Advocacy, at the size we actually are.

Expanded VA health care and benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxic substances — the largest expansion of veteran toxic-exposure care in decades. If you have a deployment exposure history, this is the law to know.

One bill that treats a service member’s health as a single timeline, from the day they enlist to long after they come home. It would test service members and veterans for toxic exposure before a psychiatric label is applied, limit harmful overmedication, and provide detoxification, addiction recovery, housing, and lifelong care, paid for without new taxes. It also covers first responders and protects the blood the military already holds. Operation Whole Health wrote it, and it has been shared with members of Congress. It has not been introduced, so it has no bill number and no cosponsors. We say that plainly because a proposal presented as pending legislation is the kind of thing that should cost an organization your trust.

Since 1985, the military has kept the serum left over from required blood draws, starting at enlistment: specimens from more than 12 million people in the DoD Serum Repository. This bill makes access to your own blood a right, not a courtesy. You could get a free inventory of what is held, have it preserved, and, on your treating clinician’s order, have it tested, with results explained in plain language. VA could not use those specimens in a benefits decision unless you choose to submit them. Operation Whole Health wrote it, and it has been shared with members of Congress. It has not been introduced, so it has no bill number and no cosponsors. We say that plainly because a proposal presented as pending legislation is the kind of thing that should cost an organization your trust.