美国国家公共电台 NPR--Veterans exposed to toxic chemicals say they've won a historic expansion of VA care

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Veterans exposed to toxic² chemicals say they've won a historic expansion of VA care

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A bill known as the PACT⁴ Act, which will lend health care services and disability benefits to veterans exposed to toxic substances, looks likely to become law next month.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

As we approach Memorial Day weekend, the military cemetery⁵ that I drive by from time to time has a flag by every grave. And there's huge news for veterans. Vets⁶ made sick by toxic exposures will get VA coverage⁷ through a bill that is slated⁸ to pass next month. NPR's Quil Lawrence reports It's going to be a bittersweet moment.

QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE⁹: Vietnam vets were exposed to a carcinogenic herbicide, Agent Orange, as early as 1962. The Department of Veterans Affairs has acknowledged some of their illnesses as service-connected in the six decades since. In this last decade, Rosie Torres got involved.

ROSIE TORRES: For my husband - 13 years ago, I made him a promise as they were wheeling him into the operating table to have his lung biopsy.

LAWRENCE: Her husband, Le Roy, had deployed¹⁰ to Iraq and lived next to a massive field of burning trash. Back home, he had unexplained breathing problems and headaches. But the VA told him it wasn't related. The Torres family started the burn pit registry in 2010. Hundreds of thousands of vets signed up. And a few years later, the VA made an official government registry of vets who believe burn pits made them sick. Over the past decade, veterans organizations pressured Congress.

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JON STEWART: Go back to your district and dig a 10-acre pit.

LAWRENCE: Advocates included comedian¹¹ Jon Stewart. Here he is at a house hearing in January.

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STEWART: And then burn that pit 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But tell your constituents¹², don't worry. Fifteen years from now, we're going to convene¹³ a panel to discuss whether or not the health issues that you're having are in your head or not.

LAWRENCE: Despite some concerns about the cost, veterans health appears to be one of the few bipartisan spaces left in Washington. A Senate compromise has produced a comprehensive $200 billion bill that will cover toxic exposures from Iraq, Afghanistan, the Gulf¹⁴ War and Vietnam. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough described it.

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DENIS MCDONOUGH: The bill that has now been agreed to will be arguably the biggest expansion of authority here at VA in our history.

LAWRENCE: For Rosie Torres, it's bittersweet. Le Roy is still struggling. He's on oxygen 24 hours a day now.

TORRES: So I can't give a prognosis. But, you know, I don't want to go by the medical books. You know what I mean? I'd rather live just day by day.

LAWRENCE: But she says this comes too late for others she can name, veteran activists¹⁵ who died just months ago - Marine¹⁶ vet¹ Kate Hendricks Thomas, National Guardsman Wesley Black and Sergeant¹⁷ First Class Heath Robinson, for whom the bill is named.

TORRES: How do you celebrate something, you know, that you've been fighting for for so long, but you really know that that victory validates¹⁸ that none of those deaths were in vain once this bill passes?

LAWRENCE: President Biden is expected to sign the bill into law as early as next month. Quil Lawrence, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF NOMAK'S "FORCE FOR TRUTH")