Washington—Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) today introduced legislation to create an Agent Orange-style registry for U.S. military personnel exposed to hazardous chemicals while serving in the line of duty. The Bayh proposal would guarantee access to follow-up medical evaluations and priority status at Veterans Administration (VA) medical facilities for service members who have been exposed to occupational and environmental hazards while deployed.

The Bayh legislation follows revelations this June that members of the 1st Battalion, 152nd Infantry of the Indiana National Guard were exposed to a highly carcinogenic toxin known as sodium dichromate while assigned to protect the Qarmat Ali Water Treatment Plant in Iraq in 2003.

“This bill recognizes our responsibility to remove needless obstacles to care for American troops exposed to harmful toxins during wartime service,” Senator Bayh said. “We should be guided by our government’s response to Agent Orange in Vietnam, when we shifted the evidentiary burden so veterans placed at risk did not bear the burden of proof if future health conditions developed.”

The Bayh legislation would establish a registry making at-risk veterans eligible for a series of medical examinations and laboratory tests. It would also authorize a scientific review of the evidence linking exposure to adverse health effects. Under the Bayh approach, a veteran’s own report of exposure would constitute sufficient proof necessary to receive medical care, barring evidence to the contrary.

Finally, the legislation would require front-line commanders to report hazardous material exposure to their non-deployed headquarters. Bayh said it was unacceptable that Maj. Gen. Martin Umbarger, adjutant general of the Indiana National Guard, learned of the exposure after a Senate committee hearing this June, some four years after the 2003 Qarmat Ali incident.

Last Friday, Bayh wrote Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Army Secretary Pete Geren requesting that the Pentagon open an investigation to determine if members of the Indiana National Guard were properly evaluated for exposure.

In 2003, the Hoosier troops were guarding a water plant being rebuilt by the Houston-based construction firm KBR, then a subsidiary of the oil conglomerate Halliburton. Despite on-site assurances that the orange, sand-like dust spread throughout the facility was a “mild irritant,” it was later revealed to be sodium dichromate, a hexavalent chromium compound, which is the same substance that poisoned 634 people in Hinkley, Calif., in an incident that served as the basis for the motion picture, “Erin Brockovich.”

In the letter, Bayh expressed concerns that the Army testing did not occur within the four-month window of time necessary to gauge possible health risks, and the Army may have used dated standards to measure possibly toxic chromium levels in the soldiers’ bodies.

“The Qarmat Ali situation represents a threat out soldiers should have never had to face,” Bayh wrote. “In order to honor the men and women who volunteer to serve our nation in uniform, we must offer them the best protection possible when deployed in harm’s way and the best available care when they return.”

The environmental health threats that the Indiana Guardsmen faced at Qarmat Ali are not unique. In July 2005, a senior Department of Defense official testified before the House Committee on Government Reform about numerous incidents involving potentially hazardous materials.

These included incidents at Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center in Iraq, with possible excessive exposure levels of ionizing radiation; Al-Samawah in Iraq, with depleted uranium and exposure to toxic chemicals; Ash Shuaiba Port in Kuwait, with industrial pollution at a large port; Camp War Eagle in Iraq, with possible airborne lead exposures; Baghdad, with possible exposure to sarin; Kharsi Khanabad in Uzbekistan, with suspected environmental radiological and chemical agent contamination; and Al Mishraq Sulfur Plant in Iraq, with airborne combustion products from a sulfur fire.

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