Mustard gas test subjects denied veteran benefits

McCaskill: Mustard gas test subjects denied veteran benefits
Stars and Stripes
Travis J Tritten
May 31, 2016

WASHINGTON — The military has acknowledged for decades it performed secret mustard gas tests on troops at the end of World War II but a Senate investigation released Tuesday found 90 percent of related benefit claims have been rejected by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said she discovered shortfalls in the benefits process that took her breath away during a yearlong investigation into treatment of the test victims. The release of her findings is accompanied by a new bill – named after an 89-year-old former soldier from Missouri – that fast-tracks VA benefits for possibly hundreds of survivors.

About 60,000 servicemembers were exposed to mustard gas and another chemical agent called Lewisite as part of a clandestine defense research program in the 1940s. Of those servicemembers, about 4,000 had their entire bodies exposed to the chemical weapons. Mustard gas and Lewisite burn the skin and lungs, are linked to a variety of serious health problems and have been banned by the international community.

McCaskill said she believes about 400 of the veterans could still be alive and eligible for benefits.
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WWII Veterans Still FIghting Congress For Exposure to Mustard Gas

Can The Agent Orange Act Help Veterans Exposed To Mustard Gas?
NPR
Caitlin Dickerson
JULY 16, 2015

NPR reported that some of the few World War II veterans who are still alive — now in their late 80s and early 90s — are still fighting for disability benefits because the VA says they don't have enough proof.

To understand the predicament of World War II veterans exposed to mustard gas, take a look at what happened to another set of American veterans who were exposed to a different toxic chemical.

Last month, NPR reported that some of those World War II vets are still fighting for disability benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs because the agency says they don't have enough proof to substantiate their claims.

Alan Oates says that's the same response Vietnam War veterans started receiving from the VA in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

As a young Army private during the war, Oates was providing security for an engineering outfit in the jungle when he first noticed three planes flying overhead spraying something.

"I asked the engineers: What are they doing?" Oates says. "And [one] said: They're spraying herbicides to kill the vegetation, so that the enemy couldn't hide in it."
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NPR Located More Veterans Exposed To Mustard Gas

UPDATE
Senators Call For VA To Explain Why It Couldn't Find Mustard-Gassed Veterans

How NPR Located More Veterans Exposed To Mustard Gas Than The VA
NPR
Caitlin Dickerson
JUNE 26, 2015

Working through the alphabetical list, Van Woerkom discovered that about 95 percent of the test subjects had died.

This week, NPR reported that the Department of Veterans Affairs failed to live up to a promise to contact 4,000 veterans who were exposed to mustard gas in secret military experiments. In 1993, the VA promised it would reach out to each of those veterans to let them know that they were eligible for disability benefits. Instead, over the past 20 years, the VA reached out to only 610.

Brad Flohr, a VA senior adviser for benefits, told NPR the agency couldn't find the rest of the test subjects, because military records of the experiments were incomplete. "There was no identifying information," Flohr said. "No Social Security numbers, no addresses, no ... any way of identifying them. Although we tried."

That response from the VA surprised NPR Investigations Research Librarian Barbara Van Woerkom, who spends a lot of time tracking down sources for NPR stories.

"It just struck me as such a low number, knowing all the ways that I look for information to try and locate an individual," she says.

Family members of veterans are sometimes eligible for benefits as well. In February 1993, VA Secretary Jesse Brown told the Richmond Times-Dispatch his agency would reach out to living veterans and their surviving spouses.
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Broken Promises To Vets Exposed To Mustard Gas

VA Responds To NPR Story On Broken Promises To Vets Exposed To Mustard Gas
NPR
KRISHNADEV CALAMUR
JUNE 23, 2015

The Department of Veterans Affairs responded Tuesday to an NPR story that the U.S. military exposed thousands of American troops to mustard gas in secret chemical weapons experiments during World War II.

NPR's Caitlin Dickerson reported that "When those experiments were formally declassified in the 1990s, the Department of Veterans Affairs made two promises: to locate about 4,000 men who were used in the most extreme tests, and to compensate those who had permanent injuries. But the VA didn't uphold those promises, an NPR investigation has found."

In response the VA said:

"The Department of Veterans Affairs appreciates the service and sacrifices of those World War II Veterans who may have been injured in mustard gas testing. VA recognizes that disabilities may have resulted due to full body mustard gas exposure. VA has established presumptions of service connection for certain disabilities that may have resulted from this exposure.

"The NPR story rightfully points out the sacrifices that Veterans and their families have gone through during the years when they were sworn to secrecy. VA is prepared to assist any Veteran or survivor who contacts us in determining their entitlement to benefits.

Additionally, if NPR is willing to share with us the list of 1,200 or so Veterans who they have been able to identify as having been exposed, VA will attempt to contact them to ensure they are receiving all the benefits and services to which they are entitled under the law."

In a related story, which ran Monday, Caitlin reported that the secret chemical experiments grouped subjects by race.
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The VA's Broken Promise To Thousands Of Vets Exposed To Mustard Gas
NPR
Caitlin Dickerson
JUNE 23, 2015

Three test subjects enter a gas chamber, which will fill with mustard gas, as part of the military's secret chemical warfare testing in March 1945. Courtesy of Edgewood Arsenal

In secret chemical weapons experiments conducted during World War II, the U.S. military exposed thousands of American troops to mustard gas.

When those experiments were formally declassified in the 1990s, the Department of Veterans Affairs made two promises: to locate about 4,000 men who were used in the most extreme tests, and to compensate those who had permanent injuries.

But the VA didn't uphold those promises, an NPR investigation has found.

NPR interviewed more than 40 living test subjects and family members, and they describe an unending cycle of appeals and denials as they struggled to get government benefits for mustard gas exposure. Some gave up out of frustration.

In more than 20 years, the VA attempted to reach just 610 of the men, with a single letter sent in the mail. Brad Flohr, a VA senior adviser for benefits, says the agency couldn't find the rest, because military records of the experiments were incomplete.

"There was no identifying information," he says. "No Social Security numbers, no addresses, no ... way of identifying them. Although, we tried."
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Troops exposed to chemical warfare toxins in Iraq

Pentagon shrugged off troops' chemical exposure in Iraq
Defense officials are reaching out now to offer medical help
UPI News
By Mary Papenfuss
Nov. 6, 2014

The information about the large number of potential exposures emerged following an internal review of Pentagon records ordered by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel after an investigation by the New York Times initially found that 17 service members were injured by sarin or a sulfur mustard agent.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Some 629 U.S. troops reported suspicions that they had been exposed to chemical warfare toxins in Iraq, yet the Pentagon failed to adequately treat them or track possible exposures, defense officials have revealed.

Contact with the toxins occurred beginning in 2003 when troops found degraded chemical weapons from the 1980s hidden in underground caches or in makeshift bombs.
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Ky. weapons depot confirms mustard gas leak

Ky. weapons depot confirms mustard gas leak

By Jeffrey McMurray - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Jul 29, 2008 18:54:33 EDT

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The first mustard gas leak in three years was confirmed Tuesday at a chemical weapons stockpile in Kentucky, less than a month after workers there found a leak inside a separate storage igloo housing a deadly nerve agent.

But officials said the latest leak poses no danger to the community nor the surrounding atmosphere.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/07/ap_mustardgasleak_072908/