Lungs
Organ / systemThe first organ to meet anything you breathe — smoke, dust, fuel vapor, and fibers.
What toxicants do here
Inhaled smoke and ultrafine particulate from burn pits and fuels injure the smallest airways and can scar them, sometimes causing real breathlessness that a standard chest X-ray misses.
Fibers (asbestos, silica) and certain metals (chromium VI, nickel, beryllium) lodge in lung tissue and drive scarring, immune lung disease, and cancer — often decades later.
What targets it — tap to learn each one
The PACT Act makes many respiratory conditions and respiratory cancers presumptive for airborne hazards; asbestos and chromium VI are recognized lung carcinogens.
Small-airway disease can progress while imaging looks normal, and fiber/metal injury carries long-latency cancer risk. Full pulmonary-function testing is the key check.
Bring this to your clinician and your VSO — they decide what testing and care, if any, is right for you. For general, whole-person ways to support your body, see Whole health.
Drafted from the government's and science's own record — VA presumptive lists (PACT Act, 38 CFR, Camp Lejeune), ATSDR ToxFAQs, IARC, and NTP. Sources are cited on every page, and this library has not yet been reviewed by a named clinician or toxicologist. This is documentation to bring to your clinician and VSO — not a diagnosis, a treatment plan, or a determination of service connection. Veterans Crisis Line: dial 988, then press 1.