U.S. President Biden has signed a bill to expand healthcare and disability benefits to some 3.5 million former U.S. service members poisoned by toxic “burn pits” on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Washington, August 11 (RHC)-- U.S. President Biden has signed a bill to expand healthcare and disability benefits to some 3.5 million former U.S. service members poisoned by toxic “burn pits” on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The U.S. military has used burn pits to dispose of waste products, including chemicals, paint, medical and human waste, metal/aluminum cans, munitions and other unexploded ordnance, petroleum and lubricant products.  

Biden welcomed the new law at a White House signing ceremony in Washington, saying: “And toxic smoke, thick with poison, spreading through the air and into the lungs of our troops. When they came home, many of the fittest and best warriors that we sent to war were not the same — headaches, numbness, dizziness, cancer.  My son Beau was one of them.”

Biden believes toxic burn pits may have contributed to the 2015 death of his son Beau Biden, who served in Iraq and was then diagnosed with brain cancer. 

The new law appropriates about $40 billion annually to alleviate veterans’ suffering — but only for U.S. victims. Click here to see our coverage of the PACT Act and how it will not benefit Iraqis and Afghans harmed by these burn pits.