Camp Lejeune cancer link is not a rumor

To this day, after all these years, many ex-Marines have no clue about any of this. Some think it's just a rumor and they don't think it is real. How could anyone easily understand that serving this country would put them in danger on US soil on their own base? They simply haven't been paying attention to what has been released about toxic bases around the country any more than they have been told by the broadcast media about any of this. When they hear reports from friends or by email, they think is has to be a rumor or they would have heard about it watching the news.

Marines with cancer decry Corps' silence about tainted water
They tell Congress of their struggle to get full disclosure about contamination at Camp Lejeune.

By Kim Geiger, Tribune Washington Bureau

September 16, 2010


Reporting from Washington — When Peter Devereaux arrived at Camp Lejeune in December 1980, he had no idea that officials were looking into unsafe levels of toxic chemicals in the drinking water.

As a Marine stationed at the sprawling military base along the North Carolina shore, Devereaux said, he led a healthy lifestyle. When he was diagnosed in early 2008 with a rare disease — male breast cancer — Devereaux did not connect his illness to Camp Lejeune.

But six months after he'd had his left breast and 22 cancerous lymph nodes removed, he received a letter from the Department of the Navy informing him that in the 1980s, "unregulated chemicals were discovered" in the drinking water at the camp's Hadnot Point water distribution system.

Drinking water in various areas of the camp had been contaminated with trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene — chemicals used to clean metals and dry-clean clothes — and benzene, a chemical found in fuel. All are believed to cause cancer.
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Marines with cancer decry Corps silence