publicee holds the impeachment hearings. top u.s. diplomat in ukraine william taylor and deputy assistant secretary of state george kent will testify. on friday on c-span two, former u.s. ambassador to ukraine marie yovanovitch will appear before the committee. and, read witness testimony from a deposition. find the transcript that c-span.org. at our table this morning to talk about military issues is the national military and veterans reporter with mcclatchy newspaper. mcclatchy newspapers. you have an investigative piece, finding an increase in cancer rates among veterans. what type of data did you look at, what period, how did you discover this rise? guest: thank you for having me

on. i have been hearing from veterans about the number of cancer clusters they have experienced, people they have served with, family members. we look at the data behind those personal stories to see if what they were experiencing personally was reflected in the data. through a freedom of information request, we looked at every cancer billing through the v.a. system over a stretch of time and we found increases. 23%, liverncer is up cancers is up 96%. once we have this data, we went back to the veterans communities and asked, did you think happened? host: what happened? guest: a lot of these veterans think it is toxic exposure.

talkedvious a guest about the burn pits. iraq and across afghanistan, things were burned from human waste to ammunition and soldiers breathe this in day and night. it could be water contamination on bases. it could be radiation in cockpits, pilots have come forward and thought the radar systems they have been exposed to over thousands of hours of flying could be linked to the cancer they see in their community. it is a wide spectrum of things you could be exposed to, which is why these veteran groups have come together with the overall issue of toxic exposure. host: where these veteran serve? guest: everywhere. the pilots are above you, they were all over iraq and afghanistan. it is not just this generation, this is just the latest generation.

illnesses have come to bear 10 to 15 years after they serve. leo was talking about vietnam veterans and the challenges they have with agent orange. this is this generation's issue. host: we did receive a response from the veterans affairs office and they say we want to let you know the premise of her story, number of cancer treatments have increased, the number of cancer instances have increased and that is not true. it is not a reliable measure of the incident rates. during the. of time her story sites, better treatments became available. more patients were treated and for longer periods of time even though overall cancer incidents drop. cancer rates go up with age. if the median age went up a few years, that could have an impact on cancer rates. guest: we were careful with the data. when we did a request, we asked

for unique patients. a veteran who has urinary cancer, they might go in five times a year to be treated. because of the way we requested the data, unique datatype for their social security number, it was only counted once. it's not like because there are additional treatments out there the numbers rose. patients whoique went for treatment every year. we worked with the v.a. for months at to get at the heart of the story and the message we chose, which not only had incidents, new diagnosis of cancer and returning patients, but the way the v.a. data provided to us, which is just new instances of cancer, new diagnosis, it can undercount. the answer is in the middle. but it is enough of a red flag the v.a. needs to pay attention. host: we are talking about the rise in cancer rates according

to the investigative reporting done by tara copp, the national military and veterans reporter with mcclatchy newspapers. lines, divided the veterans call (202) 748-8000, all others can call (202) 748-8001. a little more about these numbers. veterans cancer rates decreases between 2000 and 2018. he saw a decrease in brain cancer, 22% for testicular cancer and 13% for respiratory cancer. what does this tell you? guest: a lot more needs to be done to look into these numbers. when they were refuting our story even before i came on and the story was published, they gave us their own internal data set and it shows brain cancer is on the rise. there is something in between. there is an increase in brain cancer or there is not, but it

needs to be looked at more closely. overall, what we are seeing is the sheer number of men and women who have served in the military over the last two decades of war in iraq and 187,000tan, you have veterans who said he have been exposed to burn pits and have respiratory illnesses due to that. you have a whole generation of pilots who have flown nonstop for 25 years and have different radars and jamming systems that they suspect might be tied to their own cancers. it is a call to action and look deeper and see if there is a connection. host: going along with the v.a.'s response and your numbers and reporting, the increase in treatments, according to the v.a., a 41% increase a 41% increase in treatment for blood cancer, 70% for urinary 100 51%brain cancers,

for liver and pancreatic cancers. this liver and pancreatic cancer, is there something they are pointing to is the reason that they are seeing this rise? for those cancers, specifically. guest: any sort of toxic exposure can generate a mutation that leads to a cancer and a particular individual. that is why causality is so hard to determine. might causeposure cancer in them but not the person who served next to them. it is a call to action to do more studies to make sure the service members start to get the help they need and get it covered by the v.a. just a circle back to the v.a.'s pushback, how is the v.a. so .ertain it knows its numbers the vast majority of veterans don't get their health care from the v.a. what we have heard from

servicemember after servicemember's this is the tip of the iceberg and there is a lot more cancer out there. host: we will go to a veteran in ohio. work -- rick, start over. caller: 1970. i just turned 15.5, my dad had me inducted. by the time i was 16, i was in the military. host: ok. thoughts onre your this investigative reporting? caller: what i want to say to you has nothing to do with cancer, it has to do with me being raped when i was in the military as a child. the v.a. wants to pay for my psychological counseling but they don't want to admit that i was right. i have an honorable discharge. they discharged me under minority terms because they did not want to admit back then somebody raped during basic

training in a latrine in the middle of the night. i want to know why they won't admit to me being raped but they will pay for my psychological counseling for being raped. experiencedrick has is what a lot of veterans experience in terms of their claims. i am sorry for what you have gone for. what you need to do is go to vet center and get the advocacy you need to get your claim fully recognized. veteran.inois, a good morning. caller: good morning and thank you for this program. i served from 1966 to 1968, i am a vietnam veteran. i had skin cancer. the first one was a blood cancer.

it was a curable cancer. the second cancer ahead, i had a sore throat and i went to my becauseinic, they said i had sinus infections, the sore throat was related to the infection. they sent me to an ear, nose and throat doctor. he said we can't help you here. they sent me to a hospital in st. louis. they scoped me and said my air passage was the side of a pencil. i went through a series of biopsies. some sortht -- it was of tongue cancer. surgeon who to a talked about cutting out part of my tongue. biopsies, before the surgery, the doctor want to do another biopsy.

to make a long story short, i was treated very well by the v.a., i love my v.a. doctors. my sonresting point was had a foreign exchange student from vietnam and i asked him about his grandparents. one of them, who lives in saigon is still alive but the other one died and he does not know anything about how he died. i am curious about the agent orange cancers, if they are doing any studies about vietnam? guest: it sounds like your experience at the v.a. is what i inferred from a lot of different veterans in the last few weeks since i published, that is a high rate of misdiagnosis is. there have been a number of emails and phone calls, heartbreaking calls, about their child or spouse who went into the v.a. health care system and

they were told through the initial screening process it was a cold or a sore throat and it turned out to be much worse, but it was not cot until it was late stage. i got a heartbreaking email from a reader saying by the time their particular cancer was caught, brain cancer, it was too late. we asked the v.a. secretary about this friday at the white house and again at a separate event and he said the v.a. right now struggles like the u.s. medical committee at large, where they don't have enough cancer specialists. right now, you have a whole generation of service members who might be going to the v.a. for the first time because they have symptoms, but the symptoms might not be correctly diagnosed because of some of the lack of expertise that the v.a. is struggling with. burn pitsdid these come about? how was it disclosed and been to

the united states realize there were health ramifications about this policy? wayt: the burn pits were a to get rid of all of the materials that u.s. forces brought with them and all of the contractors. at the height of the war, there were more than 160,000 forces in iraq and the contractor can't was bigger than that. every single one of those people was generating trash, human waste, ammunition, it all just went into a burn pit because there was no other way to get rid of it. you would smell the smoke all over the place, you could see the fires. we have been contacted by many service members with pictures of war they serve, where there is just smoke and air, there is a haze. they go to bed at night breathing and the stuff, they wake up breathing in the stuff. at some point it triggered whenever they are experiencing. the respiratory illnesses,

187,000 service members. host: where does the recognition stand? officiale v.a.'s statement says more work needs to be done. they need to be able to scientifically connect the exposure -- the burn pit exposure to the onus is service members are now facing. there are members of congress single won't wait that long this time. based on the agent orange experience, they are taking action legislatively and there are veterans groups coming together and comedian jon stewart to say these guys need help now, they can't wait 30 years for the v.a. to recognize these illnesses. carolina, a veteran, good morning. caller: i served for 24 years from 1977 to 2002.

if a person who works at the v.a. for five years, i appreciate the person who is speaking who did a lot of investigative work about the v.a. serious today still has , serious problems. supervisors toom employees, to clinics that are not well looked at. i worked at two clinics in north carolina and spent five years. the last clinic i worked at, it took me eight months to go to a doctor's panel to find hundreds of v.a. patients who died, transferred and are still under a doctor's panel that were cleaned up. i feel for the veterans. i don'ty fortunate, have a service-connected

disability, i don't have to use the v.a., i am blessed to have my own loo blue shield. own blue cross blue shield. a lot of times, i tell a veteran you have to be proactive in your care, you have to get your health record. i have my health record, all those years i was in the military. you have to be able to use my healthy vet as a tool to make your own appointment and scheduling of drugs. andt of these cancer issues misdiagnosis, that needs to be on the forefront because i have known several veterans who have gotten misdiagnosed over their care and they are dying from the problems way after they got hit with their disease. it is a shame. those veterans deserve the best

care. 2014, president barack obama is the one who signed the veterans choice program. made it stronger and weeded out a lot of issues. i remember the appointment scandal in phoenix where they tried to fix the appointments for the veterans. now you can get an appointment well within 30 days with your primary care provider. guest: a lot of issues there. the v.a. is a we have good experiences with v.a. doctors and nurses. overall, this is going to take a

wider approach to get the care needed for these veterans. you've seen one piece of legislation dropped last week to look at cockpit radiation specifically and if it is tied to prostate cancer among pilots. you will see this push in the next several months, how they signed on with jon stewart to get that issue pushed into the forefront. it's not going away. the tragedy assistance program for survivors, it's a large organization that has seen its new members because of killed in action. they would come and get support. their number one driver now for new members, for new windows or widowers is lost due to illness or cancer. host: rudolph is in maine. good morning. where did you serve?

in vietnam andd desert storm. i am a disabled veteran. has a book of benefits that is four inches thick. issued -- i have one right in front of me, federal benefit program for veterans and survivors. it is only 1/8 of an inch thick. in the past 30 years, i have applied for every single benefit that is inside that book. bound -- downed by every single one of them. they're not interesting helping myself or all the other veterans. have allthat they these benefits in our worthless. care, in my health

area, which is a rural area, we don't have enough civilian doctors to take care of the veterans in this area. needs to increase the amount of doctors in rural areas for veterans. host: let's take that point or it -- point. guest: access has been an issue for decades. and populations for you have a high number of veterans, there wasn't easy access to v.a. clinics and they would have to find rides. that is one of the many issues. provider inmedical the world, a population is aging and been exposed to combat. they have a lot of serious medical issues. women tohese men and

war, we said we would take care of them on the backend. there is an enduring process. we want to make sure that process -- promises kept. host: good morning to you. caller: i want to salute c-span. i am a military police veteran. i served in the national guard until 1994. i had 15 years of good service. why dad was an air force veteran in the korean war. i wanted to bring up the issue we have in our alexandria v.a. i have a friend of mine who is a veteran. was murdered at the doctorria v.a. and his has had nine deaths over there.

nobody will investigate that. i am hoping and praying that we can contact you. i salute c-span for having this on for our veterans. we need help out there. host: is there a way to contact you? please email us. we want the stories. we are getting more and more of them. copp@mcclatchy.dc host: good morning to you. force medics an air under the reagan administration. unfortunately, i did not think i was incurring much physical strain. i ended up with a bad back. i could hardly get out of bed.

they put me on 10%, which meant nothing. i tried to stay out of taking the pills by taking chiropractors and other methods. anxiety andefer depression. the doctor refused to refer me at the time. years, ilast several got treatment. my disability has been adjusted. the problem with this history of veterans in terms of being shortchanged, the revolutionary took congress

hostage. they were sentenced to death. they sentenced revolutionary war veterans who won the freedom for our country to death. congress commuted the sentences because they loved their veterans. veteransworld war i were screwed out of their benefits and they were protesting on the mall. macarthur rolled tanks and teargas on them. congress sneaks out the back door. , it takes another 20 years. now your last guest mentioned in passing the trump looked at having our disability expire. unfortunately, 2% of the population are veterans. people love to talk about it.

when i served after vietnam, no one bought my lunch or shook my hand. now they do. they look at you as an expense. i was denied a colonoscopy. now that i am 60, they might go ahead and give me that diagnostic treatment. you are anout expense. caller: i'm going to take it back to the cancer's a moment. it does relate to your comment. several of the aviators i have talked to who want to v.a. to look at these raw state cancers more closely, they need to start screening active-duty members younger. cancer intch prostate the early stage. it's more expensive -- less expensive than catching it in the later stage. there is a population that is more vulnerable, make sure they

are getting the care they need. a veteran is calling. welcome to the conversation. caller: thank you. happy veterans day. saying, every time she goes to the doctor and there is not something wrong, i have a phd in me. feels and to body get medical help. , that wasnt 20 years between active-duty and reserves. i also return -- retired from the army. three years after she retired, she had breast cancer and passed away. her daughter just retired from

the air force. she is a 13 year breast cancer survivor. here's the thing. i've been a commander multiple times. it's all about readiness. onlth agencies are focused kansas soldier do the job. -- can this soldier do the job. the people are going to put you right back to work. i was in a military exercise in europe. me?know what they told we would put you on quarters. we need a transition core. all that money is going to the v.a., it needs to be put into the defense help agency. that needs to be part of a plan to say come into the service,

and you transition out, you go into this transition core. your records be consolidated. who are in that 1%, 77 -- 17% are retired. about it's not only better management. if you're going to send men and women to war, be aware of the dangers you are putting them into. everyone expects war to be dangerous. they don't expect burning then, ion the debris was talking to a mother, he was a humvee gunner in iraq. iraqs matter-of-fact from in 2008 with brain cancer.

he died. this is unacceptable. you need to know what you are sending your men and women into and what they are being put at risk for. the military will do with the nation needs. you also should know the risk you are facing and how to better protect yourself. jammers forof the the radars in the cockpit have better protection for the men and women operating them? reportingcan find her the house will be in order. c-span has been providing unfiltered coverage of congress. the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events from washington, d.c. and around the country.

created by cable in 1979. c-span is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. the house impeachment inquiry hearings start wednesday. wednesday, today, president trump tweeted that adam schiff r ould be investigated fo fraud, writing shifty adam schiff will only release doctored transcripts. we haven't even seen the restricted d are from having a lawyer. schiff must testify where he made up a statement are me and read it to all. maggie aimerman from the "new have imes" writes thun complain ld is a problem since the releases. the house intelligence committee will hold it's first open on ing of the inquiry

assistant and deputy .ecretary of state toerj kent you can watch live on c-span.or fwchlt or listen on the pre-c-span radio app. the house impeachment inquiry and response on c-span. reairs on time c-span or stream or demand at c-span.org/impeachment. >> president trump offered a tribute on this veteran's day to d in the armed forces and spoke at the opening annual parade rganized by the war veteran's council, the first sitting president to speak at the