Comedian Jon Stewart has had enough of veterans dying from rare cancers after being denied preventive care by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Nearly two decades after the start of the war on violent extremism, the comedian who helped pass legislation to help 9/11 first responders is now putting his fame behind a bipartisan bill that removes the burden of proof sick veterans who were exposed to toxins in war zones face. Stewart described to the Washington Examiner in detail the chemicals found in the lungs of service members and the horrid ailments they now suffer in calling for support for a bill co-sponsored by New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.
“We knew at the beginning of the war on terror that toxic exposure was going to be an enormous issue, and so to plead ignorance on it is not acceptable,” Stewart said.
“Toxic wounds are wounds,” he added. “The VA has to address it in the same intentional and kind of comprehensive manner that it might address physical wounds or a traumatic brain injury.”
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Declassified toxicological studies from a secret base in Karshi-Khanabad, Uzbekistan, known as “K2,” revealed soldiers lived on a mountain of toxins, including jet fuels, depleted uranium, and the remnants of chemical weapons. Longitudinal studies of 9/11 first responders prove the link between the illnesses suffered and exposure to toxic materials.
Stewart, who held a press conference alongside lawmakers when the the “Warfighter Act of 2021” was introduced on April 13, said post-9/11 veterans should not have to continue fighting for care.
“It’s an age-old tactic of delaying and denying,” he said. “Whether it’s done from ignorance or incompetence or malevolence, you know, it doesn’t really matter. The result is the same.”
Stewart said veterans’ lung biopsies have revealed jet fuel, mercury, metals, plastics, and any number of things burned each night on U.S. military bases worldwide and breathed in by unknowing soldiers and airmen.
‘Fumes and chemicals’
In the decades since many have returned, veterans are denied preventive screenings that could detect cancers related to toxic exposure. In recent years, Congress and former President Donald Trump ordered the Department of Defense and the VA to conduct more studies.
Those studies have been inconclusive, and veterans are still denied care. They also take a substantial amount of time, further slowing any longer-term help for affected veterans.
The DOD said Monday that Secretary Lloyd Austin supports efforts to get burn pit victims the help they need and has worked with VA Secretary Denis McDonough.
“Both leaders take this very seriously and want to do whatever we can to make sure that those veterans who have been, and are, and sadly will be, affected by exposure to burn pit residue and fumes and chemicals are properly treated and looked after,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.
Kirby referred a follow-up question on what could be done now to staffers, who said a September 2020 study of 27 respiratory health conditions by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine had not revealed a service connection.
“None of them met the criteria for ‘sufficient evidence for an association’ (relationship) with burn pit exposure,” the statement said, quoting the report.
DOD directed service members to an online registry established in 2014.
In a separate response, the Department of Veterans Affairs listed research it supports on airborne hazards exposures and better efforts to train clinicians to treat it but did not address the care issue.
“Secretaries Austin and McDonough could fix this with the stroke of a pen if only they’d err on the side of the veteran,” Stronghold Freedom Foundation’s Mark Jackson said.
The former K2 veteran said another friend with exposure died of glioblastoma, a rare form of brain cancer, last week, and more may die waiting for the legislation to pass. Often, he said, lawmakers are reticent to move legislation forward that could carry a big price tag, even when it comes to helping sick veterans.
“McDonough, in particular, could simply mandate the care,” he said. “It is profoundly frustrating to hear anything other than their unequivocal support.”
‘Eminently fixable’
Stewart says 80% of burn pit claims are being denied by the VA.
“It’s the same pattern in every war,” he said. “They go over, and then there’s a toxic exposure issue, and those soldiers come home, and they spend the next 20 to 30 years, sometimes 40 or sometimes 50, fighting with their own government. First to prove that they’re sick, second to get it tied to the exposures that they suffered in the military.”
Stewart argued it’s time to stop looking for the limited DOD evidence to prove the toxic exposures are service-related.
“It’s enough waiting. It’s enough putting it off,” he said. “Those studies are never coming through because the information from DOD for the study is incomplete. So, you’re penalizing the veterans for information that DOD either doesn’t have or won’t provide.”
Stewart believes there is now momentum to get legislation to the president’s desk. The Senate will have a hearing on Wednesday related to the bill, and next week the House will do the same for a companion bill.
“It’s an eminently fixable problem,” Stewart said of the bill, which, by granting a presumption of exposure, automatically allows service members to get the pre-screenings and tests they need to detect cancers and other ailments early.
What should not happen, the comedian turned activist said, is another bill that falls short.
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“The concern you always have with Congress is they will do a half-measure under the guise of caution,” he said. “The only thing I would say is the downside of presumption is that maybe somewhere an individual, a man, or a woman who signed up to defend this country gets their cancer or their sarcoidosis or their pulmonary disease treated by the VA when it might not have definitively been caused by their exposure to a burn pit. Like, that’s the only downside to this.”
He added: “Do not let them plead poverty because this is the true and total cost of war, and you don’t get to skimp on the back end.”
