Now, the Marine veteran and Brookfield resident has more hope.

The Senate approved the PACT Act measure in June but it needed a second vote by the House. The bill was approved by the House and sent back to the Senate where Republicans initially blocked passage.  The measure was given final approval on Aug. 2.  (For information on PACT and to apply go here.)

The bill gives some 3.5 million post-9/11 veterans and those of other eras an easier path to compensation and care for illnesses that occur after exposure to burn pits and other environmental toxins. President Biden has promised to sign the bill.

The massive measure, known as the PACT Act, will cost more than $300 billion over the next decade, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. It adds 23 illnesses, including certain cancers and respiratory and lung diseases, for the VA to presume are connected to toxin exposure in the military. As a result, veterans with these issues will no longer have to prove a service connection to these illnesses.

Veterans spend months to years applying for compensation for burn pit-related illnesses after serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf, but most are denied. In 2020, the VA reported to Congress that just 20% of more than 12,000 applications were approved between 2007 and 2020.

The act also adds VA staff and 31 new offices in the country and will strengthen research and provide a framework for handling future presumptive illnesses. For veterans of the Vietnam War, which ended 47 years ago, it adds Thailand, Guam and five other places as presumed locations for Agent Orange (AO) exposures and includes hypertension as a service-connected illness from AO, which was long sought by Vietnam War veterans. The bill also provides benefits to families exposed to toxic water at the Camp LeJeune Marine Base and veterans exposed to carcinogens in Uzbekistan and radiation at a 1966 B-52 crash in Palomares, Spain.

 The bill will “begin to right the nation’s shameful inaction by helping veterans affected by toxic exposure.”

— U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee

DaCosta, 33, said the 16 Marines on his small base threw lithium batteries, human feces, plastics, food and other debris into a burn pit and doused it with diesel fuel. “You were not able to stand next to it for more than 30 seconds, or you’d pass out,” he recalled. He spent seven months at the 40-square-yard site where the burn pit sat in the middle of a courtyard, blazing 24 hours a day.

He explained that everything that wasn’t used was disposed of to prevent the Taliban from making bombs from ordinary objects like pens and soda bottles. “We were not thinking of the consequences of what we were doing and how it was going to impact our lives 10 or 20 years down the line,” he said.

DaCosta began having breathing and lung problems three years after returning from Afghanistan, one of three deployments. He is treated at the VA with asthma medication and is now appealing his denial. Asthma is one of the illnesses named in the bill. He also has a back injury from falling off a roof when he was a machine gunner and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and receives disability compensation for those conditions. He has a chemistry degree and will receive a master’s in finance and investment management this summer.

Too Late For Some Veterans

The legislation is too late for veterans who have died from illnesses related to toxic exposures.

Veterans “are dying every day waiting for people to make a decision. We should not nickel and dime them ‘til they die.”

— Linda Schwartz, a former VA assistant secretary for policy and planning, former state commissioner of Veterans Affairs. 

Craig Rosen of Windsor died at 31 of glioblastoma brain cancer, which typically affects older people, but has been increasingly seen in post-9/11 veterans exposed to burn pits. It is included in the bill as a presumptive condition. An Army veteran who served in Iraq, he was denied disability compensation by the VA. He appealed, but died before his case was decided.

The cancer caused headaches, vision problems, incoherent speech and lack of mobility, forcing him to use a wheelchair, said his father, Allan Rosen, who lived with him.

Because he didn’t have dependents, his case was closed upon his death, said Cindy Johnson, his lawyer and deputy director of the Connecticut Veterans Legal Center. Johnson is pursuing more than the $300 in death benefits his family received and will argue the connection to his burn-pits exposure. “It helps the family when [the VA] acknowledges that what he was dying of was due to his service,” she said.

Johnson criticized the legislation for excluding veterans with other than honorable discharges. “Yes, they’re exposed to the carcinogens. Yes, they will likely die from service-connected conditions. But they cannot get compensation,” she said.

Amy Antioho of Berlin would have had more time with her husband, Peter, before he died if she hadn’t spent a year applying for disability benefits in connection with his glioblastoma. The VA rejected his application twice before ultimately granting him benefits.

Melanie Stengel Photo.

In this 2019 photo, Amy Antioho is pictured with her husband, Peter, an army veteran, exposed to black smoke from a burn pit in Afghanistan who died of glioblastoma. Mark, their son, is in the background.

“I do feel like I lost a lot of time with Peter because I was constantly on the phone,” she said. “I was constantly doing research. I think it would have been beautiful to have spent that time with him rather than fighting for something I believe he had already earned.” She did so much work on his behalf that the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee asked for her records when drafting the legislation.

Antioho gets angry when she hears objections to the bill’s cost. “I really think the cost that’s too high is my son growing up without a father. My husband was 34—that’s the cost that was too high,” she said. Her son, Mark, is 6 and has just completed kindergarten. Her husband, an Army veteran and West Point graduate, had to walk through heavy smoke from burn pits twice a day in his job as second in command on his Afghanistan base.

Antioho expressed concern that many veterans won’t pursue benefits. She said her husband considered it begging and didn’t want to apply. “I look at my husband as having died for our country,” she said.

Thomas J. Saadi, state Veterans Affairs commissioner, encouraged veterans to apply even if they were unsuccessful in the past. “Don’t take a denial of 10 or 20 years ago to mean that you’re going to be denied today,” he said. “No veteran should feel they are not worthy of a benefit they are eligible for,” he added.

He urged veterans to call his office at 860-616-3684 for help in filing claims. Veterans’ organizations, such as Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), also offer assistance.

This story was updated on Aug. 1 to reflect the bill’s status.

He is co-sponsoring legislation to require that veterans be informed of their exposure to toxic substances and to establish a research center focusing on the illnesses of exposed veterans’ descendants.

Blumenthal, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said that “the dimensions of the problem are unknown at this point” because no one has collected data on it. But, he added, “we know the toxic exposure is there. Science indicates it can cause genetic effects.” He cited brain and blood cancers as potential repercussions.

He said the legislation stems from “concerns that were expressed very dramatically and vehemently by veterans themselves” about their own exposure and the potential effects on their offspring. “Veterans don’t know if they’ve been exposed,” he said.

The proposed research center would collect data about the descendants’ medical conditions to determine any connection to the toxic exposure, the extent of the problem and to ensure appropriate treatment.

Military members have been exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam, neurotoxins in the Gulf War, chemical weapons and toxins from burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other chemicals, such as those in tainted water at Camp Lejeune, the U. S. Marine Corps base in North Carolina.

Melvin E. Hewston, legislative chairman of the Connecticut Veterans of Foreign Wars, said that studies done decades ago relating to Agent Orange found diabetes and kidney disease in descendants of people who were exposed.

“It’s important that they keep watching this to find out how far down the line these things go,” he said.

The bill has been submitted in both the House and Senate. U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty, a Democrat, and one of its authors, said Connecticut veterans have told her of their exposure to Agent Orange and toxic burn pits.

“We owe it to our service men and women and their families, who sacrificed so much for our country to find out the answers they deserve and make care and treatment for them, their children and their grandchildren a priority,” said Esty, of the Fifth District.

“When service members raise their right hand, they willingly risk life and limb to defend their country. However, few probably ever contemplate that this noble action would have serious and sometimes grave consequences for their children and grandchildren,” Blumenthal said.

“We as a nation have just as much of a responsibility to the families as to those who actually wear the uniform,” he said.

The proposed research center would be housed in one of the Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers.

U.S. Rep. Dan Benishek, R-Mich., a co-sponsor of the bill and a medical doctor, said he worked as a surgeon at a VA hospital for more than 20 years. He said that he has “seen far too many patients who suffer from unexplained, service connected ailments,” which can be passed down to their children.

Blumenthal said at present, doctors don’t have the information needed to connect a child’s illness with a parent’s military service. “If a child has cancer and the dad was in the military, is that going to be linked to military service by the doctor?” he asked.