, public affairs officer for the Indiana National Guard, said 142 members of the Guard have been identified as having had contact with the substance.

The bill would create a registry including members of the armed forces who have been exposed to any environmental chemical hazard.

It was referred to the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and is not yet scheduled for a vote on the Senate floor.

The bill was drafted in response to an incident that occurred at the Qarmat Ali Water Treatment Plant in Basrah, Iraq in 2003.

Service members from Indiana, Oregon, West Virginia and South Carolina guarded the facility for months before it was discovered to be contaminated with sodium dichromate, one of the world’s most carcinogenic substances.

In August, Senators Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., Robert Byrd, D-W.V., Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Bayh requested an investigation into the actions of the Army and Kellogg, Brown and Root, a private contractor.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General responded that it had opened an investigation.

Thombleson said the purpose of the investigation is to determine when and where the communication chain broke down.

The service members and their superiors were unaware of the potential presence of the toxic chemical, which is usually used as an anti-corrosive.

In a speech before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee on Oct. 21, Bayh said one Indiana Guardsman has already died from lung disease, and dozens have come forward with serious respiratory symptoms.

Senate testimony last year identified at least seven serious instances of potential contamination involving various industrial hazards including sulfur fires, ionizing radiation, sarin gas and depleted uranium, Bayh said in a press release.

“Exposure to toxic chemicals is a threat no service member should have to face,” Bayh said to the committee. “It is our moral obligation to offer access to prompt, quality care. We should cut the red tape for these heroes.”

Lt. Col. Les Melnyk, a spokesman from the Pentagon, and Thombleson said they did not know exactly how many service members have become ill as a direct result of
exposure to sodium dichromate.

In a Senate hearing in 2008, Dorgan testified that KBR internal reports said 60 percent of the employees at Qarmat Ali, including American soldiers and Iraqi workers, exhibited symptoms of exposure.

At the same hearing, Danny Langford, a former KBR employee and technician who worked at the Qarmat Ali plant, said an orange powder, later identified as sodium dichromate, was visible throughout the facility.

During the first two weeks of work, “my boots, my pants, my clothing would absolutely be caked with this orange colored material,” Langford said.

He said he experienced symptoms such as a sore throat, a hacking cough, eye irritation and regular nosebleeds. He said he also began spitting blood.

Bayh’s bill is modeled after legislation passed in 1978 after soldiers serving in Vietnam were exposed to Agent Orange, carcinogenic herbicide.

The legislation ensured lifelong Veteran Affairs health care for soldiers exposed to the herbicide.

“I look forward to the findings by the Inspector General,” Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V., a co-sponsor of the bill, said in a press release. “The hazards of war are many and often unavoidable. But we owe it to our troops, who risk so much for our nation, to provide the best possible health and medical care, whether they are injured by a bullet or by a cloud of toxic chemicals.”

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