Ex-Lejeune residents show water toxin effects

[unhappycamper]

Ex-Lejeune residents show water toxin effects
By Trista Talton - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Nov 17, 2007 15:38:31 EST

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — The ailments some former Camp Lejeune residents and civilian employees rattled off were too varied to keep track.

Numerous birth defects. Diabetes. Miscarriages. Plus an array of cancers including colon, brain, kidney, breast and leukemia.

Behind each illness there’s a story. The mother who cradled her baby boy as he took his last breath. Parents who watched their children suffer. Children whose parents’ lives were cut short.

All agree their stories have one common theme — they drank, bathed and played in water contaminated with toxins as much as 40 times over today’s safety standard.

These are the stories that put a human face on the potential adverse health effects tied to water contaminated with dry cleaning fluids and industrial solvents. On Thursday, a 14-member committee from the National Research Council, the operational arm of the National Academies, heard from several former base residents and civilian employees at what was called a “ground-truthing” session at the Jacksonville USO.

About 30 people attended the session. As many as 1 million Marines, dependents and civilian employees drank and bathed in the tainted tap water from 1957 to 1987. Almost 900 have already filed suit against the Pentagon.


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2007/11/marine_water_071126/

[aquart]

1. Oh, the loving way we support our troops.

Do we at least pay for the funerals?