Biden Calls for Burn Pit Reform
- President Biden’s State of the Union address this week called for greater attention to support of veterans, and preservation of their health. He called for Congress to assist vets experiencing health issues due to burn pits. He believes they may have affected his son Beau, who passed from cancer in 2015.
- Burn pits are areas on a military base where waste materials are disposed of through burning. There are documented cases of severe health issues as a result of them.
- In 2013, Beau Biden was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive cancer that can occur in the brain or spinal cord.
Burn pits are areas on a military base where waste materials are disposed through burning. Beau Biden, an officer in the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps., passed from brain cancer at age 46 in 2015.
Read MoreBiden said that our troops face many dangers, including the toxic smoke emitted from burn pits.
What are Burn Pits?
Burn pits are used to dispose of materials through burning. The smoke from these burn pits can impact health.
More than 250 burn pits were used on military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan to burn trash. The toxic smoke from the pits was laced with dioxins, lead, mercury, and other cancer-causing chemicals, which service members breathed.
The items disposed of in the burn pits included chemical weapons, computer hardware, medical waste, asbestos, pesticides, paint cans, fuels, and other toxic substances.
Exposure to burn pits has caused thousands of deaths among veterans who've suffered from "devastating health conditions" including "rare forms of cancer," according to Burn Pit 360, a veterans' advocacy group that sponsors a registry to track and calculate the human toll among our military veterans.
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Beau Biden's Battle With Brain Cancer
Beau Biden was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive cancer that can occur in the brain or spinal cord, in 2013. The father of two underwent surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation to combat this disease. After treatment, he was able to return to his role as Delaware's Attorney General. Sadly, he suffered a recurrence in the spring of 2015, and his health turned quickly which hindered his plans to run for Delaware Governor in 2016.
After two years battling brain cancer, Beau Biden passed away on May 30, 2015.
"The entire Biden family is saddened beyond words. We know that Beau's spirit will live on in all of us especially through his brave wife, Hallie, and two remarkable children, Natalie and Hunter," then Vice President Biden said in a statement. "Beau embodied my father's saying that a parent knows success when his child turns out better than he did. In the words of the Biden family: Beau Biden was, quite simply, the finest man any of us have ever known."
A crowd of more than 1,000 people packed St. Anthony of Padua's Catholic Church in Wilmington to pay their respects, including former President Barack Obama who delivered an emotional eulogy.
At the funeral, Joe Biden held hands with his son's widow, Hallie, and granddaughter, Natalie, as six pallbearers wheeled the coffin into the church, according to AP News.
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