Jon Stewart pressures VA to cover troops sickened by uranium after 9/11. Once again they are told to wait

WASHINGTON (AP) — Comedian Jon Stewart and soldiers sickened by uranium ended a meeting Friday at the Department of Veterans Affairs angry because they were once again told they would have to wait to see if the VA will connect their illnesses to the base toxic environment where they were deployed shortly after 9/11.

The denied claims should have been corrected by the PACT Act, a major veterans aid package that President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022 and has said is one of his proudest accomplishments in office. For many veterans, it has made accessing care much easier.

But the bill left out the uranium exposure that still harms some of the first troops deployed in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Within weeks of the attacks, special operations forces were sent to Karshi-Khanabad, Uzbekistan, or K2, a heavily contaminated former Soviet base that was a strategic location for launching operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

But K2 was a former chemical weapons site and was filled with yellow powdered uranium that was kicked up in the dust and transported throughout the base when the military built a protective earthen barrier. Radiation levels were up to 40,000 times higher than would have been found naturally, according to a nuclear fusion expert who reviewed the data.

Two decades later, troops who served there are still fighting to have illnesses caused by radiation exposure recognized by the VA. Many died young.

The fact that the VA continues to tell K2 veterans that it has not yet decided whether it will cover their illnesses infuriates Stewart, who is a vocal supporter of all 9/11 first responders.

Stewart and the veterans were at the VA this spring to plead their case, and were told that the VA was working with the Pentagon to identify what radiation was at the base. Friday’s meeting was with VA Secretary Denis McDonough, which raised hopes for a resolution. But they heard something else.

“The secretary said today that he has the authority statutorily to make the change, to ensure that K2 veterans are presumptively covered,” Stewart said. But McDonough told them they were still waiting for additional information. “I believe punting is the correct term for what happened.”

In a statement, VA spokesman Terrence Hayes said there are already more than 300 conditions covered by the PACT Act and that the agency is working on K2-specific illnesses and radiation exposure.

“We continue to urgently consider all options to further help these veterans and survivors and will keep you informed every step of the way,” Hayes said.

“It felt like Groundhog Day,” said Kim Brooks, whose late husband was one of the first soldiers who served on K2 to die.

Lt. Col. Tim Brooks was one of the first soldiers to deploy to K2 in 2001 and served with the 10th Mountain Division during Operation Anaconda against the Taliban in early 2002.

When his unit returned to Fort Drum, New York, in the spring of 2002, Brooks was not himself. He was suffering from debilitating headaches and became unexpectedly irritable, his wife said. Then his unit was called into a meeting to sign paperwork about the toxins they were exposed to, she said.

“He came home after that meeting and told me about it in our kitchen,” said Kim Brooks, who joined Stewart at the VA meeting. “He was incredibly upset and worried and then became increasingly exhausted and didn’t feel or look well before his collapse.”

Kim Brooks tried get the form her husband signed his military records but was unsuccessful and thinks he may have been removed. Other K2 veterans who were in special operations forces also had difficulty obtaining documents from their medical records because their missions and roles were confidential.

In 2003, Tim Brooks collapsed during a ceremony at Fort Drum as his unit prepared to deploy to Iraq. Doctors diagnosed brain cancer and he died a year later at the age of 36.

Still having to fight to get the Pentagon and VA to acknowledge uranium exposure at the base left Kim Brooks “angry, dismayed and sad,” she said. “Denial in 2003 and denial in 2024. When will they take control and take care of these men and women?”

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was serving as commanding general of Fort Drum’s 10th Mountain Division in 2004 when Brooks died there.

Sabrina Singh, deputy press secretary for the Pentagon, said in a statement Friday that the Defense Department is “aware of the health issues and associated claims of veterans” who served at K2 and is “working with the Department of of Veterans on a way forward.”

The presence of uranium at the base has been known since November 2001 – just a month after troops arrived there – and is documented on several Army maps, memos and VA instructions. But it has been labeled in different ways – as enriched, low-level processed or depleted uranium. The base and the radiation and other contaminants there were the subject of congressional hearings in 2020.

Confusion over what type of uranium existed has been one of the obstacles to veterans receiving care.

But the radiation levels documented at K2 in November 2001 were so high — up to 40,000 times what would have been recorded if the uranium occurred naturally — that the specific type doesn’t matter because the exposure would have been harmful, said Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear expert. fusion expert and president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, who reviewed the K2 radiation data.

Exposure to uranium radiation can cause kidney damage, create a risk of bone cancer and also affect pregnancy because it crosses the placenta, among other harmful effects, said Makhijani, who has worked with “atomic veterans” who became ill from radiation afterward. to work at Bikini. Atoll during nuclear weapons testing in the 1940s.

More than 15,000 soldiers were deployed to K2 between 2001 and 2005. Although the VA doesn’t have statistics on how many are sick, the veterans’ base organization has contacted about 5,000 of them and more than 1,500 are reporting serious medical conditions, including cancer, kidney and bone problems, reproductive problems and birth defects.

Getting the VA to recognize your radiation-related illnesses involves more than medical coverage, said the former Army sergeant. Mark Jackson, a K2 veteran who sought treatment for severe osteoporosis, had to have a testicle removed and his entire thyroid removed – neither of which were covered by the VA.

“It’s recognition of the exposure,” Jackson said.

Austin was the commander of Combined Joint Task Force Afghanistan when Jackson deployed to K2. His unit would use the K2 to enter and exit Afghanistan on missions. It’s not lost on either Jackson or Kim Brooks that Austin now leads the agency they need to finally acknowledge the radiation exposure on K2.

“He was there when I was there,” Jackson said. “Hell, Austin signed my Bronze Star. I see his signature almost every day.”