Julie Sullivan, The Oregonian

The Department of Veterans Affairs is launching a Qarmat Ali registry to aggressively track and treat veterans exposed to a cancer-causing chemical in Iraq in 2003.

The national surveillance program will register hundreds of National Guard members who served at the Qarmat Ali water- treatment plant, looking for health problems associated with hexavalent chromium exposure, such as asthma and lung cancer.

The monitoring is a victory for nearly 300 Oregon Army National Guard members and for Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. Wyden proposed such a registry March 22 after veterans with breathing and skin problems told him in an emotional meeting in Portland that VA staff did not understand the hazards of their assignment.

“This is a concrete step forward,” Wyden said. “But it is only a step.” He wants the VA to go further and presume a service connection that will increase access and benefits.

The program is more a medical monitoring program than a confirmation of health problems. The VA does not presume a veteran who served at Qarmat Ali is ill — nor that any specific diseases are linked to serving there.

But the Qarmat Ali Medical Surveillance program will standardize medical exams nationwide, focusing doctors’ attention on lung cancer and other related problems and help direct treatment. Among the steps: ear, nose, throat, lung and skin exams as well as regular chest X-rays, said Dr. Victoria Cassano, director of radiation and physical exposure for the VA’s Office of Public Health and Environmental Hazards.

Cassano said the registry connects veterans to a local coordinator and creates a long-term study group. She outlined the details to congressional staff and others Thursday, though the VA has not formally announced the program.

Oregon Democrats Reps. Earl Blumenauer and Kurt Schrader, and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, all issued statements praising the new registry.

In the weeks after the invasion of Iraq, National Guard shooter teams were dispatched across oil fields to protect Kellogg, Brown and Root contractors working to restore oil production. Some soldiers arrived at a decrepit water-treatment facility outside Basra. There, a a corrosion fighter that contained hexavlaent chromium colored the desert sand orange and was, according to Senate testimony, “piled like snow.”

Troops who complained of the dust were told they had sand allergies. Months later, and after some soldiers developed holes in their nasal septums (called chrome nose), skin rashes or had other health problems, a KBR safety manager raised enough of an alarm to get the plant closed down. Units from Oregon, Indiana, West Virginia and South Carolina and individual soldiers from 17 other states had already guarded the plant between April and September, 2003.

The Army investigated Qarmat Ali in October — after a cleanup — and deemed there was little long-term risk to troops. It wasn’t until former KBR employees complained of their own health problems to Senate Democrats in 2008 that the extent of exposure became known. Twenty-six Oregon Guard, most of whom only became aware of the hazard of exposure by stories reported in the Oregonian, and more than 140 Indiana Guard have sued the defense contractor, claiming KBR managers downplayed or deceived soldiers about the hexavalent chromium risk. KBR was racing to complete the $2.5 billion contract for Restore Iraqi Oil.

Meanwhile, VA Sec. Eric Shinseki  has focused more attention on environmental hazards of military service. On Wednesday the VA announced $2.8 million in new research into Gulf War illness. The Qarmat Ali program is a subset of the Gulf War Registry, established in late 1992.

Cassano said she will be in Portland on Monday to train VA doctors, social workers and compensation and benefit employees on health markers of hexavalent chromium exposure. She plans similar trainings around the country.

Former Oregon Guard Spc. Scott Ashby, 43, said when he first went to the Portland VA after he returned from Iraq in 2004 with esophageal ulcers and shortness of breath, he was the first Iraq veteran his Portland VA doctor had ever treated. She was very concerned and understanding but admitted she didn’t know much about hexavalent chromium exposure or the long-term effects. They have worked together to monitor him and gather more information. He said such a registry would help her, as well.

“I’m really happy the wheels are starting to turn,” he said. “It’s a good thing.”

—Julie Sullivan

Posted by admin on Jul 23 2010. Filed under Oregon Live, Qarmat Ali News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.