10 U.S.C. § 996 — Individual Longitudinal Exposure Record

(a) The Secretary of Defense must maintain a data system that compiles, combines, displays, and provides available occupational and environmental exposure information for the needs of the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The system is called the “Individual Longitudinal Exposure Record.” (b) It includes: (1) armed-forces members’ service records; (2) all information available to the Secretary about how, where, and when members were exposed to occupational or environmental hazards; and (3) members’ medical records about those exposures, including diagnoses, treatment plans, and laboratory data. (c) If a member is described in subsection (b)(2), the Secretary must put the data described there into that member’s service record. (d) The Secretary must give access to the Record to: (1) the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; (2) the Defense Health Agency Director, for Defense Department health-care providers, epidemiologists, and researchers; (3) the Veterans Affairs Under Secretary for Health, for that department’s health-care providers, epidemiologists, and researchers; and (4) the Veterans Affairs Under Secretary for Benefits, for department personnel handling compensation and benefits for service-connected disabilities or death. (e)(1) Each year the Secretary of Defense must brief the committees in paragraph (2) about the Record, including how the Secretary plans to include subsection (b)(2) data when some or all of it is classified. (2) Those committees are the Senate and House Committees on Armed Services and the Senate and House Committees on Veterans’ Affairs.