Post Deployment Health Reassessment
 

Got an email today asking me to call in regarding increased brain and ENT cancer rates in veterans of OEF housed on ex-Soviet bases. Specific to our unit, 3 have developed brain cancer, and 1 ENT cancer. Has anyone else's units experienced widespread health issues post-deployment? How are you handling it?

Is there a list of said Soviet Bases?

if it worth saying, it will be quoted.

My old Sr Medical NCO forwarded me an email from an external civilian agency contracted by the DoD and VA to make post-deployment contact with "high-risk units and individuals". This agency calls itself the PDHRA Division (Post-Deployment Heath ReAssessment) of Logistics Health out of Lacrosse, WI.

I called them and talked to them for close to an hour. They said they would be sending me a DD-2900 and recommended I take it to the nearest VA facility. They said, if I was still active they would file a LOD through my Command just because I was deployed to Central Asia and was housed part of the time at a specific ex-Soviet airbase in 2002-2003. Evidently we were exposed to multiple aromatic florocarbons, phenols, and esters, as well as "potential radioactive sources". We were aware of some of this then so I sent a letter detailing these issues up our Chain of Command at the time. Now, in the past 6 years, several of our fellow soldiers have developed severe life-threatening illnesses. Is there a link? I don't know, but it is interesting that the DoD is chasing this down and filing LODs or DD-2900 on everyone that was there.

The health issues that have been mentioned are worsening respiratory symptoms, gastrointestinal symptoms, brain and ENT cancers, and of course, hearing impairment.

I think naming these bases on an open forum may be a violation of OPSEC, even though they are readily available on the internet thanks to our liberal media.

below

Now that you mention it..... not seriously, but I have noticed occasional wheezing and coughing and occasional urgent loose BMs that all started in theater and have never gone completely away. I've basically ignored them and chalked them up to aging until now (I'm 42). I never really connected these symptoms to our deployment, but you never know. You know, we all tend to be a bit stoic and deny or ignore things that we probably ought not to if we were smarter. So I guess I might follow up on these things - especially if my wife makes me. :)

But if this is the worst of it, which I bet it will be (along with some high frequency hearing loss), it is really nothing compared to what others have sacrificed - life, limbs, eye sight, and those who have come down with cancer and more serious disease.

I am curious to know if anyone else or other units have experienced the same and why the DoD seems so interested now. What are we not being told?

if it worth saying, it will be quoted.

I got an 'urgent' email message two weeks through my CoC, asking for everyone to report whether they were in K2 in Uzbekistan in 2002-2003 due to a possible link between high levels of cancer and chemicals in bunkers there.

It was one of those emails that had been forwarded to about 15 people before it got to me.

I don't mind putting it here, because I imagine that there are a lot of people that have gotten out since then and aren't aware that they were possibly exposed to carcinogens.

That's where I was as well. Were you with FOB 201?

Sending you a PM, but no, I wasn't there.