Several months ago, I contacted the White House to recommend that the Trump administration appoint a Czar for Veterans Affairs to resolve concerns relating to Military Toxic Exposure. Nearly 900,000 Marine Corps veterans were poisoned by contaminated water at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. Over the past year, I have been contacted by a number of these veterans who expressed concerns about delayed access to healthcare and disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as being denied tort claim benefits from the Department of Defense.
Although VA leaders have expanded online communication relating to Camp Lejeune benefits, the agency has done nothing to resolve previous concerns by veterans regarding the medical credentials of the Subject Matter Experts who routinely deny Camp Lejeune disability claims filed by veterans with presumptions.
In 2016, veterans groups in conjunction with Yale University Law school filed a lawsuit against the VA because the Veterans Health Administration, which was headed by Dr. Shulkin at that time, wouldn’t respond to a FOIA request to allow veterans to retrieve information about the credentials of the SMEs.
Internal VA documents reveal that 400,000 of the veterans who served at Camp Lejeune from 1953 to 1987 are already deceased. Due to the nature of the contamination at Camp Lejeune, the 500,000 veterans that are living are likely to have a higher mortality rate than the general population.
The majority of deceased or living Camp Lejeune veterans and their family members have not received any compensation for the health effects from being exposed to contaminants at Camp Lejeune or for the loss of their children who were miscarried as a result of the toxic water on the base.
Less than 20 percent of family member insurance claims have been approved by VA. The agency has only approved 463 of the 2,519 family member claims filed between 2014 and 2017.
VA’s decision not to compensate Camp Lejeune Veterans for all of the 15 known health effects related to Camp Lejeune is in direct opposition to the findings stated in departmental guidance.
Currently, veterans who suffer from critical illnesses like neurobehavioral effects, miscarriages and infertility, and renal toxicity receive no presumptive disability compensation. There is no reason that Camp Lejeune veterans do not receive the same type of disability compensation as veterans exposed to Agent Orange.
Furthermore, veterans who suffer from neurobehavioral effects are often unable to maintain full-time employment due to memory loss of cognitive abilities, dementia, chronic headaches, insomnia, and PTSD, which are all recognized compensable disorders by VA.
Veterans suffering from renal toxicity are routinely required to seek dialysis treatments three times a week for several hours a day. This medical regiment makes it virtually impossible for these veterans to maintain traditional employment.
I would encourage all Americans to read the recent article in the Atlanta Journal & Constitution about Marine Families and their emotional scars from being poisoned at Camp Lejeune.
The VA’s position that the loss of a female Marine’s reproductive organs is worth $0 is not only a moral disgrace, it goes against the promise President Trump and Republican leaders in Congress made to support a culture of life.
If it were revealed that Planned Parenthood accidentally caused the deaths of 2,000+ unborn children, every conservative voice in America would be demanding their heads. If the Syrian, Russian, North Korean, or Chinese governments knowingly poisoned more than 1 million men, women, and children with toxic cancerous chemicals, the U.S. government would be calling it a crime against humanity instead of a non-compensatory medical condition.
This decision isn’t medically justified, as the World Health Organization recognizes infertility in women as the fifth-highest serious global disability.
The VA is not alone in this dishonorable act. DOD officials in the Department of the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Office deliberately delayed the processing of 4,000 tort claims under the false pretense that the Navy had to resolve civil litigation relating to Camp Lejeune before it could process tort claims from veterans.
The Center for Public Integrity stated, “according to a 2017 GAO report, the Department of Defense already has spent $11.5 billion on evaluations and environmental cleanup of closed bases, and it estimates $3.4 billion more will be needed.”
If the U.S. government can spend $15 billion to clean up bases, it can allocate more than $2 billion over five years to provide benefits for veterans suffering from toxic military exposures.
What can be done to help veterans who endured toxic exposure while serving in the military? President Trump and Congress could:
- Compel the VA and Defense secretaries to recognize all 15 of the clinical presumptions associated with toxic water exposure at Camp Lejeune as compensatory for the purposes of awarding VA disability benefits and adjudicating DOD tort claims.
- Establish an expedited claims process for veterans and civilians exposed to toxins on U.S. military bases as their health conditions prevent them from waiting several years to receive benefits.
- Mandate that VA and DOD establish an SME program for claims to be evaluated by licensed medical professionals with a background in occupational toxicology.
- Instruct the Navy JAG office to move forward with processing Camp Lejeune tort claims.
- Establish a standing White House Commission for Military Toxic Exposures to provide independent oversight over VA and DOD’s efforts to provide healthcare and compensatory benefits to the millions of veterans and civilians exposed to toxins from contaminated military installations at Camp Lejeune, N.C., Fort McLellan, Ala., and other U.S. military Superfund sites.
- The Senate and House Veterans Affairs and Armed Services committees could develop legislation requiring VA and DOD to notify veterans in writing that they may be entitled to benefits due to military toxic exposure. This can be achieved by expanding the existing data sharing agreements between VA, DOD, the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration, which would provide the VA with current address information to notify veterans they have been exposed to toxins.
- Require all VA medical physicians and regional benefits claims representatives provide veterans with literature and referral information regarding military toxic exposure screening during medical appointments as well as the claims intake process.
Although there have been a number of managerial distractions at VA in recent weeks, the Trump administration has a unique opportunity to change this course by taking a more active role in improving the delivery of healthcare services and disability benefits to our nation’s veterans.
It is important that Camp Lejeune Marines and other veterans know that their president stands with them and is willing to hold those accountable for delaying and denying veteran benefits and access to healthcare.
I strongly encourage the Trump administration to move forward with administrative and legislative reforms to improve veteran access to healthcare and disability benefits. The White House should resist bending to the will of disloyal false prophets who seek to undermine the presidency by exploiting veterans concerns about privatization as means of maintaining job security.
The president would find that the veteran community (21+ million strong) will support his administration, if the White House engages them directly and conveys a clear cohesive message about its long-term goals for preserving the VA while expanding access to care for veterans who can’t be serviced by a VA medical facility in a timely manner.
Scott Davis is a VA whistleblower and authority on government reform who testified before Congress in 2014 about the denial of healthcare benefits to veterans.
