VA to study whether military toxic exposures are tied to veterans cancers, illnesses

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Veterans Affairs will launch a major study into military exposure to toxic environments to get a better understanding of whether there is a connection to cancers and other diseases afflicting service members, the agency’s chief research officer said Wednesday.

Rachel Ramoni, the chief research and development officer for the VA, said despite generations of men and women returning home from serving in wars overseas to face cancer diagnoses at home, the agency has not yet devoted resources to discover the root causes.

“I’ve been speaking a lot with [Vietnam veterans] in particular, and they, I think, for good reason, have been irritated with us as an organization because we have not done a lot of work, especially clinical work on military exposures,” she said.

Ramoni was speaking at a conference on veterans prostate cancer rates sponsored by ZERO — The End of Prostate Cancer. The group has reported that veterans are twice as likely to have prostate cancer as the general population, with more than 489,000 veterans currently getting treated for prostate cancer within the VA health care system.

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