 Let's go around the table and introduce ourselves. We have as full a committee as we could possibly have right now. So just for you. Representative Tom Stevens from Waterbury. Nice to see you. Representative Matt Byron-Girgent. Rindelsock, Barnard. He said he'd go Berkshire. Mary Annie Marsh, Martin. John Thalaki, Southbrook. Emily Long, you know me. I do. Tommy Walters, Mary City. Mary Howard, Broward City. Chip Drianon, standard. Wonderful. So you have S83, which is, to my recollection, is an offshoot of some of the sexual harassment work we did last year. Exactly. It's an offshoot, basically, of H707, which was sexual harassment, obviously, that started in the house. I know Sarah Copent-Consis was one of the champions. I know different others. And so if you recall, so when H707 was passed, people started referring to it as sort of Vermont's hashtag need to law. And it improved statewide sexual harassment reporting and advanced policies that made it difficult for survivors to report misconduct. The key provision of that bill that was really groundbreaking was the do not darken my door provision. Are you familiar with that? Folks, generally, I don't want to waste your time if people know what I'm talking about. We heard a bill introduction. Representative Christie introduced a version of this. But we have not yet reviewed the Senate version if there is anything. OK, great. So essentially, it prohibits a person involved in a sexual harassment claim from seeking employment from that business in the future. Now, what was really the key critical point for us was that we discovered, in the course of our testimony that we took, was that actually the biggest user of this provision was the Sandra Monk, exactly, which we all found absolutely appalling. And of course, if you can't work in one division or one agency, and then that expanded writ large that drastically reduces your opportunities for employment in the state of Vermont. So we went around and around about this provision. It was a difficult provision to narrow enough to make people comfortable. I'll be candid with you. There were attorneys on both sides, people that were representing employers that didn't want this. And there were people who represented employees initially that didn't want this. It felt it was narrowing their choices for getting restitution for the employees that felt like they had been wronged. In the end, the committee decided, in fact, it was much more of a bill that would empower choices for employees. And that, in general, I think last year, 707 passed unanimously out of committee and had a very strong vote on the floor. I meant to look it up to see if it was unanimous. I'm not sure that it was. But so we realized that in passing this, we'd neglected employees who'd filed racial harassment complaints. And were offered similar do not dark in-mind or provisions, which we should have thought of, but we didn't. And then it came to our attention. You may have heard of a case of a woman named Ismina Francois, who was an African-American woman. Actually, she still works at the mental health facility in Berlin. And she had complained to the Human Rights Commission about troubling cases of racial harassment at the facility. And the Human Rights Commission did do a full report, which you can read, and certainly get a sense of what that was all about. The investigation by Human Rights Commission that followed uncovers numerous alleged incidents of racial harassment perpetrated not only against Francois, but at other people who worked at the facility. So Ms. Francois and her attorney, who many of you know is former chair of the Human Rights Commission. I can't believe his name is this game you gave me. Robert Bell, thank you. Robert Bell came. And we spoke with him and Ismina both. And at one point in explaining her complaint process, she let us know that she was offered a settlement, but was told that she needed to agree not to seek employment at other sites managed by the state of Vermont. So we realized that it was a similar situation that we had dealt with with sexual harassment, and we'd overlooked that this could also be a situation involving racial harassment. So that was the impetus for us looking at expanding this and really looking at the protected classes that we're already aiming to serve. My belief is that it passed unanimously on the floor of the Senate. But I can go back and confirm that. But it was basically taking that, do not darken my door provision from the original H707 and expanding it to other protected classes. All right. Representative Clark, why not hold the protected classes? So I believe it does. I'm looking, if you look. I have it on the screen. I just want to make sure I understand. And we will have a walkthrough right after. So the impetus for it coming to us was that we had neglected racial harassment. And of course, the statutory update was to expand it to all. Correct? I don't have a date. We'll have you turn to the fire department. Wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you. I do not have my distance glasses in this case. Anything else? No, I think we are more than vaguely familiar with it. But not so much to getting the clarification that was moving into racial harassment. Not a simple little bill. We have access to your list of witnesses. And we wanted to hear it now. If we have an opportunity, it will be a couple of weeks. But I appreciate you coming upstairs. Absolutely. And it would be great for you to, Bo Yang, obviously at the Human Rights Commission, feels really strongly about the issues of great witness and also as an attorney, can take you through a lot of the reasons behind it. Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you. I like your new room. I haven't been caring since you were down the wall. Well done. Do you need a, do you need a, oh, I'm sorry. You can't lie to us. Bye. I'm just going to bring her in right now. Bye-bye. That's awesome. Exactly. She was waiting for what he wanted. She may have been on her second pass through the hall, because I tried 41, and I tried to go up to the normal, holding pattern. This has been a week of people coming up to the third floor. It's great. Yeah. So I thought they saw it if she wasn't here. Yes. Roberto. This will be a four-hour walk through, I think. And you, sir? Good afternoon for the record, Roberto Gonzalez from the Office of the Edge Council. I'm going to be doing the short walkthrough of S83. As already Senator Bailey mentioned, this bill, what it seems to do is prevent the do not darken my door closets in agreements between employers and employees when they settle a claim of unlawful employment practice. This amendment would go into section 495, which covers unlawful employment practices. And this section covers all type of discrimination, just not just racial. It covers discrimination based on race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, place of birth, crime, victim status, age, qualified individuals with disabilities, or people that test positive for HIV. So it's the large section that covers practically all types of discrimination. In essence, it puts it on par with sexual harassment, which is in a separate section. Sexual harassment in itself is a type of sexual discrimination. And as the senator already mentioned, the General Assembly, when enacting that section, included a prohibition of do not darken my door closets. So this bill would put discrimination in general on par with sexual discrimination. And that's it, simply. It's just a two-section bill. That's the first section. The second is the effective date. I'm having a hard time understanding. So the last bill left out, racial discrimination? No, or sexual discrimination? The last bill, yes, was directed toward sexual harassment, so that the prohibition on do not darken my door closets is specifically in the section concerned, sexual harassment. And now it's the full umbrella of all of that. That's correct. And is HIV being the correct term anymore? I think that's decades out of the term. Maybe, but I understand what's in the statute right now. I can check to see if it's correct. Sure. Maybe if you could just check on that. Yeah, it's a 90s vestige, I think. Anyway, what would be the proper, I'm not really sure, what would be AIDS? HIV-cash AIDS, I've seen that. I've been referred to as HIV in a long time, so it just could be me. But these six change. Sure. So just to clarify, John, so the sexual harassment has its own chapter. OK. And this is, this would be inserted where, well again, under unlawful employment practice, again, there's so many different, there's different protected classes, but we've heard from how they have protected classes in housing and employment throughout the year so far. So this is, this is to cover all. And yeah, so that's, that's. I'd like to clarify, it could also apply to situations where there's retaliation due to whistleblowing and there's a misclassification of an employee that could also be covered. Right. And yes, the term HIV is what is currently used in the statute. It reads as a person that relates positive to an HIV-related bullet test as a condition of employment. OK. So we can take a look to see if that's a common, if that's still common usage. And we will, if we take this up towards the end of the year, we'll have witnesses and we'll come back. Sure. Any other questions? Thank you so much. Good to see you. 11, an act relating to the US Department of Veterans Affairs, airborne hazards and open burn pit registry. And our first witness today is David Englender from the Department of Health. Yesterday we heard from a number of witnesses, so this is, who testified in the Senate. So welcome. I'm glad to be before you. It's the first time I've been to committee this in person. In 3D. Yes. Such as I am. Yes. I was, I was on the phone one day. Less than one day. Probably three. You're not the first person to sit to a document. There's more like three Gs. More than anything else. Stay well. I'm glad to be before you. So what would be most, you've heard a lot of testimony in this before you're going to have those who are more eloquent and more unalatable than I am about this matter. What would be useful to the committee here from the department? Well, we understand the testimony that it's possible that the Department of Health, the Vermont Department of Health supports this bill. And so we'd like to at least hear what the reason these were. If you have come across any of the symptoms or any of the illnesses that have been described that either don't have a source yet or that we think belong in this category, we would just like to hear what your exposure, if you will, to this illness is or to these illnesses are and how the states responding and why you support the bill. So thank you again for speaking to this. This obviously is an issue that infects the Monkers profoundly. The Department of Health does support the bill because there is a lack of education on the part of providers they are seeing. I think as we've heard in the book here, there are individuals coming down with diseases that wouldn't otherwise be indicative of disease. So that means that I say this more coherently. People are coming down with conditions that are unusual for their age or their demographic group. And so therefore, it is wise to inform providers that they should be looking for conditions that they might not otherwise consider when they are dealing with service, with service people who have served in Afghanistan or Iraq. The Department of Health has, so the Department of Health houses the Board of Medical Licensing that gives us the ability to reach out to MDs, to PAs and podiatrists. And we would be more than happy to work with the medical side and others in providing information using them as a means to provide education. We also have the ability to gather available information on our website, obviously, to provide contact information for the event of affairs, for DOD, for the government registry. If I may talk a little bit about the language itself, there was a miscommunicated list that made members have questions. There was a little bit of a miscommunication and I don't know how to use my computer. Do you think the text of the bill? Yes, what's the bill, Luke? One of this one. That's not. So I'll just vamp a little bit. So what the language of the bill says a few times, it requires the Department of Health to gather information to provide it in one spot and also to provide a letter working with the Department of Veterans Affairs for providers. The concern is, let's see if I can vote the bill. So on page, we could turn our email to page three, line 16 through 19. So as I sat down with our PhD FD mail, I said look at the language specifically in A. CID was associated with exposure over burn pits. And in essence, their response was, that is in essence the reason for the registry, that we don't actually know what symptoms are associated with exposure to burn pits. There's not a direct correlation today. So the recommended language that came from the Department of Health starts on 16, which is health effects that are associated with chemicals identified in open burn pits. So that is something the Department of Health can provide is, I think it is actually undisputed that it is impossible to provide while it will be at some point, perhaps, possible to do what that's what AP did is not today. So the Department recommended that the assertion of the language at age 16 and that the language found in A be struck, and that appears in a second time as well. Okay, and that's positive for us just to be able to say that A particular chemical that has been recognized elsewhere as a potential carcinogen, which is also identified at a burn pit, that there may be correlation that you can then track. Precisely. So it goes from a question we can answer to a question we really can't answer. Okay. So that also appears online, excuse me, on page five, line five, the same language. Okay. Maybe also. So what else, where else are we connected with this? So you would be tasked with helping the guard compile the information for an information packet or? We would compile the information. We would create a packet distributed by the guard if they so chose, and then we would provide a place on our website where anybody could find information related to explosion burn pits with the health effects associated with those chemicals as well as the contact information for both the DOD, Veteran Affairs, as well as the Registry itself. Okay, and this is all, I have to ask the money question. This is all within your existing budget. We can do this at no cost. All right, questions for David? Have you seen the website? I'm sorry. Are you listed on the, are you here on the? No, but I have a question. I will let you ask that question. Generally speaking, we don't usually open up to the, to the size of it. I already said questions, and I, my head. Please go right ahead. No, it's okay. No, go ahead, David. If you can identify yourself for the record and then, and then. No more, I'll wait. Okay. Thank you. I do have one comment. I spoke with the Office of the Governor this morning and there is some concern that some of the language and the findings might be unnecessarily provocative. So I just wanted to, to provide that to the committee. Is that a general comment or do you think it is specific? I could be specific. If you, if you look on page two, for instance, Line 19, the language such as after the period of equivocation. Okay. I believe there's at least, and actually on Line 16, the past U.S. armed forces have been slowed to acknowledge the physical mental injuries. This is not, the Office of the Governor is not disputing the truthfulness of these statements, but, but just merely impining that. They might be provocative to, to D.O.D. Okay. Thank you for sharing. All right. Thank you for coming in. It's my pleasure. Thanks. Okay. Our next witness is Dr. Romara. Dr. Romara, how are you? Fine. Thank you. Hi, I'm Romara. I'm recently let the B.A. after working there for just shy of 30 years. I did all my training there, et cetera. So I've been there. This is in Vermont in White River Junction since about 1986. And in the last decade, I've been the person doing the registry exam. So I'm gonna explain to you what a registry is. It's basically the whole point of this process today. So having said that, history repeats itself. In World War II, the military sprayed DDT of the South Pacific, because Burma, wherever else we were, more soldiers were dying of malaria than of combat. So they very quickly fixed that problem. They solved that problem. I don't know what happened to the men that were exposed to DDT. It was banned shortly thereafter. Okay, Rachel Carlson came along and published her science spring in 1962. The EPA was formed thanks to her, and it was banned. Then in the 50s, we were spraying something very close to DDT. Two for five, trichloral benoxyacetic acid is Agent Orange. And there's a few derivatives of that that they call Agent White, Agent Blue, et cetera. But they're all just a hair away from DDT. We were spraying it all over Korea. Until it was banned, we were spraying on the Demilitarized Zone in Korea. We've had a big Cold War presence in South Korea for many decades, which was all classified, but we had nuclear warheads, et cetera. So it was heavily sprayed to prevent malaria in South Korea, and then on the DMZ just to clear it of vegetation. Vietnam, we were in Vietnam a long time before the war started. We were there in the 50s, the late 50s. 58, 59, we had recon units out there. We had airborne green berets in Laos and Cambodia, especially Laos in the early 60s, 60s, 61, 62. The government admits, the DOD admits to spraying Agent Orange starting in 62, but we believe it's been spraying just like everywhere else before that. So Vietnam vets, they recognize if they were even set foot in Vietnam that they were supposed to age an Orange from 62 to 75. They actually banned the use of Agent Orange in 1970. So the overhead spraying stopped in 1970 and they stopped ground spraying in Vietnam in 71. We were using it here in this country in the agricultural industry. It didn't officially get banned in the U.S. I think until 1982, which is a minor one, after a big fight from the Monsanto and the agricultural industry because it was just the economic aspect. So then we have exposures, summer in there. There's been a lot of ionized radiation exposure. When they were testing the atomic bomb, we had those guys standing there in the army with those black glasses on it. And guess what they did? One minute after it detonated, they ran into Ground Zero. And we have, I just read an article in the paper this morning, WCX was a veteran here, right here in Berlin, I think, who was in a, they put him in a foxhole near Ground Zero for a hydrogen bomb test in 1950. We tested them out in islands in the Pacific. And one of the patients I met, so I also see patients for an ionized radiation exposure. He had been out, the way the military, or DOD deals with this is they had these island people who, that was the home. We tested our bomb on their home, and then they sent our guys out there and then probably mid to late 70s, maybe even the 80s. And we dug out a big hole with excavators and moved that sand to a different island and let the people come back in. And I don't think that fixed the problem, but it looked good. Our soldiers who were doing that, I think I've met these men, very heavy exposure to radiation. They did not have them in any special suits. So that was, this is kind of how the military that's used our soldiers, completely irreverent of their safety. So Gulf War, we were in Persian Gulf for quite a while before the Gulf War happened. That didn't just happen. We had been in Saudi Arabia and other countries that certainly through the year of 1990, the war broke out, lastly, helping with history. Very early 91s, I don't think I have a date for the Gulf War. Very quick, three months. We didn't leave. There were already big, big burn pits in Kuwait before we ever went into that war. So those burn pits were built, and I'll describe them in a minute. Well, describe them now. There are several football fields in size, and everything is burning on it. Human waste, body parts, if they have an ID blast and people are blown up and they can't put that arm with that torso, they just throw the arms into a plastic bag and make some poor guy throw it into the burn pit. Those are not toxic substances. Our body wastes were not toxic from their burn. Papers aren't particularly toxic. You might breathe in the smoke. But they also threw plastics. You've got your polychlorinated biphenyls in there. They threw in, they started the fire with jet fuel. Jet fuel has got benzene in it. Very toxic. This is the case with the American Cancer Society. So, hey, benzene is associated with leukemia and lymphoma. It doesn't matter if you were, I have a gentleman who had lymphoma who was fueling jets for eight years, the DOD said no association. So it's not quite as, you gotta get the DOD to cooperate. So it doesn't matter what the American Cancer Society says. This has been going on for many years, okay? It's not as simple as that. Anyway, so they have solvents, they have toxic paints, there's toluene in paints, same thing that's in nail polish, but it's very, very toxic and it's known to be a carcinogen. So they smell okay, but these are really toxic. There's other substances, other exposures that are Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan, vets with these burn pits we're exposed to. Those included, of course, sandstorms. I mentioned that just the exhaust from the vehicles, microwaves, deplete uranium, et cetera. Deplete uranium, by the way, is not particularly radioactive. They use it in the core of the tank rounds because it's so dense. It's like 15 times the density of lead. Boom, it's just very penetrating. So that was a big fear of our vets for a while. And it just, we've tested and tested and tested and it's all the negative. Whatever exposure they have, it just isn't even measurable. And that's the only thing I actually can test for. Let's talk about the registry quickly. The registry process is a data collection. It's for the purpose of epidemiology. It's for the purpose of collecting data, symptoms and diagnoses. Where did that start? Well, it started in 1978 when the Vietnam vets started banging on the DOD and VA's door saying, excuse me, we're dying. We're dying. leukemia, lymph cancer, prostate cancer, all kinds of cancers, young men. These guys were 78. They were babies. They were still in their 20s, a lot of them. They were already dying from extraordinarily rare cancers. That was the Vietnam vets. So they actually started collecting data in 1978. I joined the staff at the VA in 93. There was a kind of a penciled in list in 93. So that's 15 years later they penciled in some of the rare cancers, extraordinarily rare. And thinking about prostate cancer, lymph cancer, leukemia, because they were so obviously. When I was starting my endocrinologist, so I was seeing a lot of diabetic people, veterans. And I'm like, what's going on here? They're young, they're thin. There's no family history of diabetes. They're not supposed to have diabetes. They're all Vietnam vets. And that's how I figured out that there was an exposure agent orange. And that's when I learned about it. I've lost, about five years later, Asian orange, our diabetes made the presumptive list. Presumptive list is a list of diagnoses for which a patient may file a claim and be compensated without burden of proof, okay? So it took five years from when I even started to get, I lost, I don't know how many veterans I lost to diabetes. Then I could see Parkinson's coming down the road. I don't know how many veterans I lost to Parkinson's and then it made the list. And the same with lung cancer. The same with heart disease. I could go down the whole list and say, man, I lost a lot of guys before they ever had the opportunity, the validation to file a claim and be, it's not about the money as much as it is about just saying, yeah, that's from Asian orange. So when the Gulf War happened, they actually started to registry right away. They knew, it's an all, I think that was a really good idea. It was a smaller number of veterans. They came home and they were safe. They didn't feel well. Very nervous. They couldn't put a finger on any specific diagnosis. There were no abnormal lab tests. They kind of lumped a lot of symptoms under the first Gulf War syndrome. The veterans could file for that, but without any diagnostic criteria, it's hard to get that diagnosis. So a handful of them walked out with some disability from that. Same thing, the other things they put on their presumptive list. And this is the list that exists to this day. And I think it took probably 10 years without this to be compiled. Is chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, neither of which are what I consider real diagnoses, neither of which has diagnostic criteria. It's virtually impossible to get a service connected for them because you have to have a bona fide diagnosis. It's impossible to get that. So I feel like they were put on the presumptive list for burn fat, I should say, at that point Persian Gulf, to have something on it. Then in, so I've been doing, by now I'm doing the Persian Gulf exams. In 2014, they added the Afghanistan vets into the registry process because we didn't have one for them. We're calling it Persian Gulf. That's when this airborne hazard burn pit registry started. It's the same registry as we've been doing since 91. I think the data, I hope the data's being added to it. That would be mind blowing if they started fresh. But I think it's all additive because it's all basically burn, quote unquote, burn pit. It does include all, the only exposure that it's not really accounting for is the sandstorms, but the new way to register, I think included that. They keep changing the intake process. So now veterans can actually go online, do their registry evaluation online, and then choose whether or not to see a clinician for a physical exam and lung testing. Okay. So that's where the registry is to date. I've noticed how long have I been doing this? 10 years, eight patients a week for 10 years. Asian origin and burn pit, but a lot of burn pit patients. Hundreds and hundreds, maybe a thousand or a couple thousand. A lot of respiratory symptoms. So maybe the data isn't there, but I don't know where it is. If you go on the website, that's what I was just gonna ask you, if you had seen the website for the VA for burn pits. It says no evidence, so it's a very short website for something that's been going on since 1991. No evidence of long-term consequences. Lester, can you hand me my bag? There it is, there it is. I just want to read you. Yes, the list. I know, they're not official. So yeah, I could have, I have made it myself. So, oh my, my red phone is there. Do I have a red phone? That's what I'm talking about, sorry. I just want to read it on an email that the gentleman who runs the, he's the number one in charge of the burn pit and all environmental health programs for that matter, for the VA in the country. And this is an email, again, I'm quoting an email that he sent to our registry when we told him that this hearing was gonna be taking place. She just wanted our people to want to give him a heads up. And he said, there's a very factual error in this bill and it's number one, the first thing he mentioned was that the registry is not connected to benefits. So he wanted to make sure that nobody went into it thinking they were gonna get any money out of it. And then he goes on to say, there is contradictory information on health effects. The paper is describing short term health effects. People can have acute respiratory problems when exposed to dust and particulate matter. The main point is there's no evidence to date of long term health effects. I don't know what I've been doing for 10 years. I've been submitting lots of data, I would call that evidence. And I'd say that eight out of 10 of them, and that's my estimate, have some sort of respiratory problems. Asthma, the ones I see all the time, sleep apnea, asthma, well see your sleep apnea. Asthma, chronic sinusitis, chronic bronchitis and acid reflex are the five that I see over and over and over again. So just to finish this quote, that is where the current research is focusing on the long term health effects. This is why we want veterans to register. An analogy is being too close to a campfire. This is where I can just hear a kick in, I can go on record. You may call for a day or two after this guy can't write, but most people are back to normal after the explosion stops, a campfire. We're talking, oh, and now I will distribute my photos of burn pits, if you wanna kind of take a peek and pass it around. This is what the campfire looks like. Imagine this is three football fields worth of chemicals burning, of fuel, of plastics, you know, like I said, feces and body parts is kind of like a campfire. It's not good for the company. But just the sheer magnitude, the sheer magnitude, these guys were living in disgusting black smoke 24 seven if they were on the base. They slept in it, they ate in it, they exercised in it, they stood guard in it, they tended the burn pits. The only referee from it was getting off the base to go try to get killed, you know. And those guys are actually in better shape than people who spend more time on the base, so other than the sandstorms. It's just a bit of a, it's, it's. So a quick question. The registry itself, I mean, what this bill is trying to do is to say that out of the thousands of remonters that have, that have served, I'm assuming that's not just National Guard but we could include all services. So what this bill is promoting is to try to get away from more remonters to sign up for this registry, which we understand is difficult to deal with. And so I guess my question is, is the importance of the registry to. So that's how I was gonna wrap up, is to just say that, you know, I've been networking through the guardsmen for years, say bring your friends in, bring your friends in. So that's how we've been trying to have an outreach is through the veterans themselves. This bill would extend it into the community. When I testified two weeks ago, they asked me to come up with something that we could distribute to physicians in the community. A lot of veterans may be going into the community for their healthcare now, that's become an option. So it's, this is a pamphlet that I made for health providers in the community just to bring them up to date on the registry process. So they can be some of the impetus to have patients come in and need to distribute. Even at the VA, I don't get quite as many patients. The problem is, is that it's up to the veteran to sign up. And that's part of the problem if it were an obligation to sign up. That would be annoying for them for that work here. So for years, a lot of Vietnam vets never showed up. I'm meeting them, it's their first time in the VA in 50 years and they're coming in for their first VA because they've let along Agent Orange. And a lot of the guys don't like coming in because it makes them think about the war and it's too painful. And I think that's why a lot of them stay away. It's just too emotionally organizing. But I have seen them show up because their buddy died. I have seen them show up because of, again, it's more the brotherhood. If we can appeal to the brotherhood of all of our military veterans, I think they will come in, but we still have to advertise. And I think that that's what this bill is about. It's basically advertising, pushing it in the community, pushing it in the, we have DAV trucks run out, drive around to malls and big shopping centers. And they, one on one, will try to get veterans to come in for these exams, but it's very piecemeal. So I think if anything could go out a little more broadly, that should be good. This will drive the process forward. And as I said two weeks ago, I'm still a little skeptical that they're gonna admit that sinus problems, bronchitis, sleep apnea, acid reflux, and something, I forgot, asthma, that those fight, why, because they all have it. Uh-oh, they'll have to pay them all. So there is some money at the end. And that's, I just, to be a little bit skeptical, the other thing is that the patients who come in with rare premature cancers should not have to prove that it's from an exposure. They should be given the benefit of the doubt. And this, and again, we're not gonna fix that with this bill, but just to spare Pat Cram and Wesley, when their loved ones are dying, or when they're dying, to spare them having to fight for months on end, and June has to. That's just really, I don't know, any questions? So would it be fair to say, from our perspective, I mean, I look at this and say that this is like a pilot like this is like the first drop in a rain bucket of just saying that this is obviously the beginning of a long path to get to where even age and orange ended up. I mean, that's what this strikes me as, is trying to make sure that people, that we start down the path of registering people to make sure that they're accounted for, which if there's a large enough number that other things will start happening, is that fair? That would be nice. It's just you can see how painfully slowly the age and orange process went and how many people died. So I, Wesley and I were talking about this before the hearing, I would like the pilot life to be the change in policy. We can't do that. We can't do that. But you can be a pilot life. And that's where I see this right here right now. I think it's fantastic. It can be a pilot life to try to fix something that's a little broken. Representative trial. So in addition to information, I mentioned this yesterday, there's issues surrounding mistrust and anger that veterans come back with. And when they discover that they've been poisoned by the government, it promotes that. And they don't want anything to do with it. They don't want to go for tests. They don't want to hear about it. So outreach needs to be, as we heard yesterday, town halls, you know, BAs, American regions, the FWs. You know, that's part of it, but we get over that anger. And when it's 15 years later that a class action lawsuit had to be won against the chemical companies down in their center for a dioxin poisoning, that was the only time. But they fought us for 12 years and spent millions of dollars in doing it rather than settle with dying veterans. It's despicable. So you can see why I'm a little, just a little passionate about this. And I feel angry. And when they can make it into my office, which I'm not doing anymore, but at least I can do this now. If they can make it into my office, boy, the anger, poof, it's gone. They're like, oh my God, you're on my side. So who cares? I'm on your side. Then I validate and then we troubleshoot together. That's the one on one I had when I worked at the VA that I'm gonna miss dreadfully. I'm trying to get back into that aspect of care if you want to. That would be really nice. But in the meantime, just talking to people who are involved in the program, the people who register our patients are very passionate about it also. It's kind of a lack of contact, I think, with people who really care, who are actually in the VA. And that's hard. And a lot of the people who work at the VA don't want anything to do with them. I set up a whole lecture on burn pit and age and orange. Guess how many people showed up? This was during a scheduled lecture time. Oh, we're too busy. It was just, oh. So you're up against it. Not that they don't, this is everybody. I don't have time. I just wanted to say one more thing. I traveled back to Vietnam in 2008 and 2007, 2008. And we were working on a documentary film. And we visited the children's home. Started by George Mizo, a former Marine who actually had passed away. And they were caring for fourth, third, fourth and fifth generation Vietnamese people who were poisoned, dioxin, poisoned by dioxin. And so we leave a country with five generations of exposure of children. Young children and elderly gentlemen all in the same home being cared for by what we've done. So those are people still living in Asian orange. I just want to say, and I didn't go through, I went through a lot of this in my prior testimony, but I wanted to, you can call that focused. I wanted to focus on the registry today. But we're seeing birth defects in first and second generation of our own Vietnam vets now. So it doesn't go away. You can see how horrific this is. So when you deal with people one-on-one, it's pretty intense. And it's probably the favorite thing that I do is the anger and just the raw desperation of it. But it feels good to listen to people like that. I just want to read the last line of my last testimony because I liked it, or the last paragraph. So the latest thing with the Asian orange that's been going on and on and on is that hypertension is gonna get added to the Asian orange list. Well, I've been hearing that for 10 years. So I heard that it was long anticipated and there's been a lot of talk of it in the Asian orange newsletter that goes out every year. And since, to the Asian orange registry participants, here's what I'd say recently. Congress will never approve adding hypertension to the list because they would have to compensate so many Vietnam vets. And that's what I'm getting at with these relatively not rare cancer type diagnoses. So it was then that I realized how naive I had been about the registry process. I was very passionate. We've got to collect the data. We've got to collect the data. As being a purely scientific endeavor, much like Rachel Carlson and the EPA, we have to fight to get past politics and the dollar before our OEF, OIF, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Afghanistan veterans receive the validation and compensation they deserve for burn pit exposure. Thank you. Pat Cran. Thanks. I'm bringing some visuals that I'd like you to look at. It's my husband, Master Sergeant Michael Cran and a fellow Guardsman and one of his best friends, Jeffrey Solis. This is a picture of all of us when they came back from Iraq the first time. Thank you for having us. This is really important to myself and my family and my friends and my friends. My name is Patricia Cran. Here's a picture of my late husband, Master Sergeant Michael Cran, as well as his friend and fellow Military Police Officer, Sergeant Jeffrey Solis. Both Mike and Jeff were deployed in June of 2004 to 2005. They, along with 19 other military police soldiers from the Northfield Armory, were assigned to the 278th Tennessee National Guard. They trained at Camp Shelby, Mississippi for six months before they deployed to Camp Caldwell in Iraq where they were stationed for one year. Camp Caldwell, or Forward Operating Base Caldwell, is on the list of locations that burn pits have been used. It is located approximately 70 miles east of Baghdad. And in addition to the burn pit exposures within the base, outside the base was a brick-making facility that was pictured up here that operated 24-7 which had several black smokestacks that were about 50 feet in height. The air was filled with constant smog and residue from these smokestacks. They returned home after their year and a half deployment and I will never forget that day as family members looked on with pride and our military police veterans were once again home and safe after a dangerous tour of duty. In 2009 to 2010, once again, the military police were called upon to deploy with 1,500 Vermont National Guardsmen to Afghanistan. After a year-long tour of duty, they were once again back home safe, happy to have served their state and their country. While in Afghanistan, they were stationed in a small village for their entire tour. In this village, burn pits were everywhere as that is how the local Afghanis got rid of waste. Little did we know the happiness that we felt when they arrived home safely would be short-lived. In the summer of 2015, Sergeant Jeffrey Solis was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The following summer, Mike Cram was also diagnosed with prostate cancer. Sadly, for the past five years since Mike had been back from Afghanistan, he had gone every year to his primary care doctor complaining of not feeling well, only to be told he needed to exercise more and lose weight. When the pain could not be handled with aspirin, he again went back to his PCP and was told he had a hernia. After a couple of months, we were able to get an appointment with a hernia surgeon at Fletcher Allen, and within two minutes, he advised us it was not his hernia but rather his prostate. Exploratory surgery was done and we advised he had prostate cancer. I will never forget that day. The first thing Mike said to me after getting diagnosed with prostate cancer was Pat, we got into something over there. The following weekend was a drill weekend and Mike took all of his male soldiers that were still in the MP unit down to Camp Johnson and had their PSA levels checked. Due to hyper-rules, the exact number of soldiers who tested high is not known, but eight confirmed to Mike that they too had high numbers and one soldier had full-blown prostate cancer. That soldier who was being treated was being treated at the BA hospital, was advised to take a wait-and-see approach because prostate cancer is easily, is easily beaten. I'll never forget the night that he called Mike to tell him that news. Mike said, you get on that phone, you call them and you demand that your prostate be removed. It's a matter of life and death. He did finally have his prostate removed and finally he is now cancer-free for over a year. Mike chose to do his chemotherapy at Dana-Farber and after a second round of chemo, we received the devastating news that Jeff Solis had passed away from his very aggressive form of prostate cancer. He passed away on October 17th, 2016. After Mike's sixth round of treatments at Dana-Farber, his PSA levels were so low they weren't measurable and we were confident Mike would beat this cancer. In the spring of 2017, Mike started experiencing back pain and once again his PCP misdiagnosed him, saying he had a fractured vertebrae in his back. He was sent home on the 24th of June with muscle reliance. On the 4th of July, I came upstairs, he was lying in our bed in a fetal position crying, so I can't take the pain anymore. We rushed him to the emergency room, they did an MRI and we received the news that the cancer had metastasized to his back and a tumor was pushing on his spine. He endured six rounds of radiation and it was successful in eliminating his pain. However, two weeks later he started severe headaches and once again we were given the news that the cancer had spread to his skull. He endured another five rounds of radiation to his skull. Because of these treatments and the strain on his body, he had to go numerous blood transfusions. He was to start another round of chemo in September but during a blood transfusion to raise his platelet count, his oncologist came in and told us there was nothing more they could do for Mike and that he had three months to live. During the rounds of radiation, he gradually lost his vision and his hearing. And on December 17th, exactly four months to the date that his friend Jeff Solis passed away, Mike passed away from a very aggressive form of prostate cancer. It was just 23 days after his 47th birthday. Mike, as well as Jeff, had no family history of prostate cancer. Dr. Stephen Addis from Fletcher Allen wrote in a letter to the VA, it is highly unusual for a man in his 40s to get such an aggressive form of cancer that one must consider important exposures as appears to be the case here. Additionally, Mike's PSA levels rose significantly in 2015 and he was not made aware of this. On November 5th, 2017, six weeks prior to Mike's passing, Dr. Martin Lucente of the Vermont National Guard visited Mike at our home. Dr. Lucente was the acting state surgeon for the Vermont National Guard during the run-up to the 2009 deployment to Afghanistan. He was in charge of getting all our soldiers medically cleared to go to Afghanistan. After he had spoke to Mike in our living room, Dr. Lucente came out to my dining room and told both myself and our casual assistance officer that the Vermont National Guard would be taking responsibility for Mike's death. When I asked him what he meant, he said, Mike's PSA levels were high when we processed them through medical readiness and we never told him. He also told me that the DOD in Washington would not take responsibility because if they did, it would bankrupt them. I was told that Sunday after he left our home, Dr. Lucente went back to Camp Johnson and went to the very top of the command and advised him what he had told me. To this day, I've never heard one word from the previous administration. I firmly believe had it not been for Mike's primary care, physicians misdiagnosed multiple times and for Dr. Lucente not knowing, not letting Mike know about his PSA levels, he would still be alive. In the spring of 2018, the MPs and I formed a group to make soldiers and families aware of the cancers our soldiers are experienced from their tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and parts of Africa. We had met with Congressman Peter Welch and I believe our meeting with him was very productive. We told him for two years we'd been asking for a letter to be sent out to all our national, Vermont National Guard service members of the dangers of the burn pits and to be diligent about their healthcare. We also advised that many of the soldiers have gone to their PCPs and have asked to have their PSA levels tested only to be told they were not of an age where they would do that. These soldiers that Mike took to Iraq, a lot of them were 18. Just two weeks ago, I received an email from one of Mike's friends from the Tennessee National Guard who was with Mike in Iraq about another young soldier who had died of pancreatic cancer. This he said is the 82nd soldier who has served in both Iraq and or Afghanistan that he has been tracking of that are either fighting some form of cancer or who have passed away, 82. It is imperative that S111 be passed. All medical officers and professionals need to be made aware of what they should be looking for as well as advising the veterans themselves to be diligent about their own healthcare. Had it not been for Mike's determination to make sure that all of his soldiers were okay and took steps to have them tested, we would have lost another soldier. The VA office in White River Junction has just submitted on my behalf a second appeal to the Department of Veterans Affairs for dependency and identity compensation for which they have denied, they denied back in September 5th. Mike had also been denied three times prior to his death. As Wesley Black has said many times before in his testimony, delay, deny until you die. These brave men and women were prepared to die for their country while at war. What they were not prepared for was dying from exposure to the burn pits upon returning home and they never expected the DOD who sent them into harm's way to turn their back on them and their families once they returned home. Our state is known for beautiful mountains, lakes, ponds, beer and cheese. I would like our state also to be known as a first state to take a stand against the VA and the VA and demand that they start taking care of these brave men and women who willingly deployed once, twice, three or more times. Families are suffering the loss of their loved ones not only emotionally but financially as well. And I would bet that everyone in this room has been affected as we've lost neighbors, coworkers, friends and loved ones as well as National Guard members. Let's get this bill passed. Possibly in the hopes that we can educate our heroes and their families. Pat, can I take a picture of this? I'm Barbara Amara. I was in contact with Pat and Mike surely before he died. And since that day, I've been checking PSAs on every single young man, whether they're 18 or 68 who walks into the registry office. And I've made a pamphlet and it's in bold print, PSA on here. But there is some change being made and this bill would help proliferate that process right across the state. Here's the thing and I say this all the time. I had a, before my test and general test and passed away, I had a very emotional meeting with him. And I said, what people don't understand is that we know we're not full-time army. We're not full-time army families who live on a base who all see the same primary care or medical center. So that where people are putting, wait a minute, this is the fifth prostate cancer, the fifth colon cancer I've seen this week, something's going on. We're all over the state. And, well, our unit is very, we're very lucky because we're 21 and we've been together for over 20 years, so we're very close. So if something happens, we all know. What this letter, what this bill will do is to send the letter out to all medical professionals and they can start talking amongst themselves as well as a letter to the soldiers saying you need to be diligent about your healthcare. Don't take no for an answer. Don't have your primary care physician say to you, we're not gonna test your PSAs, you're 30 years old, you don't follow within the demographic. Another interesting thing is shortly after Mike took his soldiers up to Camp Johnson, they discontinued testing PSAs. And the reason I was full for that is because there's not a compatible test for women. That's the answer I was given. It is unfathomable to me that the very same agency, the DOD, who sends these men and women who raised their hand and said, absolutely, I will go. I will go as many times as you want me to go because I love my country and I love my family and I love my state. This very same agency who said we are going to support you, we're gonna support your families and the minute they get off that plane and they're on the tarmac, it's this. And what we said to Peter Welch, our Congressman Welch was you have to understand that most of us are two income families with a guard pay and in some case a disability pay. And my husband passed away on December 17th and his disability check had gone in on the first and it was taken immediately out of our savings account about a week after he passed away. So families are losing their primary, an income, their guard income and their disability income. And for Martin Lucente to say to me that the DOD is not gonna take responsibility for this, it's gonna bang from them. My response to him was, I don't care but I'm not gonna see any of Mike's soldiers' families go bankrupt because they got sick serving their country. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, my name is Russell Black. I just to give you a brief history of what I've done. I enlisted in the Monterey National Guard in 2003. I was a student at Norwich University right down the road, I was 18 at the time. I always wanted to serve my country. I always wanted to be an infantryman. That's what this blue and silver badge on my shoulder is. Chip has one as well. I'm very proud of my service. I did two tours overseas. One in Iraq, 2005, 2006. I was wounded, I have a purple heart. I have also been decorated twice for baller. Once in Iraq, I rescued a pinned down squad exposing myself to enemy gunfire. And again in 2010, when I was in Afghanistan, my best friend died in my arms and I was able to actually get us out of a close air mouche. People say bravery is often confused with stupidity. I fall into the lab category. On fall Romani, when I was there in 2005 and 2006, there was a burn pit that was three football fields in size and it burned 24 hours a day. In Afghanistan, we had a burn pit that was approximately 100 yards wide by 100 yards wide and it was 150 yards outside of our front gate. And it burned every time the third country national would come in and collect all the trash and bring it outside and they would light it with fields of fuel and it would burn. And our entry control point, the way that you got onto our small combat outpost was through that main gate. We had a guard tower there and as you stood guard, because we had such a small company, your platoon stood guard every third or fourth day, if it was your turn to stand guard at that entry control point when it was burning, guess what? That's exactly what you breathe in. You've seen the pictures of the burn pits. That black smoke is exactly what you breathe in. I work currently as a career firefighter down in Hartford, Vermont. We understand in the fire service that everything that is in this room burns, correct? It puts off incomplete products of combustion. These synthetic materials, the synthetic materials that are glue board that are being used for lightweight modern construction. We know that that stuff is toxic because when it burns, those incomplete products of combustion are causing cancer and firefighters. We know that. These are the same products of combustion that are in those burn pits that are hundreds of football fields or hundreds of yards, multiple football fields wide. And we were breathing as a structural firefighter. I breathed that for maybe two or three hours while I fight a fire. Compound that by 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The only time you get a reprieve is when you go out in the sector and you're risking your, for lack of a better term, you're risking your ass trying not to get shot. Or when you come home on your midterm, you get a bit of a reprieve from breathing that, okay? Now, I have a quote here that I would like to read. Ronald Reagan gave this quote in the Veterans Day in 1988. It says, we remember those who were called upon to give all a person can give. And we remember those who were prepared to make that sacrifice if it were demanded of them in the line of duty, though it never was. Most of all, we remember the devotion and gallantry with which all of them ennobled their nation as they became champions of a noble cause. This bill is a noble cause. This bill is going to make sure that veterans like myself have the information needed to identify that there is a potential problem. I was diagnosed with stage four poem cancer. I was 31 at the time. I'm 33. I have a wife. I have a three-year-old son. I may not live to be third thought. I probably won't live to be 40. My son may never know who I am. And that's hard for him. How this bill impacted the Vermont veterans. There are a rough estimate of 10,000 veterans in the state of Vermont who had been deployed in service of this state, active duty reserve component, Vermont National Guard. I think that's a pretty low ball number, considering that we had soldiers attached to our units from other states. We have had active duty soldiers who have left the service and now they are just everyday civilians. You may have passed them on the street and have no idea that they were a service member. If they don't go to the VA, they're lost in the system. They're lost through the cracks. What this bill will do is make them aware that there is a very real potential that they have been exposed to something that could kill them. It's killing me. You were looking at a dead man, Warnie. I write my son an email every day. Because I don't know if he'll be old enough to remember me when I pass. I've been telling my son about me being a part of this fight to get this legislation passed, not just here in the state, but Vermont being the beacon for the United States to follow. The state of Vermont is very small, but because of that, we have excellent access to our delegates. And I'm so happy. I didn't originally grow up here. I grew up in Boston. Sorry. But when I moved to Vermont, that's right, go right side. So when I moved to this state, I fell in love with this state for a number of reasons. Having access to my elected officials, championing a bill like this has made me love this state even more. I don't want to see another family go through what I'm going through, what Pat is going through, what June Heston is going through. From what I understand, you all met Mama Blackberry yesterday. She gave a little testimony. But if you think about that, my mother, my father served in Desert Storm. My brother served with me in Afghanistan. There's a very real potential due to these exposures. My mother could end up a widow and childless because the government failed to protect us. I had no qualms about dying in combat. I had two valor awards that said I was ready to. I had a purple heart that said I was ready to. I did not expect to come home and be killed 10 years after I left the battlefield. I was poisoned to death because of somebody's mistake. I have another quote here from Barack Obama. Again, a Veterans Day speech. It's about how we treat our veterans every single day of the year. It's about making sure that they have the care they need and the benefits that they've earned when they come home. It's about serving all of you as well as you serve the United States of America. I have yet to come across a veteran that wouldn't really honestly do it again. I would absolutely do it again. I'm very proud of my service. Very proud of who I am and what I've done. Since I turned 18, I've served in a uniform, either my country or my community. And I'm proud of that. I'm very proud of that. As a matter of fact, I'm probably gonna have to go get out of here after this because I'm actually at work today. Doing a 24 hour shift is firefighting. This week I've worked Tuesday night to 12 hour overtime shift. Last night to 12 hour overtime shift. Today a 24 hour overtime shift or regular shift. Tomorrow night to 12 hour overtime shift. And then Sunday I work a 24 hour shift. Monday I go in for chemo therapy. I'm in my third round of chemo therapy. I use the adage I'm strong with a bull that's smart like a tractor because a tractor can go two directions forward and back. I would do that every day all over again to prevent any family from having to go through what I go through. To what my wife is gonna have to go through ultimately when I pass away. She's entitled to a survivor's benefit through the VA. It is not nearly as much as what I make in my compensation and pension. It's not nearly what I make in my active job as a firefighter. I'm fortunate now that I can continue to do it but I don't know for how much longer. What is my family supposed to do when I'm the sole breadwinner and all of a sudden I don't have an income from a firefighter job? And then I become too sick and pass away and now my family doesn't have an income from the VA. Responsibility to our veterans. This bill is not gonna change the DOD. It's not gonna necessarily change the VA. But it is the kick that is gonna get that snowball rolling. And for that I wanna say thank you to all of you who have been involved in this process. This is going to become my generation's Agent Orange. It already is. For years, veterans like Chip have had to fight for the acknowledgement and the recognition from their own government that they made a mistake in exposing these people to a harsh chemical. We were exposed to harsh chemical. This is going to become not a health crisis, it's going to become a pandemic amongst veterans. It was a pandemic amongst Vietnam veterans for Agent Orange. I'm standing on the shoulder of a giant screaming about this because they had to fight as hard as they did for 40 years, ladies and gentlemen, to even get recognition. And my generation is getting it 20 years sooner than they did because we are standing on the shoulders of giants. Because I have been exposed to these toxic chemicals at such a young age, I don't have a family history of public cancer. I don't, I'm an oddity. And I was misdiagnosed for a long time because I didn't fit the protocol for diagnosis. I was 31. I was told I had a bowel syndrome. I was told to change my diet. I was told to exercise more, lose weight, stop drinking beer. No one, no one chose to look further. And because of that, I'm going to lose my life. The hard thing is that my son not only has to deal with losing his father, but now because of this, his future health impacts. We talked about the orphanages in Vietnam, five generations after, and they're still having birth defects. Thankfully, my son is healthy. Thankfully. But guess what? At 18, he's already got his colonoscopy schedule because his father probably died at 35 from stage four colon cancer. And what I mean by stage four is I've had it spread to my liver and I have two nodules in my left lung. I'm on my third round of chemotherapy. I'm halfway through my third round of chemotherapy and the plan is for me to continue to do chemotherapy and tell him that my kid has spent more time in a hospital in the three years that he's been alive than I ever spent in the 33 that I've been alive. I spent more time in a hospital in the last two years than I've ever spent my entire life. This bill is a stabbing pill. Sir, you said it was a pilot light, correct? Somebody said it was a pilot light. It's absolutely what it is. But I hope it's the pilot light that likes the keg, the power keg, and it blows a hole big enough to drive a truck or a train through in this policy of delay, deny, I hope you die. Do you have any questions? Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak once again. Sure, who's that? First of all, I would just like to say thank you so much for your service and for your testimony today. Today is my husband's fifth anniversary. He died from progressive super nuclear policy with frontal lobe dementia. He also had heart disease. He also had COPD. He also was misdiagnosed. His neurologist told him twice he just needed sleep. And it wasn't until we went to Boston in one hour just diagnosed with this PSG. He could have signed up for benefits years and years ago. And because he was a very stubborn ring, he did not. And it was finally my daughter convinced him. I've come across veterans who just, I don't know if it's a pride thing or what, but they feel I'm okay, I'm okay. I came across a veteran who had cancer. And I said to him, are you getting any benefits from the VA? And he said, no, no, and he was shot and getting him. And I said, are you sure, and he said, Mary, people are coming back with arms and legs. I'm okay, I'm okay. I cannot convince him. Absolutely right, ma'am. So, you know, miracles do happen. And, you know, I just, I wish you all the best. And I saw a picture of your son yesterday. He is adorable. So thank you again. I really appreciate you coming. To hit off your statement of veterans, I didn't do my service to come home and have the government take care of me. That's not why I did it. I chose to serve my country because I have a long standing military tradition on my family. The only reason that I chose to go to the VA or service connected compensation and pension is because I had multiple generations of my family going, hey, stupid, get in the door. Like, get in the door, get treated, get yourself taken care of. It is a matter of pride. There are, like you said, many veterans who come home that are on the outside of pure whole and they don't think that they're entitled to those benefits of, I didn't lose an arm. I don't deserve to be taken care of by the government. I didn't lose both my legs. I shouldn't be collecting the same as a guy who did. Or a woman. When I say guy, I mean all veterans. So there is a matter of that pride and I wouldn't have done it for myself if I had not had members of my family who were veterans who had been to the VA, finally kind of kick me in the seat and say, you need to get there. You need to get into the system because now it is my healthcare. I do my chemotherapy at the VA. I rail against the VA for a lot of things but the oncology suite at the White River Junction VA is fantastic. They have been doing a fantastic job. The doctors and the nurses are fantastic. Doctors like, you know, Ms. O'Mara here, you find those diamonds in the rough that genuinely advocate for a patient every once in a while. The surgical team that took care, I have a scar going from my belt line to just below my navel from where I had a foot of my colon removed from where the cancer was. My general surgery team has been fantastic. There are wonderful people who genuinely care about veterans at the White River Junction VA and I'm sure it is nationwide there are doctors that care. The problem is it's not them that are preventing us from acknowledging or even just being taken care of is the administration and I don't know how to change that. I don't know if any of you in here don't know how to change that. Short of having legislation passed that becomes a springboard for this state and for other states to follow to finally get a foothold and say, no, damn it, you need to do this. You need to take care of your veterans. You need to take care of the people who took care of you. I hate to talk and run but I do really have to take care of it. If there is any other meetings or I hope, I hope certainly not but if you need anything further from me please don't hesitate to reach out. Gail from the Senate committee meeting downstairs, she has my contact information so if any of you need it, please, if you wanna ask more questions or get a little bit more into the weeds about some of this stuff, I can, I can certainly be available to talk. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Take good care. Thank you. Very, very good. We have a lot of these people since last time so if you could just fill us in on what your role is and just let us know. Sure. I'm gonna take a breath. I've sat, had the opportunity. I'm Catherine Lung for the record. I'm Senator Leahy's military and veterans case worker. I've been with the office for the last 11 years doing this work and had the opportunity to sit in on the house testimony on this legislation as well as spend quite a bit of time with General Huston and Jews over the time since he got sick as well as getting to know Pat and Wetzel over the last few weeks. I'd like to just talk to you a little bit about what Senator Leahy is trying to do to impact this problem and to express appreciation for what the Vermont legislature is doing because I think one of the most important things is that there've been multiple news stories about this since you all have taken an interest in it so here in Vermont, people are hearing good stories and they're not starting to make those connections that perhaps weren't made in your husband's case and husband's case. So I'll cover some of the mundane aspects of what we've tried to do here and then happy to answer any other questions. Certainly I just do wanna commend June and Pat and Wesley and others who are taking their personal struggles and to a fight for the men and women who may be suffering from exposure and illness as a result of these hair hazards. Mike, as well as to be honest, a couple of service members that I became acquainted through through Keith's work who were suffering from lung issues even prior to Mike's diagnosis first were among the stories that convinced us that we needed to be working on this issue to ensure that veterans have the information they need to get a timely diagnosis and adjudication of benefits, claims. We heard from members of the guard about the difficulty they had getting diagnoses and I think the point that was made about Vermont being a guard state versus an active military installation is really a critical piece because you have folks coming home with their private insurance, they work for the state police, the local police, they're getting their healthcare, who knows where and those physicians don't necessarily know to look and ask. We also heard about the low participation rate in the registry. As I said, the first cases that I became aware of were more lung and pulmonary issues and those from what I could see were more easily found to be adjudicated as service connected from the VA's point of view. I know the guard did a really good job in the 2010 deployment of creating line of duty documentation that indicated that folks were exposed to airborne hazards and had asthma and other kinds of symptoms related to that. But there is definitely much more limited research on the cancers and the rare cancers in that connection. So in 2017, the National Academy has published an assessment of the burn pit registry and highlighted some of the limitations and made a number of recommendations for improvement and I've provided that to Ron Wilde so you can take a look at that, a summary of that assessment. They noted a number of the issues that have been raised in testimony, difficulty logging in, but one of the primary things is what is a registry and what does it do and what doesn't it do and how do we educate folks about that. So it's clear that a registry itself is limited but the raising awareness of the registry is certainly a way that people start to think about this and make those connections. So in the last two appropriations cycles as Vice Chairman of the Senator Appropriations Committee, Senator Leahy's targeted investments to improve the airborne hazards registry and also to enhance the VA's Airborne Hazard Center of Excellence which is located at the War-Related Illness and Injury Study in East Orange, New Jersey. So specifically, the things that we did were, he requested an additional $5 million in funding to implement those recommendations of the National Academies to improve the burn-pair registry and that's designed to sort of enhance the science and the evidence to make the connection between some of these illnesses and the exposure. And that passed in the FY18 bill along with additional report language related to research on exposure-related conditions. And then in FY19, he added language requiring an assessment of how veterans are receiving information about the burn-pair registry and called for research and research partnerships specifically focused on rare cancers. So I can't effectively report on the status of exactly what's been done as a result of some of that. I think it's an emerging process. I anecdotally have observed that that website is somewhat more robust than it was a year ago and there seems to be some more information but we're looking forward to connecting with the VA in the coming weeks to get a sense of what more they're doing and that's VA at the national level. And then in addition to that, we asked that the Airborne Center of Excellence that center in New Jersey be changed to name it as the Airborne and Burn Pit Center of Excellence to try to refocus some of that attention. So it's a minor change, but I'm trying to again refocus some of that attention to that issue. So those are, again, focused on the registry, how to enhance the registry and help use that to spark more of the research, more of the studies. I think there's definitely other ways that you can tackle that within the VA either through the benefits side or through the health side. But as you know, it is a fairly large shift to move and to dig into there is going to require some sustained effort. I want to kind of comment on Representative Triano's comment about Agent Orange and just to say, Senator Lady, as you may be aware, has been working on Agent Orange remediation in Vietnam and related issues, prosthetics and support for kids who were born with disabilities in Vietnam. And it can't be overstated. I think how important that has been in the rebuilding of the relationship with that country. And yet it's been 40 years. So with the sustained effort of my boss on that issue, it's a model that I think we all recognize that we don't want to spend 40 years on this issue. We don't have 40 years to spend on this issue. So I want to just mention one other thing outside of the appropriations process. And again, I think in part because of the work that Pat and June have done to raise awareness of the issue, we, the delegation heard from the mother of a deployed service member saying, look, my son tells me there's a burn pit where we are right now. We heard about that in the fall. And then the delegation followed up. She then wrote a letter and we joined together to send a letter to the secretary asking for a general rundown on burn pits in general as well as to talk to us about what was going on where our members were deployed. They did report back ultimately that those burn pits were shut down. I think that that's an important piece that the committee can keep in mind as in your role in communication relationship with the Guard is that we're certainly always available to make those follow-up inquiries when we become aware of those things. So I did provide copies of that for your information. Just in closing, I want to say that it's clear that you're already, the efforts that you're already drawing attention to this issue, service members, veterans and healthcare providers need to be aware of the growing evidence that exposure to environmental hazards in theater may cause or exacerbate a variety of medical conditions. We're always available to assist in individual cases. That is often an opportunity for us to see how things are working or aren't working for an individual and to maybe push forward for a second look at a situation and then also to feedback some of that information. I think one of the issues that is within, I'm going a little bit out of my lane here, one of the issues that is within the purview of the National Guard when their members are deployed are the line of duty reports, which if those are fully documented, then when they come home, they have that in their file to either go through the military disability process or through the VA disability process. It just gives that a little bit of additional documentation. So I thank you for the opportunity if there's any questions on that. First and of course, there are so many things disturbing about all of this, but I see, and what you've got on the screen right now, this is not the only reference I've seen to high-ranking command expressing concern about burn pits and there's a specific commentary for General Petrae as a 10 years ago expressing concern. So Victor was so damn much concerned why didn't they do something about it? I know that's good. You weren't involved in that. If command was aware that this was a huge problem, why didn't it continue? I really don't get that. You know, there was a case that had been always important around this. I'm not sure that, I think it's a valid question. I guess what I would say, big picture, Senator Leigh voted against the war. And certainly has said consistently throughout and as as you know, Congressman Welch and Senator Sanders that if we're gonna decide that we go to war, we need to have a plan to pay for it and that includes the cost of caring for the people that come home. I know, I'm here. Can I ask your question? You mentioned the Supreme Court ruling that they just denied that class action laws are saying that Halliburton, KBR, whatever you want to call it had no responsibility. And thus could not be held accountable because they were working under the direction of the DMV. And I think that's where we as families are struggling because it seems to be one of these things and no one wants to take responsibility for families being destroyed after serving their country so honorably. And if the DOD, if that is the case, then why aren't there class action lawsuits against the DOD? They've already said they worked under the direction of the DOD. Unfortunately, not being in a turn, I don't mean to push that back, but not being in a turn, I'm not in a position to comment on that. But I think in the broadest sense of holding the DOD accountable. I just want to say the DOD is the bad guy here. I think that the Supreme Court decision involves the DOD and Halliburton to continue something like this without any regard for soldiers and men and women of the armed forces. For several decades. And I'm certainly happy to pass that. Thank you for all you're doing. Thank you very much. I've met all of you, but if I have not before the record, my name is Katherine Becker Van Haste and I'm the Health Policy Director for Senator Bernie Sanders. I also work on his veterans and military policy and outreach throughout Vermont. Prior to working here as Vermont, I had the real privilege of working on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee when Senator Sanders was chairman of that committee and we had the opportunity to work on some of these issues. But frankly, not as many as we may have liked. I wanted to start, I have some documents up there. Some of them are duplicative of what Katherine has already shared. So I want to compliment her testimony rather than duplicate it. And part of that I think is taking a bit of a step back to talk about a little more specifically about the DOD's role in the situation we're experiencing now with burn pits and the VA's role because they are different but end up sort of getting confused in the process. So the Department of Defense has a nearly $700 billion budget annually. The VA budget is closer to around $200 billion. So obviously there's a pretty good distinction there. While the Department of Defense is responsible for all current ongoing military operations, the Department of Veterans Affairs is of course responsible for taking care of our service members for the entirety of their life once they leave the service. It is with, there's not a lot of times in Congress when the Department of Defense budget comes under significant scrutiny. It has become regularly increasing however that the Department of Veterans Affairs budget is looked at with more of a microscope. We have been told consistently that the VA budget has continued to increase since 2009 and therefore it is sufficient to care for the veterans that it sees. I think the challenge there is that that is in fact incorrect. The Department of Veterans Affairs budget is insufficient to care for the health needs of our veterans and also to provide the benefits needed to those veterans. And I think that for our part in Washington, one of the issues we are focused on is highlighting how the decisions on the budget end up having an impact directly on our veterans and their family members. I often tell people when they are told there is not enough money in the budget, what the reality of what they're being told is that what they want is not a priority. So I think it's important to keep that in mind as we talk about this issue from the standpoint of the federal government. As with Agent Orange, Gulf War illness, toxic exposures in the water at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, asbestos exposure in World War II, and Korea, it is in fact the Department of Defense that is causing these exposures as we've discussed. It is of course then the Department of Veterans Affairs that is left to pick up the pieces of this. Part of what Senator Sanders is hoping to do is to put some of the financial burden back on the Department of Defense to address the problems that have been connected to those exposures. One of the ways that Senator Sanders is looking to do that right now, we are going through the appropriations process in Washington where senators make their internal requests to their fellow senators asking for priorities within the Department of Defense budget. One of the requests that Senator Sanders will be making on the defense budget is that the Department of Defense immediately cease paying for open air burn pits and stopping payment to contractors who currently operate open air burn pits in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. We know there are still burn pits active. It is a good thing that those are ceasing, but they have not ceased completely and we think it is high time that those stop so that we stop funding the very things that we will then be dealing with and that our service members will be dealing with in incredibly painful personal ways. We have also, Senator Sanders is also asking the Department of Defense to put more money into the research being done. One of the things that I think is particularly challenging when it comes to the research is we have so much anecdotal evidence and there's so much information around individuals experience. These rare cancers that are showing up in young individuals like Wesley, like Mike, like General Huston, I think these experiences when we look at them seem obvious to all of us. The problem is that is not the way the medical community views the requirements of the scientific correlation and causation between exposure and these cancers. And I think that's why the registry is so critical because while it's obvious to many of us, we need the science and the science is regularly behind what we all know to be true, but frankly that's the way it is. The registry I think is a critical part of connecting our individual experiences and what we are aware of to the science so that we can have the proof we need. And so I think the work of this committee, the Senate committee and this bill in general to raise awareness of the registry to encourage more Vermonters to enroll in the registry, to encourage family members to encourage their service member and veteran to enroll, participate in the registry is incredibly important. I did provide VA's guide to how to enroll in the registry. I would encourage folks who are interested to take a look at this. I would also encourage the Department of Health who may be responsible for making this available to Vermonters to take a look at what is included in here. I will give the VA credit for doing their best to make this registry process as simple as is possible. My understanding is about a 40 minute process to go through and can be tricky. I know the VA and White River Junction is very aware that this can be a challenge and is committed to making it as easy as possible for Vermont veterans and their family members. And I might also encourage you to, if you haven't already reached out to the local VA because they may be able to provide you with some information on how the process works. They can sometimes be limited by Washington in terms of what they're allowed to testify on, but I think asking them to would be a great opportunity. I would also say that as part of this sort of research and epidemiological process happens, one of the things that has been the case in previous instances of exposure to toxic substances like Agent Orange is the role of the Institutes of Medicine in providing the science behind what additional illnesses and injuries should be classified as caused or connected to exposure to toxic substances. We're at a point right now with the presumptive on Agent Orange where while we have a good list, it is not a sufficient list. The Institutes of Medicine have made recommendations on additional illnesses and diseases that should be added to that list. That needs to be certified by the administration that has yet to be done. Senator Sanders is making it known that he expects that to be done. Bernie has also co-sponsored a bill in Congress in the Senate, it's called S191. That is in addition to the legislation that created the open air burn pit registry in the VA, but what that bill does is again, it looks a little bit more on the defense side and it requires DOD to include some of this work when they do periodic health assessments of their service members so that we are keeping track while they're still in the service of what their exposures are, what any illnesses, injuries, and signs of potential diseases are right when they're still in the service. It also improves things like their separation exams. So as they get out of the military, separate into civilian life, we do a better job of keeping track of these folks. It's our hope that this is a pretty bipartisan bill and that we can get it moving forward. I know there was a lot of discussion about the money in all of this and I think it's an important issue and something that we are very focused on in Washington again, making sure that the Department of Veterans Affairs is well enough resourced to provide the benefits and the services that it can. I also know that there was some discussion around sort of convincing service members and veterans to seek care at the VA. I am the daughter of a World War II veteran who never stepped foot in a VA because he had the same thought that someone else needs it more than me. He passed away from lung cancer, which was likely caused by exposure to asbestos on the ships that he was on in the Navy. And he'll never be compensated for that. My mother never will. But so I think that it's just important when we talk about these issues to recognize the human impact of them but also that I think sometimes one of the best ways that we can encourage someone to seek care at the VA is to remind them in the best way possible that what they are doing maybe isn't for themselves but it's for their buddy, it's for their spouse, it's for their child. I have had the opportunity to meet a tremendous group of veterans throughout my career. And the one thing I know is that a service member will do almost anything for their buddy. And I think that if we can share with the veteran community that by you enrolling in the registry but by you seeking care at the VA, you may be helping yourself but you're really helping your fellow service member, your fellow guardsman, your fellow veteran and your family members for potentially decades into the future. And so I would just suggest more probably from a personal standpoint than my professional one that you just take that in mind as maybe you even create some of the educational materials because the VA relies on participation and utilization for its budget. So in reality, the more people that enroll in VA the better VA's budget will be. So I will leave it there and happy to take any questions you might have. Thank you for the right to this minute. Great. You know where to find you. I'm stealing your picture. Take it off. Take it off. Thank you. Yeah. It's perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Ryan. Yeah. Thank you for. It's fine. It's a process. It's like turning. Thank you for waiting this out. Oh, that's awesome. Thank you, Chair Stevens. It's an honor to be here on behalf of Congressman Welch. My name's Ryan McLaren and I do outreach here in Vermont for Congressman Peter Welch. And I just want to say thanks for addressing this important issue and like Katherine, I'm going to take my professional hat off and put my personal hat on. And Pat's actually my aunt. Sergeant Major Mike Cram was my uncle, one of my closest family members. And so this issue gets pretty close to home. I know he was proudest of deploying twice and bringing everyone home in his platoon. And I think Pat's mission here in this bill is a continuation of that legacy for Mike. You know, he'd be proud of Pat and he'd be very happy that you're having this conversation here today. I don't think we need to talk too much about what burn pits are. We saw pictures of them. Dr. O'Mara discussed what went into them and how they were used. And we know from Mike's story and from Wesley's story that many of our National Guards, men and women, were exposed to burn pits and they were seeing negative health effects from that. Last year, Congressman Welch met with a group of National Guard veterans, led by Pat, to talk about their service and their exposure to burn pits. And he was able to share their stories with the House Veterans Affairs Committee. There was a group of 21 soldiers. They lost two members to prostate cancer, one of them being Mike and another that was treated for it. And obviously they believe that their exposure to burn pit toxins was a significant reason for those health outcomes. The rest of them and so many other veterans left wondering when they were gonna get sick. So Peter has joined the burn pit caucus and has been a leading advocate in the House to help veterans suffering from burn pit exposure. He's worked to increase funding and address and assist those who are suffering and introduce legislation to establish presumptions of service connection for illness associated with open burn pits, which is significant. It's something that the DOD isn't doing yet, but we can do it in Congress. I think to the representative of Troyano's point, Peter's mission is to avoid another situation like Agent Orange, where veterans are waiting decades for Congress to act. So I'll give you a short list of some of the things Peter's been working on. HR 1279, helping veterans exposed to burn pits act. It creates a center of excellence within the VA to better understand the health effects in association with burn pits and treat veterans who become sick after the exposure. I think Catherine mentioned that. It's an early heat. Is it different? I think it may be different, I'm not sure. Well, we're tag team. Yeah, we're tag team. And it's also a center of excellence. HR 663 is the Burn Pits Accountability Act, which would automatically enroll veterans who were based or stationed in a location that used burn pits, open burn pits, and the airborne hazards and open burn pit registry. We talk about the need to increase the amount of people that are included in this registry. That would do it on its own. It takes the burden off the veteran to proactively sign up, which is important, right? He also co-sponsored a $5 million amendment to Milcon VA for burn pit registry. It was included in the final omnibus that was signed into law last year. We co-sponsored a $1 million amendment added to the DOD appropriations for the DOD and the VA to collaborate on burn pit studies and findings that was included in the house omnibus, but wasn't included in the final omnibus that passed, unfortunately, but we will keep working on it. We sent a letter to the VA asking about current medical guidelines to properly screen and treat veterans, and we, Peter's working on the Veteran Burn Pits Exposure Act, which established presumptions, presumption of service connection for illnesses associated with open burn pits. I think Catherine talked about the importance of science catching up, but in the interim, we can provide the presumption of service connection until we know, yes or no, what's going on. I think Peter believes our veterans deserve at least that, but it also directs the Comptroller of the U.S. to establish the open burn pit advisory commission to help work on that. We're gonna be reintroducing that bill this year, so. HR 1001 is the family member access to Burn Pit Registry Act. It would allow immediate family member to participate in the VA's open burn pit registry on behalf of a deceased veteran. That way, if it's too late, their family can still add them to that registry so their future generations aren't going without benefits. And we sent a letter to the House Armed Services Committee and the House Veterans Affairs Committee asking them to hold a joint hearing on the military's use of open burn pits and the health risks. This is really an effort to get Force DOD to participate in this conversation, to get them in front of Congress and to have them answer some of the questions that Representative Howard brought up earlier. So, Congressman Welch is long believed that the cost of war must include the cost of caring for the warrior, all of our offices do, and we'll continue to do all we can to advocate for federal funding, protections and benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits. I think it's important that if you know of any veterans, any assistance, all our offices are here to serve our models. That's why we have district offices. So, I'm at Wesley at a firefighter convention maybe a year ago, and we had the opportunity to help him with some of his issues in the VA. Mike came to our office and to Senator Leahy's office and we were able to make sure he received his purple heart before he passed away. Those are some of the things that we can do in our office to help these folks. And so, I just encourage you as you go through this process, you're gonna hear from veterans all over the place. We're here to help. Take any questions. Well, thank you for, and thank you to Katherine for not only for your story, but for your service in this, and that all of our federal delegation, as you mentioned, is on top of this for veterans and students. I mean, I don't know why we don't all just give up and walk away when we're faced with the Department of Defense, but I don't think that we, I don't, I think what I also hear is that that's the recipe that none of us ever want to taste, that we're always gonna fight for that. So, we will make sure you're already in our Rolodex. So, we will call you when we, if we need you on further, I'm not just on this, but any of the veterans issues that we do want. Please do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Having 51 liners to end the day with, so I'm not even, thank you everybody. We'll be back here tomorrow at nine.