Jon Stewart.Photo: John Lamparski/WireImage
In emotional testimony delivered before a House Veterans' Affairs Committee roundtable Wednesday,Jon Stewarturged lawmakers to help former service members who are battling diseases after exposure to toxic burn pits in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Members of Congress have estimated that some 3.5 million veterans who deployed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks may have been exposed,ABC News reported last year— exposure that some studies suggest could have contributed to aggressive, terminal cancers.
A2021 VA-funded research proposal, for instance, found that “the incident rate of breast cancer for active duty women is seven times higher than the average incident rate of fifteen other cancer types across all service members.”
Still, veterans who have submitted claims to the Department of Veterans Affairs have been met with resistance, and in some cases seen their claims denied entirely.
Though the Biden administration recently announced a policy that wouldmake it easier for vetsto receive benefits after being exposed to toxic burn pits, it could still take months or years to see those benefits — leading activists like Stewart to call on Congress to take further action.
“There really should be one job here and one job alone, and that is: How do we implement first-rate toxic exposure healthcare for our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans,” the comedian and filmmaker, 58, said before the committee on Wednesday, adding that the VA has instituted first-rate facilities and programs for those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries, but it “took intention and it took money” to get those services.
Stewart continued: “And we have to establish that for the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, because the [toxins are] an IED that goes off in your body five years later, 10 years later, 15 years later.And yet the burden of proof and scrutiny is always on the veteran.”
He added that funding for the VA’s Burn Pit Center for Excellence is “$6-$7 million a year,” in 2022.
“To give you just a perspective on that, they spend $90 million a year onViagra,” Stewart said, later adding: “The VA and this body have to remove their blinders.”
Stewart is a long-timeadvocatefor the thousands of 9/11 responders who developed health issues after exposure to debris and toxins from the World Trade Center site.
In 2019,he helpedget the bill for the September 11th Victim Compensation Fundreauthorized, after he delivereda passionate speechbefore Congress. That bill allows 9/11 victims and their families to file claims with the fund up until 2090.
Speaking on Wednesday, Stewart said the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund was model that could be followed for those battling diseases after being exposed to toxic burn pits “if the will was there.”
Jon Stewart.C-Span
A companion series podcast extends that conversation, with the first episode focusing on the veterans seeking benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs as a result of being exposed to toxins during their military service.
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“This delay is killing people,” Stewart said in the podcast. “That’s not hyperbole. This is about taking care of a problem that we caused through our negligence to our own service people.”
PresidentJoe Biden’s own son Beau served in Iraq before his 2015 death from brain cancer at age 46.
Biden, for one, has said he suspects burn pitsmay have contributed to Beau’s death.
“Because of his exposure to burn pits, in my view — I can’t prove it yet — he came back with stage four glioblastoma,” Biden said in 2019.
source: people.com
