From Deployment to DNA: Addressing Toxic Exposure through Precision Health

Soldiers follow orders and complete the mission, but when the mission impacts their long-term health, they deserve answers, accountability, and access to the best care that modern science can provide.

The Hidden War: Toxic Exposure Among Veterans

For too many veterans, the battlefield follows them home. Long after their uniforms are hung up, the damage from toxic exposures endured during service continues to erode their health, families, and futures. Unlike visible wounds of war, toxic exposure is a slow, insidious adversary often undetectable until it manifests in devastating ways.

Service members deployed to conflict zones in Iraq and Afghanistan were frequently exposed to burn pits, where plastics, electronics, medical waste, and industrial debris were incinerated in open air, filling bases with toxic smoke. Others were stationed near industrial solvents, radiation zones, or aging facilities containing asbestos, lead, and other carcinogens. Even peace-time duty can carry risks, from jet fuel fumes and heavy metals in training ranges to contaminated water at domestic bases such as Camp Lejeune.

The impact is staggering. Veterans exposed to burn pits report higher incidences of asthma, chronic bronchitis, rare cancers, and neurological disorders. Studies link chemical exposures to elevated risks for autoimmune conditions, liver damage, and cardiovascular disease. Because these illnesses often take years or decades to surface, many veterans struggle to connect their conditions back to their time in service. The result is delayed diagnoses, preventable deaths, and a constant uphill battle for recognition and care.

This is not just a medical issue. It is also a policy and equity crisis. The VA has made important progress through measures like the PACT Act, which expands presumptive conditions tied to burn pit and other exposures. Yet, the system is still heavily reliant on symptom-driven medicine and service record documentation. Veterans must often prove the unprovable: that their disease, years later, is directly tied to a toxic environment thousands of miles away. For marginalized and underserved veterans who already face systemic barriers to healthcare access, this burden is even heavier.

In communities of color, rural regions, and tribal nations, veterans are more likely to experience both high-risk deployments and reduced access to specialty care upon returning home. Without precision tools, toxic exposure remains not only a personal tragedy but a widening inequity in how veterans experience health outcomes.

Why Traditional Approaches Fall Short

Despite decades of evidence, most toxic exposure monitoring still relies on reactive and generalized approaches. Standard diagnostics – such as CT scans, X-rays, pulmonary tests, or biopsies – are only triggered once symptoms are obvious. By that point, the disease may already be advanced and far more difficult to treat.

This creates several challenges:

• Latency and Uncertainty: Many toxic-related conditions remain dormant for years. By the time symptoms appear, damage may be irreversible.

• One-Size-Fits-All Screening: Veterans receive uniform check-ups that do not reflect their unique deployment exposures or biological susceptibilities.

• Difficulty with VA Claims: Without molecular evidence, veterans must rely on anecdotal accounts or incomplete records to prove toxic exposure, stalling disability claims and prolonging suffering.

• Inequities in Access: Veterans from underserved backgrounds are less likely to receive advanced diagnostics or referrals to specialty toxicology care, leaving them invisible in traditional medical pathways.

In other words, traditional medicine waits for the fire to burn before sending in help, rather than equipping veterans with early-warning systems. This reactive approach costs lives, drives up healthcare costs, and perpetuates inequities.

This is where precision health offers a breakthrough by shifting from generalized, reactive medicine to personalized, proactive solutions rooted in genomics, biomarkers, and advanced data integration.

Precision Health: A New Approach to Veteran Care

Precision medicine can uncover how toxic exposures uniquely affect veterans at the genomic level, enabling earlier detection, targeted care, and long-term health protections.

Precision health moves beyond a one-size-fits-all model by integrating genomics, environmental data, and clinical history into a comprehensive view of each veteran’s health. For toxic exposure, this approach can:

1. Identify Genetic Susceptibility

Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) can reveal genetic variants that make certain veterans more vulnerable to environmental toxins. For example, polymorphisms in detoxification enzymes (like GSTM1 or CYP450 families) may predispose veterans to liver or lung damage.

2. Track Biomarkers of Exposure

Omics technologies, including transcriptomics and proteomics, allow researchers to track molecular signatures that reflect toxic burden, even before symptoms surface. These biomarkers can serve as early warnings, enabling intervention before irreversible damage occurs.

3. Personalize Monitoring & Care

Instead of broad, generic screenings, veterans can receive precision health tracking tailored to their unique genome and exposure history. This means more relevant imaging, blood panels, and lifestyle recommendations, coupled with targeted therapies.

4. Support Disability Claims with Data

Genomic and biomarker evidence provide a stronger, scientifically grounded link between deployment exposure and later illness. For veterans struggling with VA disability claims, precision health insights can help substantiate service connection, expediting access to benefits and care.

Equity in Precision Health: Leaving No Veteran Behind

It is critical to recognize that marginalized and historically underserved veterans – e.g., African American, Latino, Indigenous, and rural populations – often face the highest toxic exposures and the lowest access to precision medicine tools. Without intervention, precision health could widen inequities rather than close them.

Phronetik was founded with equity as a cornerstone. Embedding ancestry-aware bioinformatics allows community partnerships with MSIs and FQHCs, and culturally competent consent protocols to ensure that precision health works for all veterans, not just those who fit into majority population datasets.

How Phronetik Is Leading the Way

Phronetik’s solutions are designed from the ground up to bring precision health to the frontlines of veteran care:

• iHarmony-Seq™: Our streamlined sequencing workflow enables rapid detection of gene-environment interactions, supporting both clinical care and research.

• iConcordia®: Our federated data integration platform securely connects genomic data with environmental exposure records, disability claims, and community health inputs, ensuring decision-makers have a full picture of each veteran’s risk profile.

• Mobile Diagnostic Labs: Equipped with NGS, our mobile units bring toxic exposure screening directly to underserved veterans in rural or remote areas, eliminating barriers to access.

• Population-Specific Reference Panels: Developed in partnership with MSIs and community health centers, these panels ensure variant interpretation is ancestry-aware and clinically relevant.

Combining these capabilities enables Phronetik to empower the VA and veteran-serving organizations to move from reactive care to proactive prevention, precision monitoring, and equitable outcomes.

Conclusion: From Deployment to DNA, A Path Forward

The toxic exposures veterans faced in service should not define their futures. With precision health, we can now track risks at the molecular level, intervene earlier, and substantiate the connections between service and illness.

At Phronetik, we believe that every veteran deserves access to these life-saving insights, especially those from communities historically left out of precision medicine advances. Piloting precision health initiatives across VA sites can transform toxic exposure care into a model of equity, innovation, and justice.

It is time to ensure that the price of service is never paid again in silence. Precision health offers us a roadmap to get there.

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