thousands of New Jersey Veterans have received additional health benefits made available under the historic pact act signed by President Joe Biden last year the pact act expands VA benefits for those who were exposed to burn pits agent orange and other toxic substances predominantly in Iraq and Afghanistan according to Administration statistics since the law was passed the Department of Veterans Affairs has received nearly 786 thousand disability claims Under The Pact act processed almost 435 thousand and approved more than 348 thousand so are enough veterans here in New Jersey taking advantage of the benefits and in an effort to do so what type of Outreach is being done for that and more we are joined by Dr Shereef Elnahal the under secretary for health at the U.S Department of Veterans Affairs and former president and CEO of newark's university hospital and former New Jersey Commissioner of health Dr El najal we are nearing the anniversary of The Pact act about how many claims have you received by veterans in New Jersey since the law has passed so we've received over 800 000 claims across the country and I don't have the new jersey number right in front of me but I know that the medical center in East Orange and all of the clinics that they manage have done tens of thousands of toxic exposure screenings on top of that for veterans who are already in our system and so we're working really hard to make sure that every veteran in New Jersey and across the country knows about these benefits and so you know what does outreach look like we've done over 2 000 Outreach events across the country in dozens in New Jersey where we bring the Health Care System but also our colleagues in the benefits Administration together into communities where veterans are to tell them about these benefits and just to remind any veteran who's listening if you were exposed to toxic substances during your service which really means going anywhere in Central Command from the first Gulf War to any of the post-9 11 conflicts that includes Iraq Afghanistan but also other surrounding countries or if you're a Vietnam veteran who was deployed to Vietnam or any of the surrounding countries you likely qualify for VA benefits if you have particular conditions so this law allows us to be much more comprehensive in what we cover in the care we deliver so please try to apply by Monday to have your benefits to be able to be backdated to August 10th of last year um I want to go back to that exposure can you give me some examples of how military personnel would be exposed to hazardous burn pits so when people were deployed to Iraq Afghanistan and the surrounding countries the way often that military installations would dispose of waste is through these giant pits were they threw all sorts of materials and waste in just to be burned and what this did is it generated large clouds of black smoke especially for the soldiers and the military service members stationed right next to them but in particular for those who were guarding them and otherwise maintaining them and so what we've done with the pact Act is essentially presumed that if you were deployed to any of these countries in service to our country that we presume you were exposed to this Toxin and all you have to demonstrate is that you have one of the potentially 300 conditions that we presume to be connected to that exposure and these conditions can be very rare but some also very calm asthma rhinitis sinusitis a number of lung conditions are associated with burn pets but of course is also more serious conditions like cancer there were some issues when trying to file claims for for those some people who went online what would be your advice if someone ran into an error message while trying to file a claim yeah so this past week because there was overwhelming demand to access both the website and the call center there were some delays and some veterans ended up getting error messages we have data to the tune of a little bit over 5 000 veterans who may have experienced one of these error messages so the good news is RIT Department believes that we have the information we need to still register your intent to file If you experience an error message but if you're uncertain you could always go to the website and click your intent to file again it only takes a matter of minutes to indicate your intent to file you don't have to complete the full application and for that reason and to give all the veterans who tried the benefit of the doubt we've extended the deadline to Monday at midnight eastern time for you to do the same thing and so if you're unsure and if you haven't heard from us that we received your intent to file you have the chance to do it again by Monday August 14th at midnight Dr Sharif elnahal thank you for joining me thank you so much Raven [Music]