‘Toxic bird pits’ talk shows continued ignorance of burn pit dangers
By Leo Shane III
Friday, Feb 10
In his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, President Joe Biden insisted that Republicans and Democrats can work together on major issues, noting that in 2022 “we came together to pass the most significant law ever helping victims exposed to toxic burn pits.”
But the phrase was recorded as “toxic bird pits” on some closed captioning systems, prompting social media searches on the phrase and a New York Times article on Friday asking if bird pits were “some major news story” that their staff had missed.
What are military burn pits? And why are veterans worried about them?
The fires used in combat zones to dispose of waste may have caused serious illnesses in hundreds of thousands of U.S. service members.
By Leo Shane III
While some of the misunderstanding appears intentionally politically motivated — conservatives on Twitter targeted Biden for his unclear pronunciation of some words and phrases — it also underscores the continued disconnect between the American public and the veteran community, for which burn pits have been a major focus for more than a decade.
The Department of Defense has estimated nearly 3.5 million troops from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may have suffered enough exposure to the smoke to cause health problems.
https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/2023/02/10/toxic-bird-pits-talk-shows-continued-ignorance-of-burn-pit-dangers/
