When Congress passed the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act in 2022, it brought long-overdue relief to veterans denied benefits because there wasn’t enough scientific evidence tying burn pit exposure to their illnesses. What few know is that Rutgers researchers helped lay the scientific groundwork that made it possible to link certain illnesses to military service in the Middle East.
In December 2024, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) officially adopted rules to implement PACT that included a new method for conclusively determining whether specific respiratory illnesses are service-related. That method was developed in part by J. Scott Parrott, a professor at the Rutgers School of Health Professions, and his team through a VA-funded grant.
That work by Parrott, a statistics and methodology expert, and other researchers with the School of Health Professions now has been published in Evidence-Based Technology. “Usually, you publish the research, and it changes policy,” Parrott said. “This time, policy changed – and then the paper came out.” The unusual timeline – policy preceding publication – reflects the urgency of the issue.
Concerns about airborne hazards began during the 1990 Gulf War and intensified after conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan following 9/11. While environmental monitoring documented widespread dust and pollution, one exposure drew particular alarm: open-air burn pits, according to the published paper. To read the full story.