Burn Pits and a Giant F**k You

What does the Department of Veterans Affairs say about burn pits? It says that “research does not show evidence of long-term health problems from exposure.” I may not be a scientist but if I have to have my car smogged over here in the United States and meet certain EPA regulations because carbon monoxide is unhealthy as proven by decades of research ...then I'm absolutely sure, that burning lithium-ion batteries...or any battery for that matter, or plastic, or diesel fuel...hey wait a minute...isn't inhaling the fumes from fuel dangerous...(Deadpool style gasp)Sign up to get shot at, cool! Sign up to get blown up, less cool, but we'll still go! Sign up to have the VA blatantly lie about the hazards of the burn pits, apparently, they expect us to be cool with that too.Part of the scientific method (which we should be using to figure out if there is a risk or not, right? Like No shit Sherlock!), requires that the testing be, reliable(meaning the test has predictable outcomes), repeatable (meaning you can do the same test the same way over and over again), and accurate (meaning that the test measures what you want it to measure). If these three parts are missing from the tests, then the test is invalid and violates the scientific method.Now that we've said all of the scientific five-dollar words and shit...can the VA tell us that their tests were reliable, repeatable and accurate? Did we measure how much time each person actually spent near a burn pit, the parts per million of whatever it was they breathed in, what materials were in the burn pit...we'd sure like to know where the hard science came from...seeing as how it'd be almost impossible to gauge any variables post-hoc. Yet, somehow there is definitive proof that burn pits cause no health problems. At worst, it's plausible that there may be some health concerns. There is no certain way to definitively say that there are no health risks involved with burn pits given the proclivity for throwing anything and everything in a burn pit.We'll believe that burn pits are totally safe when our shit turns purple and smells like rainbow sherbert. What a giant f*** you from the VA.