Political Quotes

“The military burns their trash, including computers, plastic, and medical waste, in open-air burn pits, creating smoke with toxic chemicals like metals and carcinogens that pose serious health risks to our troops. Our servicemembers and veterans are developing severely debilitating pulmonary diseases, like pulmonary fibrosis and constrictive bronchiolitis, leaving them oxygen-dependent. And other young veterans are dying from rare cancers in the brain, pancreas, blood cells, and other locations. I am an emergency medicine physician and a public health expert. In public health and in medicine, it is practice that if there is a high enough suspicion of a harm that causes a severe enough illness, then we need to act on that suspicion, remove the harm, and treat the person. We can't wait 10 or 20 years for the perfect research study. We must act now. We must do that by simultaneously and immediately addressing these 4 points: First, stop our troops' exposure to dangerous burn pits out in the battlefield. Second, educate doctors, veterans, and servicemembers to help doctors understand the risks of being exposed to burn pits, and to help veterans and servicemembers understand the early signs of potential serious illness so they can get treatment early. Third, take care of burn pit exposed veterans and servicemembers at the VA and DOD, and ensure illnesses caused by burn pit exposure are recognized in their claims for disability benefits.…”