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US President Joe Biden is using his first Veterans Day in office to announce an effort to better understand, identify, and treat medical conditions suffered by troops deployed to toxic environments. The White House said the effort centers on lung problems suffered by troops who breathe in toxins and the potential connection between rare cancers and time spent overseas breathing poor air. US Federal officials plan to start by examining lung and breathing problems but say they will expand the effort as science identifies potential new connections. The new federal effort is also designed to make it easier for veterans to make claims based on their symptoms, to collect more data from troops who are suffering, and to give veterans more time to make medical claims after symptoms such as asthma and sinus problems develop.

President Biden was traveling to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on Thursday to participate in a wreath-laying ceremony and deliver remarks. An immunologist, Dr. Richard Meehan said, “We’re discovering there is a whole host of lung conditions related to deployment”. The retired US Naval Reserve officer served in the Mideast during the 1990s and again in 2008. He is co-director of the Denver-based National Jewish Health Center of Excellence on Deployment-Related Lung Disease. President Biden has hypothesized about a potential link between his son Beau’s death from aggressive brain cancer after returning from Iraq and his exposure to toxins in the air, particularly around massive pits where the military disposes of waste by burning. However, there’s no scientific evidence to suggest that link.

Point to be noted that Beau Biden’s death was a defining moment for Joe Biden. The younger Biden deployed from October 2008 until September 2009 as a captain in the Delaware Army National Guard. He was diagnosed with a tumor in 2013 and died two years later at age 46. Meehan (along with his colleagues) is investigating the role of inhalation exposures among military personnel who were deployed to Southwest Asia. He said it doesn’t only burn pits that are the issue, the air quality in some countries is so poor that troops would not be allowed to work there under civilian federal workplace guidelines. The center receives funding from the Department of Defense, along with private donors. Meehan has worried that troops who came back with breathing problems are being compared with other Americans to determine whether there is a higher rate of lung illness.