[CPEO-MEF] VETERANS, VOCs, PFAS: "Michigan veterans face uphill battle proving toxic exposure"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Michigan veterans face uphill battle proving toxic exposure

By Garret Ellison
MLive (MI)
November 26, 2019


BEAVERTON, MI - Roger Arvo knows that he and his family were exposed to toxic chemicals while stationed at Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda. He’s certain that exposure contributed to his mastectomy and ongoing sleep disorder, his wife Linda’s breast cancer and thyroid disorder, and his son Peter’s nerve damage and cardiac birth defects.

Arvo, 68, has official reports showing the base drinking water was contaminated with chlorinated solvents like trichlorethylene when they lived on Cedar Drive in the late 1970s, a time when Michigan regulators say the water was also tainted by fluorochemicals called PFAS.

Doctors say the family’s symptoms corresponded with known effects of toxic exposure. Despite that, Arvo says he can’t get coverage through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system for all the physician exams, hospital visits, surgical procedures and other expensive treatments. The VA, he says, won’t even look at his evidence.

…

For the entire article, see
https://www.mlive.com/news/2019/11/michigan-veterans-face-uphill-battle-proving-toxic-exposure.html

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org





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