Report Clearing Marine Corps Connection to Camp Lejeune Sickness was Purchased

It makes some of us wonder who the people are at the head of this agency and what could make their hearts become so black and cold toward their fellow Marines.

The offices of the NRC

(CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C.) - The Marine Corps is in hot water. A newspaper article has exposed the fact that the Marines entered into a contract with the National Academy of Science, before paying $600,000 for a report that concludes that the Corps is not responsible for the toxic water Marines drank at Camp Lejeune for at least 30 years.

The Marines had contracted the scientists from The National Research Council to be their consultants on Camp Lejeune before the same group published their Camp Lejeune report in June of this year, which was highly favorable for the Marine Corps.

Advocates believe the U.S. Marine Corps was taking the opportunity to slide out from under their own obligation to Marines who were unknowingly exposed to deadly chemicals that have caused illnesses ranging from several types of cancer, to liver failure and lower intestinal disorders. The contamination is also hereditary, and deadly.

We reported last June that scientists contracted by the federal government issued a report claiming that data tying a spiraling number of cancer cases from those who served on the North Carolina base, to Camp Lejeune's contaminated water, was suddenly invalid. (see: National Research Council on TCE Kicks U.S. Marines to the Curb)

St. Petersburg Times Reporter William Levesque released a story today detailing the evidence that this new smoking gun failed to conceal.

As the number of male breast cancer cases passes 50, more Marines and former base employees and dependents continue to contract various forms of cancer. The Marines have tried valiantly to deny the connection with the base toxins which include TCE (trichloroethylene) and PCE (perchloroethylene), but previous data and continuing VA claims acknowledge that there is a clear connection.

With news about the previously undisclosed $600,000 payment resounding, the spotlight is on the Marines, the Department of the Navy, and the Department of Defense.

Together, these agencies have done their best to duck the financial liability that they have accrued over the years.

Last June's report from the NRC, an agency under the nonprofit National Academies of Science, not only discounted all of the hard work and scientific analysis that had gone into studying Lejeune, it went so far as to say that no further study would prove such a link.

All for a sum of $600,000, as we now learn.

In other words, they did their best act at closing the door on sick, suffering and dying Marines and those who supported them, and now they are completely busted. They can treat it smugly for now, but the Marines and the DoN and the DoD all answer to the politicians. They have clearly gone too far.

It is an act that leaves a question about honor, and it makes some of us wonder who the people are at the head of this agency and what could make their hearts become so black and cold toward their fellow Marines.

The article from the St. Petersburg Times discusses how the Marines failed to mention the $600,000 paid to the NRC when they mailed the information about the report to roughly 145,000 people who are named on a health registry of former residents of Camp Lejeune, telling them that the data tying their illnesses to the base was no longer valid.

I strongly suggest reading William Levesque's article at this link: Marine Corps fails to disclose financial ties behind controversial report - By William R. Levesque, Times Staff Writer