[CPEO-MEF] HEALTH, GLOBAL: War zone burn pits

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Veterans Sound Alarm Over Burn-Pit Exposure

By JAMES RISEN
New York Times
August 6, 2010

WASHINGTON - When former Staff Sgt. Susan Clifford was stationed in 2004 
and 2005 at Balad Air Base in Iraq, she was assigned to help dump her 
Army unit's trash into a massive, open-air pit.

Every conceivable type of waste was piled high in the pit - plastics, 
batteries, appliances, medicine, dead animals, even human body parts - 
and burned, with a dousing of jet fuel. A huge black plume of smoke hung 
over the pit, nearly blinding Ms. Clifford on her twice-a-month visits, 
and wafted over the entire base.

...

Ms. Clifford, who retired from the Army with full disability in April, 
is one of the first veterans to receive an official ruling from the 
military that exposure to open-air burn pits at American bases in Iraq 
and Afghanistan have caused medical problems. Hundreds of other veterans 
have complained of similar illnesses that they believe were caused by 
exposure to the pits, forcing the Pentagon to restrict their use and the 
Department of Veterans Affairs to begin an investigation.

...

For the entire article, see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/us/07burn.html


--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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