Burning issue continues to haunt veterans

KUSA – Years before the VA started collecting names of people who believe they may have been sickened by exposure to burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, doctors at Denver's National Jewish Health started receiving phone calls from men and women complaining of mysterious medical problems.

Dr. Cecile Rose received her first phone call in 2009.

"It was from an active-duty service member saying she had developed unexplained shortness of breath and a cough following her deployment into Iraq," recalls the pulmonologist.

Five years later, the calls continue to come in.

Officially, on its own website, the VA declares -- to date -- it has yet to find significant evidence of long-term health problems from exposure to burn pits. For a decade, the military – largely with the help of a private contractor – burned large amounts of trash in open-air burn pits near bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Last month, after months of delay, the VA turned on its online registry for veterans worried about exposure to the pits.

A federal lawsuit filed in 2010 against Kellogg, Brown, and Root Services, Inc., and Halliburton suggests the private contractors burned, among other things, "trucks, tires, lithium batteries, Styrofoam, paper, wood, rubber, petroleum-oil-lubricating products, metals, hydraulic fluids, munitions boxes, medical waste, biohazard materials, paints, solvents, [and] asbestos insulation" inside the burn pits.

"They burned all sorts of chemicals, debris, munitions, just all sorts of stuff," said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Denver) during a recent interview with 9Wants to Know.

"I think the VA has been too slow to recognize that this is a real concern for our returning veterans," she said.

Rep. DeGette has co-sponsored a bill to bring "National Centers of Excellence" to three locations across the United States in order to get better data on the problem. One of the Centers of Excellence could be Denver's National Jewish.

Dr. Rose has been studying the issue ever since that first phone call came in.

"When (the service members) come back, they are disabled enough by shortness of breath and other respiratory symptoms that they can no longer meet those military physical fitness testing requirements," she said.

She's performed a number of lung biopsies to further explore the issue as well. The results she's seen are telling.

"They are developing an inflammation of the smaller [lung] airways called bronchiolitis, and they have emphysema even if they're not smoking," she explained.

What she can't say for certain is precisely what's happening in each individual case, and she, like many veterans, wonders if other problems might be developing as a result of exposure to burn pits.

"When you take trash – of whatever kind – and you put it in a big pit, add jet fuel to it, and you burn it," she said, "then I as a physician… I am worried about the possibility that could really cause lung injury and damage."

Others worry about even more serious conditions.

On April 19 of this year, Sean Terry, 33, died as a result of esophageal cancer. His family and friends believe his service in and around the Fallujah area of Iraq in 2005 had something to do with his disease.

"We don't want it swept under the carpet. We need to get the word out, and the world needs to know what's going on with us vets," said Dan Picard.

The father of three girls met his eventual wife when she was just 19.

"I am furious," she told 9Wants to Know reporter Chris Vanderveen a few days before her husband's death.

Cancer of the esophagus remains rare, and statistics show less than one percent of all people diagnosed with it are under the age of 35.

"I have been the person asking, 'Why him?'"said Robyn Terry.

Dr. Rose said she sympathizes greatly with Sean's story. Yet she it will take much more research to establish a definitive link between burn pit exposure and cancer.

"Trust me. I share the doubts [of the veterans and their families]. I think there is great deal we don't know about the exposures. They have not been well characterized, and they are hard to characterize," she said.

Yet she said she remains committed to the issue.

"I would like to think that we won't make the same mistakes of the past, and that we will make a commitment to doing the right thing," she said.