Residents question VA during public hearing

Jan. 24--Questions about cancer, presumptive diseases and disability claims were directed to VA officials and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry during a public hearing focused on the Camp Lejeune water contamination this weekend.

The hearing was one of three sessions hosted Saturday in Jacksonville about the toxic water.

Swansboro resident Melanie Hart attended the hearing and asked the panel of VA officials and scientists if her family's cancer and digestive issues were connected to Camp Lejeune water.

"My dad was active duty for 22 years, he retired in 1972. He ended up with skin cancer and part of his kidney was took out," Hart said.

It was during those years Hart and her family were exposed to industrial solvents, benzene and other chemicals that were in the drinking water on base.

"After my youngest brother died of leukemia, my other brother almost died because of his kidneys. He was in the hospital for the longest time. The doctors said he was going to come down with leukemia at any time," Hart said.

Hart's question about the connection of these diseases to the water contamination went largely unanswered as panel members and VA officials spoke on establishing certain criteria for residents to qualify for compensation or disability.

A notice recently published in the Federal Register will provide disability benefits worth more than $2 billion to veterans who were exposed to contaminated drinking water while assigned to Camp Lejeune. VA health care is already being provided to eligible veterans stationed at the Marine base for at least 30 days cumulative between Aug. 1, 1953, and Dec. 31, 1987, and who have one of eight medical conditions presumed to be connected to the exposure to the base's water.

The eight recognized conditions are: adult leukemia, aplastic anemia and other myelodysplastic syndromes, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, liver cancer, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and Parkinson's disease, according to the VA.

Vietnam veteran Charles R. Kimbrough served as a Marine for 30 years before retiring as a master gunnery sergeant.

"I just had a daughter die on Sept. 17 at the age of 55 from diabetes. Then her son died Oct. 6 from diabetes. With some of the (diseases) they were talking about, they don't have diabetes on there. That was one of the reasons I came here, to find out if they're connected," Kimbrough said.

Kimbrough came to Camp Lejeune several times from 1958 until his retirement in 1987. He lived on Tarawa Terrace twice, but the first time he was living directly behind the dry cleaners that contaminated the aquifers on base.

The retired Marine says he doesn't know if his own health conditions could be contributed to his exposure to the contaminated water or if other other service-related exposures are involved.

"I went through prostate cancer but that was after Vietnam so it could've have been Agent Orange, I don't know. For myself and my children, it could've been the water," Kimbrough said.

Hundreds of residents attended the public hearing and dozens left early, not wishing to hear their questions and others avoided by VA officials. Others came forward asking questions about individual claims and disability coverage, but the majority focused on trying to find a link between their diseases and exposure to the contaminated water.

For more information from VA on the Camp Lejeune water contamination, visit PublicHealth.VA.gov/Exposures/CampLejeune.

For more information from Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, visit ATSDR.cdc.gov.

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