Pease Air National Guard base families speak out on cancer link

National Guard hears ‘heartbreaking’ cancer stories

Sea Coastline Daily
By Jeff McMenemy
Posted Dec 7, 2018

PORTSMOUTH -- More than 200 people who turned out for a meeting at the 157th Air Refueling Wing heard story after story about guardsmen who died from cancer or suffered with other health ailments after serving at the Pease Air National Guard base.

Col. John W. Pogorek, wing commander of Pease Air National Guard base. (Photo Rich Beauchesne Seacoastonlin) 

The guard hosted a “listening session” Friday afternoon to hear the health concerns of retirees, their widows and families, along with active duty guardsmen.

Led by Doris Brock, who lost her husband Kendall Brock, a 35-year member of the guard who died in June 2017 from bladder and prostate cancer, a group of widows and retirees have pushed the Air Force to conduct a health study because of what they believe is an unusually high number of cancers at the base.

Brock reminded the people in attendance that it took 35 years before the Veterans Administration sought presumptive disability status for veterans who served at Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina with acknowledged water contamination.

“I don’t want to wait that long for us. It has to be faster,” Brock said. “We’ve lost a lot of good people.”

She believes her husband’s exposure to 12 different chemicals on the base known to be carcinogens - along with drinking contaminated water at the former air base - caused his cancer.
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Air Force Contaminated Portsmouth But Won't Fund Study?

Air Force Won't Fund Former Pease Air Force Base Health Study
Portsmouth Herald, N.H.
by Jeff Mcmenemy
31 May 2017

Air Force and health officials believe the well was contaminated by the use of firefighting foam at the base.

PORTSMOUTH -- The director of a federal agency studying the PFC exposure at the former Pease Air Force Base believes there should be a national health study done on the chemical's health effects.

Unfortunately for the children and adults who were exposed to the chemicals in contaminated Portsmouth drinking water, the agency doesn't have the money to pay for the study and the Air Force -- which contaminated the well -- says it can't.

Air Force Lt. Col. Joseph Constantino told the crowd gathered at Tuesday night's meeting of the Pease Community Assistance Panel that they had received a request from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to pay for the health studies.

But the Air Force's legal team told them "we can't fund that study," Constantino told the crowd at the CAP meeting, which was hosted by the ATSDR.

Portsmouth resident and CAP member Andrea Amico said she was "terribly disappointed" by the Air Force's decision.
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