DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) – U.S. military veterans who served their country have been fighting new battles years and even decades after their service ended. It is a fight for medical care after being exposed to dangerous toxins. For women veterans, the job of getting medical care has been much tougher.
Breast, ovarian and cervical cancers, along with reproductive issues, are health issues that their male counterparts do not deal with. The call for more research into toxic military exposures has been growing in Congress for several years, especially the need for more research.
“Because we know that women veterans, when they’re exposed to some of these chemicals, have up to a 30% increased risk of getting cancer,” Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski told WAND News. “They have [an] increased risk of ovarian cancer, but we don’t have enough research right now to really understand, specifically for women veterans, how they’re exposed.”
Christina Schauer and Michelle Roling are members of the Tri-State Women Warriors, an advocacy and support group for women veterans and active duty military in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin.
Schauer was a combat medic serving in Iraq from 2003 to 2004. When she returned home, she attended the University of Illinois, where she first noticed health issues while running.
“I started running in the fall, and I was having a lot of struggles breathing afterwards. It was like I just couldn't get a good deep breath,” Schauer stated.
Her breathing problems were not showing up in pulmonary function tests or X-rays. Years later, she got relief using an inhaler.
Schauer also had issues with the birth of her daughter Madelyn, who was stillborn.
“It’s a condition where your brain never develops,” Schauer shared. “You have a brain stem, but her actual brain never developed.”
Schauer began to wonder if there was a connection to her service in Iraq. She said there was very little information she could find on Iraq, but there was a late 90s study on women who served in Vietnam.
“That study showed that women who served in Vietnam were more likely than women who didn’t go to Vietnam to have children with moderate to severe birth defects,” Schauer stated.
Roling grew up in Illinois and served in the Navy from 1982 until 1988, eventually ending up at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, where she tracked submarines.
Before that time, she was stationed at a base in California and at Barbers Point in Oahu. At those locations, Roling was assigned to remediate buildings that turned out to contain asbestos.
Roling developed years of breathing problems.
“Asbestos was more likely the cause of my lung issues,” Roling told WAND News. “When we did remediation, we were never given any protective gear. We were told we were removing white covering from pipes on the ceiling, which probably 90% of the people broke out in rashes.”
Scar tissue has been found on her lungs, and in recent months, Roling has started the claims process with the Veterans Administration, providing the VA with her records, which she had been keeping for 25 years. On top of lung issues, she has also developed skin cancer.
“I have had that on my arms and face, and I don’t know if it’s from removing that asbestos without protective gear,” Roling said.
Budzinski said that more research and federal dollars are needed to help women veterans.
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