Decades After Agent Orange, FBI Burn Pit Victims Fight a Battle Vietnam’s G-Men Know Too Well

Four years after a bipartisan bill automatically granted military veterans coverage for conditions linked to exposure to toxic burn pits, Republican and Democratic lawmakers are hoping to extend the same protection to civilian FBI agents and other federal employees who worked alongside those veterans.The legislation would ensure such federal employees would receive automatic coverage for illnesses related to the burn pits. The Kenya Merritt Renewing Our PACT Act of 2026 is named for FBI Special Agent Kenya Merritt, who was exposed to the open-air sites where waste is incinerated, emitting airborne hazards now linked to illnesses ranging from chronic bronchitis to leukemia during a deployment to Iraq. He died of lung cancer in 2024 at age 48. The 2022 passage of the original PACT Act expanded healthcare and benefits for veterans suffering from burn pit-related illnesses, automatically deeming their conditions service-connected, a standard known as presumptive coverage, without requiring proof that their illness was caused by their service.“That’s the same impossible burden of proof that blocked veterans from receiving care for decades prior to the passage of the PACT Act,” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York, said during a news conference in May. In 2009, Merritt served a voluntary, months-long counterterrorism deployment in Iraq, where he was exposed to burn pits. “That’s who Kenya was. He ran towards difficult things. He believed that when your country asks you to serve, you answer, and he trusted that if he was harmed in that service, his country would stand beside him, too,” his widow, Stephanie Merritt, said during a news conference in May.Merritt never smoked and worked out regularly. In 2014, while competing in an FBI fitness competition, he experienced discomfort in his chest. Doctors eventually diagnosed him with lung cancer.“As we searched for answers, Kenya and his doctors came to believe his cancer was connected to toxic exposure during his service overseas near military burn pits,” Mrs. Merritt said.Anywhere between 4,000 to 5,000 FBI personnel were deployed to combat zones overseas where they may have been exposed to burn pits, according to a spokesman for the FBI Agents Association, a professional advocacy group for FBI special agents that has been at the forefront of advancing the Kenya Merritt bill.Representative Nellie Pou, a Democratic co-sponsor from New Jersey, said that “every single civilian federal burn pit-related claim has been denied,” citing Department of Labor investigators. “That’s an outrage, and it cannot stand.” The Congressional Budget Office has yet to provide a cost estimate for the Kenya Merritt bill, though a person close to the negotiations tells the Sun they expect the cost to be “significantly lower than that of the PACT Act,” which is projected to cost $280 billion over a decade.A provision covering civilian federal employees was included in early drafts of the PACT Act but removed during negotiations over the bill’s final language. “Taking out civilians meant the Veterans Affairs committees had full jurisdiction, and it could get moved more easily,” a person familiar with those negotiations tells the Sun. Other legislation addressing civilian federal employee benefits was also in the pipeline, and lawmakers faced a “high burden of proof” to show that enough civilians had been affected to justify their inclusion. The aim was to pass the veterans’ bill first, then follow up with legislation for civilians. Four years later, that legislation is still pending.Merritt is not the first G-man to deal with the long-term consequences of voluntary overseas service.There’s precedent for providing coverage for victims of burn pit-related illnesses. A generation of Vietnam veterans turned FBI agents, among them retired FBI assistant deputy director Scott Nelson and former assistant director in charge James Kallstrom, suffered from the long-term health effects linked to Agent Orange, an herbicide used to strip jungle cover and destroy crops. A retired FBI supervisor, John Keenan, remembers just how exposed he and his fellow veterans were to the herbicide during their time in combat. “I slept in the crap. You’d be on patrol, you go through elephant grass, you look at your arms, and your arms were all shredded from the blades in the grass, and you’d wonder if there were any chemicals in that,” Mr. Keenan, who served in the Marines from 1969 to 1973, tells the New York Sun. By the late 1970s, veterans were submitting medical claims linking their illnesses to Agent Orange. The VA denied most of them. Only chloracne, a rare skin condition, was recognized as scientifically linked to dioxin exposure, according to VA historian Jordan McIntire.Eventually, President George H. W. Bush signed the Agent Orange Act of 1991, which established presumptive conditions for Vietnam veterans exposed to the herbicide. That list has since grown to include chronic illnesses like Parkinson’s disease. Mr. Nelson tells the Sun he was recently diagnosed with preclinical Parkinson’s, which he attributes to his exposure to Agent Orange during his tours of duty in Vietnam.Mr. Keenan tells the Sun that he has had several surgeries for skin cancer in recent years, which he has read could be traced back to Agent Orange. “Or conceivably, it could be traced back to being an Irishman with hazel eyes who spent so much time on the beach in Rockaway,” Mr. Keenan says.The road ahead may be a complicated one. The PACT Act was delayed after Senate Republicans expressed concerns over a provision that would move roughly $400 billion from “discretionary” to “mandatory” spending before President Biden signed it into law in August 2022. Vietnam veterans waited more than a decade before the Agent Orange Act of 1991 forced the VA to act.Whether Merritt’s bill will have enough support to pass isn’t clear, but his widow hopes it can move quickly.“I hope it sends a message to every family carrying this burden: your service mattered, your sacrifice mattered, and your country has not forgotten you,” Mrs. Merritt said.

Decades After Agent Orange, FBI Burn Pit Victims Fight a Battle Vietnam’s G-Men Know Too Well

More from the New York Sun

Conor McGregor’s UFC Return at Las Vegas Offers a Master Class in Marketing

Prince Harry Plays Pickleball as Meghan Markle Is MIA — and a Clandestine Conclave With Charles Appears Doubtful

Florida Republican House Candidate Under Fire for Saying It Is ‘Impossible’ for People To Be Born Gay

More from the New York Sun

Conor McGregor’s UFC Return at Las Vegas Offers a Master Class in Marketing

Prince Harry Plays Pickleball as Meghan Markle Is MIA — and a Clandestine Conclave With Charles Appears Doubtful

Florida Republican House Candidate Under Fire for Saying It Is ‘Impossible’ for People To Be Born Gay

How The Beatles’ ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ Appearance Gave America a New Soundtrack

NATO Leaders Deal Awkwardly With Working Guns Gifted by Erdogan at Summit

Film Forum Finds Itself in Another Fine Mess

Kash Patel Advocate Chuck Grassley Requests FBI Director Provide Receipts of FBI Jet Travel

Democrats Rage at Fetterman for Setting Up Joint Fundraising Operation with GOP Senator