Two are former Marines. others are a son, a daughter and a former spouse of Marines. The sixth is the daughter of a woman who worked as a nurse at the base hospital.
Five are coping with frightening illnesses ? male breast cancer, prostate cancer, kidney cancer, leukemia, late-stage kidney disease ? and the sixth lost her mother to gastric cancer.
Mike Partain, a former Winter Haven resident and a leading advocate on Camp Lejeune, got in touch with the others after they posted their stories on an activist website, “The few, The Proud, The Forgotten.”
Kim Ann Callan of Lakeland, the daughter of an ex-Marine, was treated for malignant melanoma a few years ago and was diagnosed in July with leukemia.
“I have experienced lifelong medical issues,” said Callan, 52. “All these things ? is this all coincidence … or is there some root? Frankly, I don’t think we’ll ever have an answer.”
Several other local residents are also seeking answers.
Andrew Przenkop of Polk City lived in barracks at Camp Lejeune as a Marine in the early 1980s. Przenkop, 48, began showing symptoms of diabetes in 2006, a surprise development for a man who prided himself on being fit. in 2009, he was diagnosed with kidney cancer, a disease linked to exposure to PCE and TCE. Przenkop said doctors have since detected a spot on his right lung that might be cancerous.
Przenkop left his job as a correctional officer in October and has applied for Veterans Administration benefits. he said the information discovered by Partain and others makes it clear the Marine Corps failed to respond properly to concerns about water contamination at Camp Lejeune. he accuses the Department of Defense of obstructing investigations and failing to take responsibility for the problem, comparing the government’s response to the way it handled claims about Agent Orange exposure for Vietnam War veterans.
“People need to know if their active-duty (military) members are subjected to unnecessary risks,” Przenkop said. “You have a known risk factor (as a Marine) and you’re told about that, but you’re not required to take unnecessary risks. You’re not supposed to be poisoned by the government that is supposed to ensure your safety.”
NEEDING KIDNEY TRANSPLANT
Ana Maria Frost of Poinciana resided at Camp Lejeune for about a year in the early 1970s, when she was married to a Marine Corps sergeant. Frost, 64, has been diagnosed with stage-4 kidney disease and is waiting to go on a kidney transplant list. She is on multiple medications and receives injections every two weeks to boost production of red blood cells.
Frost said the water at Camp Lejeune seems the likely source of her disease. She said her parents lived into their 90s and she knows of no serious health issues involving anyone in her extended family. The cause of her kidney failure is a rare condition called amyloidosis, and she said medical tests have determined her condition is not genetically based.
Frost said she isn’t likely to live more than a year or two unless she receives a kidney transplant.
“I did know about the water (problems) in Camp Lejeune many years ago, but I didn’t pay attention to it,” Frost said. “No doctor has been able to figure out why my kidneys stopped working. I am healthy otherwise. The doctor said, ?Anyone who sees you wouldn’t know you’re as sick as you are.’?”
Dave Evans of Winter Haven, a former Marine, was stationed at Camp Lejeune on two occasions in the 1960s. Evans, 66, is plagued by heart disease and prostate cancer and wonders whether the conditions are related to the water at the base, his Agent Orange exposure in the Vietnam War or both.
Evans said he knows of others with connections to Camp Lejeune who have had medical tragedies in their families, including a close friend whose grandson died of a brain tumor. Evans, 66, recently attended a reunion of Marines in Washington, D.C., and he said the water problems at Camp Lejeune were a primary topic of conversation.
Evans said he learned about the official Camp Lejeune registry through a notice in Leatherneck, the Marine Corps magazine. he added his name to the list and later got a call from Partain.
“I don’t necessarily harbor any ill will toward the Marine Corps,” he said. “It’s more toward the government and the way they go about looking into problems, and this is just a typical example of an ongoing problem for years and years and years. They have been paying no attention to the people who have been trying to tell them (about it). … I feel like my country has let me down in many ways.”
REVELATIONS SPARK ANGER
Carla Morris of Auburndale is convinced that impure water at Camp Lejeune is to blame for her mother’s death from a rare gastric cancer in 2006 at age 69. Morris’ mother, Cora Hoffman, worked as a labor and delivery nurse at Camp Lejeune’s Naval Hospital from 1966 through 1976 and again for a few years in the 1990s.
Morris, 45, said she has investigated her mother’s ancestry and found no other examples of cancer.
Morris, a para-educator for Polk County schools, said she first learned about the Camp Lejeune controversy a few years after her mother died. She said her husband was having a casual conversation with a retired military man when he mentioned that his mother-in-law had worked at Camp Lejeune. The man immediately asked whether she was still alive and then offered the address for the “Forgotten” website.
“I went on the computer as soon as I got off work that day,” Morris said. “The more I looked, the madder I got. I probably spent two or three hours on the computer that night and e-mailed Mike (Partain) and he called me.”
Since news emerged about the water contamination, those who formerly lived or worked at Camp Lejeune have been forced to consider all of the ways they could have been exposed to the harmful compounds.
Partain has a photo of himself as a newborn in the arms of his mother, Lisette Partain, taken at Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital. Visible on a table is a bottle of premixed formula dissolved in tap water.
Frost recalled feeding her infant daughter formula made with tap water while she lived at Camp Lejeune.
Polluted water is a health threat not only to those who drink it. Volatile organic compounds in water are readily inhaled during a shower, according to a 1997 health assessment by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
Frost said she has agonized memories of her son, then 2 years old, playing in a kiddie pool filled with water from a hose. She said her son and daughter, both now grown, have no apparent serious health problems, yet she can’t help worrying.