VA Addresses Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base Water Contamination Issue

Thousands of families were exposed to toxic water at Camp Lejeune. This weekend, their loved ones were able to attend a meeting regarding the government’s financial plans to compensate those who were affected. From the 1950s through 1980s, people who were working at the U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina were exposed to drinking water laced with industrial solvents, benzene and other chemicals.
Veterans from the base had developed one of the following the diseases adult leukemia, aplastic anemia and other myelodysplastic syndromes, kidney cancer, bladder cancer, liver cancer, multiple myeloma, parkinson’s disease and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. These conditions are the only ones for which there is sufficient medical and scientific evidence to support the creation of presumptions by the VA. The VA will continue to review relevant information as they become available.
The VA provides a cost-free health care for certain conditions to veterans who served at least 30 days of active duty at the Marine Corps camp from January 1, 1957 to December 31, 1987 this is in accordance with the 2012 Camp Lejeune health care law. Veterans who are eligible for the health care law may enroll at the VA health care and receive medical services at no cost for the 15 health conditions. These includes breast cancer, esophageal cancer, multiple myeloma, renal toxicity, female infertility, scleroderma, esophageal cancer, Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, lung cancer, leukemia, bladder cancer, hepatic steatosis, myelodysplastic syndromes, miscarriages and neurobehavioral effects as published by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
After years of lobbying, lawsuits, stories of sickness and untimely deaths of U.S. marines, Navy personnel and their loved ones, the U.S. Department of Veterans affairs have proclaimed them to be eligible for cash disability benefits for conditions related to their service at the camp in North Carolina.
VA Secretary Bob McDonald announced that $2.2 billion pool is available to compensate sailors and marines spread over five years. As many as 900,000 veterans who were stationed at Camp Lejeune are affected by the new rule. The funding will become available in March. Veterans in order to qualify must offer evidence of their service and that they became sick with diseases that were mentioned in the list.
Documents revealed that military commanders knew of the groundwater contamination at Camp Lejeune back in the 1980s but did not take action to address the problem. At one point, the Marine Corps argued that the contamination was not intentional, the federal government had failed to set ceilings for toxins in groundwater. Discarded dry cleaning chemicals and leaky fuel tanks were the cause of the groundwater contamination as reported by Gainesville.com