Veterans Affairs officials are trying to get as many veterans as possible to sign up for new military toxic exposure benefits ahead of the Aug. 9 deadline for retroactive payouts. By filing ahead of the fast-approaching deadline instead of after it, veterans who are awarded toxic exposure disability benefits could get tens of thousands of dollars more in payouts. The outreach, dubbed the Summer Vet-Fest, is part of a year-old, $11.4 million effort connected to sweeping benefits legislation approved by lawmakers last summer, officially known as the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act, better known as the PACT Act As many as one in five veterans living in America today could receive new health care or disability payouts as a result of the measure. The PACT Act provides presumptive benefit status for 12 types of cancer and 12 other respiratory illnesses linked to burn pit expo- sure in the Gulf War, the War in Iraq, and the War in Afghanistan; hypertension and monoclonal gammopafhy of undetermined significance (MGUS) for veterans who served in Vietnam; and radiation-related illnesses for veterans who served in several new locations in the 1960s and early 1970s.
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