Board: Guardsmen were not overexposed to toxin

[unhappycamper]

Board: Guardsmen were not overexposed to toxin
By Maureen Groppe - Gannett News Service
Posted : Monday Dec 22, 2008 18:55:50 EST

WASHINGTON — The Army correctly concluded that Indiana National Guardsmen were not overexposed to a toxin in Iraq, according to an independent review by the Defense Health Board. The review could make it harder for a group of guardsmen to continue their lawsuit against defense contractor KBR of Texas.

Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., who was briefed on the findings Monday, said he still has unanswered questions.

“What did KBR know, when did they know it, and what did they do?” Bayh told CBS News on Monday, according to a transcript of the interview. “Apparently, it was bad enough that the KBR people weren’t going back into the site. The Indiana guardsmen said, ‘Wait a minute, we’re not going back in there anymore!’ Something clicked in our guardsmen’s minds that something’s not right here, and if those employees aren’t going in, why should be we going in?”

Bayh had asked the Army for more information after two KBR employees told Senate Democrats in June that workers and soldiers at a water pumping plant in Iraq were exposed to sodium dichromate in 2003.

Sodium dichromate, which was used at the site as an anti-corrosive, contains the carcinogen hexavalent chromium. Members of the Indiana National Guard were among the soldiers providing protection to defense contractors working on the Qarmat Ali Water Injection Facility.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/12/gns_indiana_guardsmen_122208/%2e