Veterans Affairs Committee on March 19th, 2013

[Lt (N) Louise Richard]

I couldn't assimilate your question. Sorry.

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

No problem. I'll move on.

Number seven is:

There are many Veterans suffering from persistent symptoms following deployment or military conflict which, although not linked to specific exposures such as DU, can cause considerable suffering and can be effectively treated.

[Lt (N) Louise Richard]

—can cause a great burden. Effectively treated, hopefully.

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Looking forward now that the study is complete, how should the government respond to the results of this study?

[Lt (N) Louise Richard]

It should admit to the fact that the urine testing the government has done was misleading. It was wrong. It did not use appropriate facilities to do indepth testing. We should bring it a step further to check the chromosomes and the cells in the RNA. There is clear evidence that it's not just urine. It can be tracked at the molecular level also, so we need to go a step further than stopping at urine.

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Then specifically, going forward, how do you think the government should respond to cases like yours?

[Lt (N) Louise Richard]

I'm not unique. It's cases like ours.

We have to go back in time and go after every single person who has knocked at Veterans Affairs' doors with an application of some kind, whatever ailment it is. We need to backtrack. We need to go through every single case back to 1990, with the evidence, the clear research. We need to follow it. We need to help our families, our doctors. We need to educate Canadians on this. There are nine communicable diseases. This is serious. There is a blood ban on chronic fatigue syndrome, the XMRV virus. They are working on biomarkers.

This is important stuff that doesn't stop at the veteran. This is in our blood supply. Depleted uranium, as we know, goes all over the body, to the organs. Does anyone here want an organ of mine if you're in a car crash tomorrow?

[A voice]

No.

[Lt (N) Louise Richard]

I wouldn't either. I was banned from giving blood by the Red Cross back in 1994 because I showed illness back at that time and they were questioning all of this. I was part of the plasmapheresis program. I was very honoured to be part of that, so when I was told no, I was wondering what was going on there.

We need to go in depth on a lot of things that Veterans Affairs and Canada have not even scraped the surface on.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Captain Richard, thank you very much on behalf of all the committee not only for your service but for your testimony as well. To your mother and brother as well, thank you all very much.

Your evidence is very helpful for us to proceed. If there is anything in the future that you have that you could submit in writing, at your convenience, of course, that would be most helpful.

I also wish to advise the committee that she was kind enough to bring this CD, which is only in English, mind you, so if you wish to have one, there is one here to pick up.

We thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you today.

[Lt (N) Louise Richard]

Thank you very much for your time.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

We'll recess for one minute while our next witness comes in.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Members of Parliament, please take your seats.

Folks, we're now very pleased to have Dr. Eric Daxon, a research leader of the Battelle Memorial Institute.

Sir, thank you very much for coming today. We appreciate your time. Please proceed for 10 minutes.

[Dr. Eric Daxon, Research Leader, Battelle Memorial Institute, As an Individual]

Thank you.

First, I'd like to say that it's a pleasure and an honour to be here before this committee. Second, I'd like to thank you for the work you're doing for Canadian veterans. I think this committee speaks volumes for your interest in Canadian veterans. I'm not a combat veteran , but I was on active duty in the U.S. Army for 30 years, and I'm especially appreciative of the work that is being done for our combat veterans.

Before I begin, I need to make it clear that I'm here as an independent subject matter expert and not as a representative of my company or any other organization. The comments that follow express my views on the issues at hand. I'm a health physicist by training experience. I received my master's degree in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and my doctorate in radiological hygiene from the University of Pittsburgh . My involvement with DU research started in 1992 with my assignment to the U.S. Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, commonly known as AFRRI, first as a branch chief and then as the chair of the radiation biophysics department, and finally, as the team leader for the AFRRI DU research effort.

There were two significant outcomes of this assignment. The first was the initiation of the AFRRI animal model research program into the health effects of embedded DU fragments. The second was providing assistance in the development of the Baltimore depleted uranium follow-up program. The Baltimore program was initiated to provide long-term clinical follow-up for U.S. soldiers with retained DU fragments from U.S. friendly fire incidents during the first Gulf War.

In my follow-on assignment, I became the U.S. DOD's spokesman for the health physics aspects of depleted uranium exposure and the U.S. Army Surgeon General's consultant for depleted uranium. In this capacity, I was part of the initiation and execution of the DU capstone project. When I retired in 2003, I continued my work with the DU capstone project. In the interest of full disclosure, my current company, Battelle, conducted the capstone project.

I became involved in this effort for this committee when Dr. Morisset asked me to review the report on the Canadian experience with depleted uranium. Up front I would like to say that I concur with how the report was conducted, and I do concur with the conclusions of the report.

I'd like to spend a little time discussing a couple of aspects of each of the topics I've been talking about.

The initial review of the potential health effects of the use of DU in munitions was carried out by the U.S. DOD Joint Technical Coordinating Group for Munitions Effectiveness. In a report published in 1974, the group recommended a series of tests to estimate the amount of DU that could be inhaled or ingested subsequent to a variety of scenarios, including fires and tanks being struck by DU. These studies were initiated and culminated in the capstone depleted uranium project.

The overall objective of the capstone project was to estimate the health risks to personnel in each of the three levels of exposure. The first part of the project was the capstone test. The purpose of the capstone test was to measure the DU aerosol concentrations immediately after penetration by a DU munition. This was accomplished by a series of experiments that entailed firing DU munitions at U.S. armoured vehicles and then using a specially designed sampling array to collect the DU aerosols that were emitted shortly after penetration and at selected time periods after penetration.

The second part of the DU capstone project was the conduct of a health risk assessment for levels I through III. The capstone test data was exclusively used for a level I assessment. Level I exposure are those people who were in, on, or near a vehicle at the time the vehicle was penetrated by a munition, or those first responders who entered the vehicle immediately after to render first aid to the people inside the vehicle. Level II are personnel who, as a result of their job, routinely entered depleted uranium contaminated vehicles. Level III is basically everybody else. The level II and III risk assessments used a combination of capstone data and previously published data. The capstone health risk assessment concluded that DU exposures exceeding safety levels could occur for level I and level II, but would not for level III. Canadian exposures fall into level III.

The Baltimore VA DU monitoring program began its health surveillance of level I, and that's the highest exposed, U.S. veterans with embedded fragments in 1993, and repeated the monitoring every two years.

The results of this clinical monitoring have been reported in multiple peer-reviewed publications. The most recent journal article I am aware of is in a 2011 issue of the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health. The results reported in this paper are consistent with prior reports. Veterans with retained DU fragments are still excreting elevated levels of depleted uranium. No significant evidence of clinically important changes was observed in kidney or bone, the two principal target organs for DU. That was the conclusion of the 2011 report and all of the reports that I can remember since the study was started.

The results of the Baltimore surveillance efforts are relevant to the Canadian experience with DU because the aerosol exposures of these veterans were several orders of magnitude greater than level III exposures that occurred at Doha or in any of the other level III scenarios.

There are multiple U.S. and international reviews of the health effects of DU stemming from its use in combat. The findings and conclusions in the report I was asked to review are consistent with these reviews and my understanding of DU exposures.

In all cases the primary conclusions of these reports are consistent. With the exception of level I exposures, the people in, on, or near at the time the vehicle was struck, it is unlikely that exposures to DU during this conflict were high enough to generate adverse health effects. This is not the same as saying our veterans are not ill possibly due to their service to our nations. What it does mean is that in seeking a method to determine the source of the illness, DU is a highly unlikely candidate. I believe we can best help our veterans by focusing on other sources of illness that have a higher likelihood of leading to effective treatment.

Once again I would like to thank the committee for this invitation and for the work you are doing on behalf of your veterans.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Dr. Daxon, thank you very much for a very prompt and precise presentation.

Committee members, we will be going to four-minute rounds due to the time.

We will start off with Ms. Papillon, please.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for being here with us today.

[Dr. Eric Daxon]

I'm sorry. I'm having a little trouble with the translation.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Dr. Daxon, where are you from originally, by the way? I was going to say Kentucky with that accent.

[Dr. Eric Daxon]

No, actually, I was born in Asmara, Eritrea. I'm an army brat. Right now I'm from Texas, and I can guarantee you one thing: it's a lot warmer there than here.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Yes, sir. Thank you.

[Dr. Eric Daxon]

It was close to 35 degrees today, so it's truly warm there. My wife and I unfortunately like the cold and snow. Why we're settling in Texas I truly don't know.

I'm sorry it's taking me so long. I guess my fingers aren't quite as young as they used to be.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Sometimes it's better to unplug it and then plug it back in.

[Dr. Eric Daxon]

Thank you, sir. You must be an engineer.

I'm sorry, Ma'am, go ahead.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Okay.

Thank you very much for that.

I would like to just come back to the testimony we heard previously, which was really quite interesting. In fact, what we should remember above all, is that there is a serious shortage of scientists. Scientists with medical expertise need to be hired in order to better meet the needs of veterans and provide them with the most appropriate care.

I would like to hear more from you on the Department of Veterans Affairs' need to hire scientists. They could work more cooperatively with universities. I would like to know if you have any ideas to suggest how we can move forward.

[Dr. Eric Daxon]

The short answer is that I really can't offer any suggestions. I'm sorry. I know how the U.S. Veterans Affairs works. The one thing in the U.S., and it sounds as if it's the same thing here in Canada, is that the policy for determining whether or not an illness is compensable is basically set by Parliament and by your DOD.

The one thing that I think was really effective in the U.S. effort early on was the outreach to veterans. Very early on after the Gulf War there was a lot of reaching out by the U.S. government to U.S. veterans. I thought that was extremely effective.