U.S. Water News Online
JACKSONVILLE, N.C. -- A federal agency says it will conduct more studies to determine whether prenatal exposure to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune housing complexes caused cancer and birth defects.
A survey made over a four-year-period by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry looked at children born when their parents lived in the Tarawa Terrace or Hadnot Point areas of Camp Lejeune between 1968 and 1985.
Researchers believe they were exposed to water contaminated by trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene, which may have entered wells from a nearby dry cleaning store or motor pool.
The wells were capped in 1985, and current residents face no known hazard from the sites.
No direct link was established by the study between the health problems and the contamination, but enough questions were raised to search for a connection, said Dr. Wendy Kaye, an agency epidemiologist with the survey and the follow-up study.
The study is scheduled to be completed by 2006.
Of the 12,598 people who responded to the survey, researchers found 33 possible cases of neural tube birth defects such as spina bifida and anencephaly, 42 possible cases of oral clefts, 22 possible cases of childhood leukemia and seven cases of childhood lymphoma.
So far, researchers have confirmed 36 cases of the 46 people for whom they have obtained medical records. They are trying obtain the rest.
Lt. Gen. Rick Kelly, deputy commandant of the Marine Corps for installations and logistics, said the Corps would help the agency conduct the study.
``You may be assured the (Marine Corps) will support this study,'' he said. ``I want you to know that the welfare of our extended Marine Corps family is very important to the commandant and me.''
Researchers don't know how many of the Lejeune-based mothers drank contaminated water and how many drank clean water. They also don't know how many of the 103 reported cases of health problems they will be able to confirm with medical records.
Kaye said so far researchers haven't found a comparable group to the Lejeune children.
Jerry Ensminger, a retired Marine whose daughter, Jane, was conceived on Camp Lejeune and died of childhood leukemia when she was 9, said he thinks the 22 cases of leukemia reported in the survey are about 16 times higher than would be expected under normal circumstances.
He said the figure was based on an average of cancer rates among control groups in nine other studies looking at children born between 1975 and 1988.
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