Jon Stewart pushes VA to help veterans sickened after post-9/11 exposure to uranium

WASHINGTON (AP) — Comic Jon Stewart is urgent the Biden administration to repair a loophole in a large veterans support invoice that ignored a number of the first U.S. troops who responded after the Sept. 11 assaults and received sick after deploying to a base contaminated with harmful ranges of uranium.

Particular operations forces deployed to Karshi-Khanabad, or “K2,” in Uzbekistan about three weeks after the 2001 assaults. K2 was a former Soviet air base that U.S. forces used to strike Taliban targets inside Afghanistan within the earliest days of the battle. The bottom was a former chemical weapons processing website and suffering from Soviet-era particles, together with demolished bunkers, missile elements and extremely radioactive uranium powder, in response to paperwork obtained by The Related Press.

It’s not clear why uranium powder was on the bottom or the way it received there. But it surely’s worrying those that served at K2. 1000’s of K2 veterans within the years since have reported advanced medical situations, a few of that are identified to be related to radiation publicity.

“Think about you’re stationed contained in the meth lab on ‘Breaking Dangerous,’” Stewart stated in an interview with the AP. “These guys have been uncovered to a poisonous soup of principally an exploded chemical substances and nuclear weapon facility.”

An enormous veterans support invoice known as the PACT Act that was signed into legislation by President Joe Biden in 2022 addressed most of the well being points dealing with K2 veterans. But it surely didn’t embrace protection for radiation publicity at K2.

K2 veterans have pressed the Division of Veterans Affairs for assist for years, however thus far the VA has not acted. The company has stated it’s nonetheless finding out the problem and seeking to the Pentagon for added info earlier than it determines whether or not so as to add radiation publicity as a situation K2 service members can get protection for.

“All presumptive situations established by the VA, slightly than by laws, require a factual rationale,” stated VA spokesman Terrence Hayes.

It’s been greater than 20 years since troops first deployed to K2 and nearly two years since Biden celebrated the PACT Act’s passage. However K2 veterans are nonetheless dealing with the declare denials the PACT Act was supposed to repair.

Information obtained by the AP exhibits the soil at K2 recorded uranium radiation ranges as much as 40,000 instances greater than what would have been anticipated if it have been pure uranium, in response to Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear fusion specialist and president of the Institute for Power and Environmental Analysis, who reviewed the info.

Even when it have been in its least radioactive kind, depleted uranium, the soil was as much as 24,000 instances above what would have been present in nature. Air samples have been greater than 30 to 100 instances the degrees that may have been present in regular air samples, Makhijani stated.

The radiation ranges the well being crew recorded have been vital sufficient that anybody not sporting protecting gear would have breathed in excessive ranges of contamination when the mud was kicked up, particularly throughout actions similar to earth shifting, Makhijani stated.

The radiation information was captured in November 2001 by former Military Sgt. Matthew Nicholls, who was a part of an Military environmental well being crew shortly deployed to gather air, water and soil samples from K2 after native Uzbek staff who have been getting ready the positioning for arriving U.S. forces fell unwell with complications, nausea and vomiting.

Because the well being crew walked the bottom by the demolished bunkers and remnants of missiles, the crew discovered the soil dotted with yellow pebble-sized clumps and powder, and tuna can-shaped containers spilling yellow powder, Nicholls stated.

A software used to detect radiation “went from one click on, click on, click on, to sounding like a fishing reel going off,” Nicholls stated.

“That materials was scattered far and wide,” he stated. Images obtained by the AP present Nicholls and his crew accumulating the yellow clumps and scattered powder.

After the well being crew reported its findings, the army created a labeled base map obtained by the AP the place the world was marked “enriched uranium contamination website” to maintain tents from being constructed there. However the soil had already been moved by bulldozers and vans as they pushed up a protecting berm, and tents on the opposite facet of the berm have been constructed on the soil, instantly adjoining to the off-limits fields.

Radiation publicity from uranium can harm kidneys, create bone most cancers danger and in addition impression pregnancies as a result of it crosses the placenta, amongst different dangerous results, stated Makhijani, who beforehand labored with “atomic veterans” who have been sickened by radiation after working on the Bikini Atoll throughout nuclear weapons checks within the Nineteen Forties.

“Uranium goes to the bone,” Makhijani stated.

Regardless of detecting the uranium, the army went ahead with utilizing the bottom for the subsequent 4 years and constructed a sprawling tent metropolis there. Heavy wind and rain hit the bottom steadily, stirring the contaminants there. Greater than 15,000 troops rotated by way of from 2001 till 2005, when U.S. forces left.

For the reason that PACT Act was handed K2 veteran and former Military Workers Sgt. Mark Jackson has sought medical assist for extreme osteoporosis, needed to have a testicle eliminated and had his whole thyroid eliminated.

Not one of the new medical points he’s skilled since passage of the PACT Act have been coated by the VA. This Friday, Jackson will be part of Stewart in Washington to press the Division of Veterans Affairs to behave quicker.

Hayes, the VA spokesman, stated the company is “at present doing intensive analysis to determine proof which will exhibit radiation publicity — together with analyzing all claims submitted by Veterans who served at K2. We’re working this with the utmost urgency.”

In a press release to the AP the Pentagon stated late Monday that its personal monitoring of the positioning “doesn’t point out the presence of enriched uranium,” and that it’s reviewing supplies from K2 veterans on the positioning.

The VA doesn’t have full numbers of what number of K2 veterans are sick so the veterans have needed to take it upon themselves to arrange and accumulate information. They’ve been in contact with about 5,000 K2 veterans. Of these, greater than 1,500 have self-reported situations together with cancers, neurological situations, reproductive system issues, a lot of beginning defects and bone situations, amongst different points, stated Natalie White, a volunteer for the group. White’s husband, Tech. Sgt. Clayton White, died at age 41 after an extended listing of illnesses together with osteoarthritis, grand mal seizures and kidney failure. White was deployed to K2 shortly after the 9/11 assaults.

Stewart has lengthy advocated for the firefighters and emergency personnel who responded to the World Commerce Middle assaults, and lately, for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who got here dwelling with cancers or different severe diseases after exposures to toxins on the battlefield.

The PACT Act was “an immense enchancment” Stewart stated. A small adjustment by VA Secretary Denis McDonough to deal with the radiation publicity at K2 may fulfill the PACT Act’s intent.

He worries a few of K2 veterans are operating out of time.

“The worst half about it’s, these years once they’re sickest, being spent in nervousness and battle towards a system that’s one way or the other set as much as be antagonistic,” Stewart stated. “I don’t know why it’s an adversarial system in any means, form or kind. However that appears to be the uphill climb that everyone has to undergo to attempt to get both the advantages or the well being care that they’ve earned.”