Military service comes with operation-related hazards, but what is sometimes overlooked is that servicemen and women often carry a high risk of cancer. A lot of symptoms you might experience could be the result of exposure to hazardous chemicals on military bases. You might live with them for a while before you feel it’s even necessary to seek appropriate medical care. Without knowing of previous exposure, a doctor might come away with a wrong diagnosis even when using reasonable care.
To expedite the legal process, you will have to retrieve your military records, as well as medical records, and send these documents to our attorneys. Our team of experts will promptly help you recover the financial compensation you deserve from the manufacturers of the products you were in contact with while serving in the U.S. Army.
While aqueous film-forming foam itself is not classified as a carcinogen, the firefighting foam contains several known carcinogenic compounds that have been shown to cause certain types of cancer. Army firefighters and fire protection personnel who trained with AFFF to combat fuel and aircraft fires came into direct contact with these chemicals during live-fire exercises, equipment testing, and routine training.
Many AFFF formulations contain perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), both possibly carcinogenic to humans. According to several studies, these chemicals have been linked to a wide range of cancers among firefighters, particularly cancer of the kidneys, testicles, liver, and thyroid.
Personnel who may have faced AFFF exposure during their Army service include:
- Fire Control Technician/Fireman
- fire protection specialists
- firefighter trainees and instructors
- personnel who maintained firefighting equipment and foam systems
- civilian firefighters assigned to Army installations
The chemical-based firefighting foam was designed, marketed, manufactured, distributed, and sold by large companies, such as:
- 3M Company
- Tyco Fire Products
- Du Pont de Nemours
- The Chemours Company
- Buckeye Fire Equipment
- Chemguard
Their products have been used extensively throughout all military branches, including the U.S. Army, for over 50 years.
If you served as a firefighter or in a fire protection role in the Army and later developed:
you may be entitled to significant financial compensation.
Asbestos was used throughout Army barracks, mess halls, hospitals, and other buildings where soldiers worked, slept, and ate. Anyone working or living on a U.S. Army base before the 1980s may have been exposed, and older buildings on some bases, especially barracks, still contain asbestos today. An Army Times report found that a number of housing units on Army bases continue to contain contaminants like asbestos and lead paint.
Asbestos products soldiers were commonly exposed to
- insulation
- duct insulation
- brakes
- asphalt
- gaskets
- clutches
- roof coating
- floor tiles
- shingles
- electric wires
- wallboard
- cement
Army jobs with elevated asbestos exposure risk
- aircraft worker
- pipefitter/utilitiesman
- constructionman
- electrician
- carpenter
- structural mechanic
- radioman
- boiler technician
Army bases with a documented history of asbestos use
More than 100 U.S. Army bases used asbestos, including:
- Blue Grass Army Depot, Kentucky
- Camp San Luis Obispo, California
- Fort Benning, Georgia
- Fort Bragg, North Carolina
- Fort Campbell, Tennessee/Kentucky border
- Fort Gillem, Georgia
- Fort Hood, Texas
- Fort Jackson, South Carolina
- Fort Knox, Kentucky
- Fort Lee, Virginia
- Fort Lewis, Washington
- Fort McCoy, Wisconsin
- Fort McPherson, Georgia
- Fort Monmouth, New Jersey
- Fort Shafter, Hawaii
- New Cumberland Army Depot, Pennsylvania
- Pueblo Chemical Depot, North Carolina
- Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois
This is only a partial list, and many more Army bases were built with asbestos-containing products. The military stopped using asbestos in large part in the 1970s due to its confirmed toxicity, but this does not change the fact that entire generations of Army veterans served in toxic conditions, breathing in fibers released during maintenance and repairs to heat-related machinery and heavy-duty equipment on military bases.