Washington — President Joe Biden announced Tuesday during a trip to New Hampshire that his administration has greenlighted more than 1 million claims from veterans injured during their military service by exposure to burn pits overseas, Agent Orange, radiation or other toxic substances.
That figure includes over 21,500 claims approved out of just over 36,000 received from Michigan, according to data provided this week by the White House.
The expansion of veterans health care to cover toxic exposure claims is the result of a bipartisan bill signed into law two years ago in 2022 known as the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics, or PACT Act .
"We learned a terrible lesson after Vietnam that those harmful effects of Agent Orange took years to manifest and left too many veterans without the care they deserve, because they had to prove every illness they have was a consequence of Agent Orange, which is often too hard to do," Biden told a group of veterans at the Westwood Park YMCA.
"That’s why I pushed to pass the PACT Act, so today’s veterans don’t suffer the same painful frustrating delays and denials."
The Department of Veterans Affairs said the approval rate for PACT Act claims has been about 75%, representing more than $5.7 billion in earned benefits for veterans for over 888,000 veterans and survivors across the 50 states and U.S. territories receiving new service-connected disability benefits.
The toxins and hazards that veterans might have been exposed to include burn pits, sand and dust, particulates, oil well or sulfur fires, chemicals, radiation, warfare agents, depleted uranium and herbicides. Burn pits were common at U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries and contained toxins and chemicals.
Some of the illnesses that veterans are experiencing include brain, pancreatic and reproductive cancers, chronic bronchitis, bronchial asthma, chronic sinusitis or rhinitis, emphysema and multiple other conditions related to the respiratory system.
Biden has long been focused on the toxic exposure issue for veterans, as he’s said he suspects his son, Beau, died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46 because of his exposure to burn pits when he served in […]
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