News Brief: Department of Veterans Affairs

The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has updated its website with information about potential exposure to airborne hazards and toxins from burn pits during military service, possible health-related problems and VA benefits.1

According to the department, military service members may have been exposed to a variety of airborne hazards including:

  • The smoke and fumes from open burn pits;
  • Sand, dust, and particulate matter;
  • General air pollution common in certain countries;
  • Fuel, aircraft exhaust, and other mechanical fumes; or
  • Smoke from oil well fires.1

The VA says the Department of Defense “has now closed out most burn pits and is planning to close the remainder,” but that “in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other areas of the Southwest Asia theater of military operations, open-air combustion of trash and other waste in burn pits was a common practice.”1

The agency provides a list of “presumptive conditions” related to airborne hazards and burn pit exposures, including lung cancer, COPD, asthma, pulmonary fibrosis and more than a dozen other lung diseases and conditions.1

More information, including info on VA healthcare, is available at the department’s website.

  1. US Department of Veterans Affairs. Va.gov: Veterans Affairs. Airborne Hazards and Burn Pit Exposures. https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/burnpits/index.asp