DEpartment Defense Investigating Hexavalent Exposure in Guardsmen

Full Article at: Defense Department investigating WV Guardsmen exposure claims

By Keri Brown

October 2, 2009 · The Defense Department has announced an investigation into the exposure of hundreds of U.S. soldiers in Iraq to the chemical hexavalent chromium.

The Defense Department’s Inspector General will investigate both the chemical exposure and the Army’s response to it.

National Guard members from West Virginia, Indiana and Oregon say they’ve become ill from the fine red dust they breathed as they protected civilian contractors at an Iraqi water plant in 2003.

It was hexavalent chromium – the chemical made famous in the movie “Erin Brokovich.”