Skip to Content

Toxic Exposure Screening and your VA benefits

A toxic exposure screening supports your long-term health plan and ensures you receive informed, whole-health care. It’s a quick 5-10 minute screening to identify any potential exposures to toxins during your military service. We’ll connect you to additional resources if you have any concerns.

Toxic exposures

While toxic exposure is defined by law, generally there are several types of possible exposures or hazards Veterans may have experienced during their military service. Some common examples appear below.

Potential exposures could include:

  • Open Burn Pits/Airborne Hazards: Contaminants or substances in the air including smoke and fumes from open burn pits and fine particulate matter.
  • Gulf War-related exposures: Veterans may have been exposed to a variety of environmental hazards including pesticides and oil well fires.
  • Agent Orange: An herbicide used to thin-out thick foliage commonly found in jungles and fields.
  • Radiation: Exposure from sources such as nuclear weapons.
  • Camp Lejeune contaminated water exposure: Between August 1, 1953, and December 31, 1987, Veterans and their families may have been exposed to contaminated drinking water.
  • Other exposures: There are other potential toxic exposures that may occur during military service.

Manage your health

Talk with a VA provider

  • Call 1-800-MyVA411 then press 8, or a local VA clinical care team
  •  Send a secure message to your clinical care team through your patient portal at My VA Health 
  • Discuss exposure concerns at your next VA appointment

Enroll in VA care

Registry health exams

Registry health exams are no-cost voluntary environmental exposure medical exams. VA has several health registries – these include: Agent Orange, Airborne Hazard and Open Burn Pit, Gulf War (includes Operations Iraqi Freedom and New Dawn), Ionizing Radiation, Depleted Uranium Follow-Up Program, Embedded Fragment Surveillance Center.

  • You may be eligible to participate in one or more of these health registries. Note: The registry evaluation is not a compensation exam or required for other VA benefits.
  • Registries can alert you to possible health problems related to your military service and help VA better understand and respond to these health problems more effectively.

Schedule a registry exam with your local environmental health coordinator

  • Call 1-800-MyVA411, then press 8
  • Visit your local VA medical center

VA presumptive conditions

Veterans may be eligible for disability benefits and/or compensation if they have a health condition that results in disability and was connected to their military service. For many health conditions, you need to prove that your service caused your condition. For some conditions, we automatically assume (or “presume”) that your service caused your condition. We call these “presumptive conditions.” We consider a condition presumptive when it’s established by law or regulation. If you have a presumptive condition, you do not need to prove that your service caused the condition. You only need to meet the service requirements for the presumption.

Benefits

  • Veterans with presumptive diseases may be eligible for benefits such as disability compensation »
  • Surviving spouses, dependent children and/or parents of deceased Veterans may be eligible for benefits such as dependency and indemnity compensation and accrued benefits
  • Veterans who had claims that were previously denied can file supplemental claims

To file a claim for benefits

PACT Act care coordinators

Lisa Murphy

PACT Act care coordinator

Lovell Federal health care

Phone:

Email: Lisa.Murphy@va.gov

Velma Johnson

PACT Act care coordinator

Lovell Federal health care

Phone:

Email: Velma.Johnson@va.gov

Toxic exposure navigators

James Danziger MD

Toxic exposure navigator

Lovell Federal health care

Phone:

Sherryl Estorque NP

Toxic exposure navigator

Lovell Federal health care

Phone:

  • The PACT Act is a law that expands VA health care and benefits for Veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances. This law helps us provide generations of Veterans—and their survivors—with the care and benefits they’ve earned and deserve. And starting March 5, 2024, we’re expanding VA health care to millions of Veterans—years earlier than called for by the PACT Act.

  • Veterans may have been exposed to a range of chemical, physical, and environmental hazards during military service.

  • VA disability compensation provides tax-free monthly payments. If you have a service-connected condition, you may be eligible for compensation. A service-connected condition means an illness or injury that was caused by—or got worse because of—your active military service. Keep reading to find out if you may be eligible.

  • Exposure Ed delivers information on military-related exposures to health care providers.

Last updated: