Sen. Richard Blumenthal: Defense Department Needs To Care For Iraq Veterans Exposed To Chemical Agents
HARTFORD, Conn. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Many U.S. soldiers who served in Iraq claim they are battling the effects of toxic exposure after dismantling chemical weapons.
Worse yet, they're being denied medical treatment because the Department of Defense has not acknowledged the chemical exposure, Sen. Richard Blumenthal said.
"The military essentially denied that there were these kinds of chemical arms, and it believed its own public statements, denied treatment," Blumenthal told WCBS 880 Connecticut Bureau Chief Fran Schneidau.
The Connecticut Democrat is calling on Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to face the problem squarely and provide the veterans with medical aid.
"The Department of Defense ought to come clean with them and the American people about exactly how many of our soldiers were exposed to these chemical weapons, what the health effects may be and what treatment it's going to provide them," Blumenthal said.
According to a New York Times report last week, more than 600 U.S. service members told military medical staff that they believe they were exposed to chemical warfare agents in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Pentagon officials said the department will now expand its outreach to veterans and establish a toll-free hotline for reporting potential exposures and seeking medical evaluation or care, the newspaper said.
Hagel ordered an internal review of military records after the Times reported in October that U.S. troops encountered degraded chemical weapons from the 1980s that had been hidden or used in makeshift bombs. The initial newspaper report disclosed that 17 service members had been injured by sarin or sulfur mustard agent, and several more came forward after the story appeared, the Times said.
The Army's Public Health Command collects standardized medical-history surveys, known as post-deployment health assessments, which troops fill out as they complete combat tours, the newspaper reported. Those who responded "yes" to a question about exposure to such warfare agents -- "Do you think you were exposed to any chemical, biological and radiological warfare agents during this deployment?" -- were asked to provide a brief explanation.
The review ordered by Hagel showed that 629 people answered "yes" to that question and also filled in a block with information indicating chemical agent exposure, Col. Jerome Buller, a spokesman for the Army surgeon general, told the newspaper. Each person who answered the questionnaire would have received a medical consultation at the end of their combat tour, Buller said.
The Times reported that it was not clear why the military did not take further steps, such as including compiling the data as it accumulated over more than a decade, tracking veterans with related medical complaints, or circulating warnings about risks to soldiers and to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
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