US military vets file half-million claims for toxic exposure in war

US veterans of the Gulf War and their survivors have filed more than a half-million claims for toxic exposure-related benefits, the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) said Wednesday.

The claims have been made under the PACT Act (Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act) signed into law last August by President Joe Biden.

He had urged Congress to pass the PACT Act, suggesting that the death of his son Beau Biden might have been due to his exposure to burn pits in Iraq. He died of brain cancer in 2015.

"I'm no doctor, but it's pretty clear a lot of guys and women getting sick," Biden said. "Many when they came home had gone the best trained, fittest warriors in the world and came home with headaches, numbness, dizziness, cancer," he said during a town hall at a National Guard/Reserve Center in Delaware last year when the PACT Act was passed by Congress.

"I will give the VA credit for leaning into asking veterans for claims," Allison Jaslow, CEO of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, an advocacy group, told The Wall Street Journal. "They could have slow-rolled it out of concerns about capacity."

Sarin gas and burn pit fumes have been blamed for the exposure to toxic elements, studies found. Burns have been used to dispose of refuse in combat zones, and troops burned everything from common trash to batteries to their own feces, often just steps away from where they lived during the Gulf War.

Sarin gas was released into the air when the US bombed Iraqi chemical weapons' storage and production facilities.

The combat lasted only 43 days, but the harmful health effects on some who served in the conflict have stretched for decades. The VA estimated that roughly 250,000 veterans became sick due to exposure to toxics during the war. Symptoms include fatigue, headaches, joint pain, indigestion, insomnia, dizziness, respiratory disorders, and memory problems.

The VA said that more than 3 million veterans have received screening for toxic exposure since November, and approximately 42 percent have reported a concern of exposure. In total, the VA has awarded more than $1 billion in earned benefits to veterans and survivors who filed PACT Act-related claims.

The VA also said that this month marked its millionth disability compensation and pension claim during fiscal year 2023, a record number of veterans claims for the third year in a row.

As a result, more than 215,000 veterans have enrolled in VA healthcare during that time frame, a 15 percent increase from the same period the year before.

Agencies contributed to this story.