Associated Press
WILMINGTON -- Government data from the 1990s that failed to find a link between polluted water and child illnesses at Camp Lejeune will be reanalyzed after the Navy agreed to pay for the study.
The outcome could affect claims by former residents of the base seeking damages over birth defects and child cancers they blame on exposure to toxic water.
The Navy will spend almost $2 million for another look at a 1998 study that investigated cancer and birth defects in babies born to women who were pregnant at Camp Lejeune before contaminated wells were shut down.
The service is also funding a related study of how underground water flowed at the base and how toxins would have been introduced and spread, to show the extent of the contamination, according to the Nov. 24 letter from the Department of the Navy to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the agency conducting the study.
Water supplied to Camp Lejeune's main family housing areas was contaminated by dry cleaning solvents and other sources from the 1950s to the 1980s. Health officials believe as many as 1 million people may have been exposed to the toxins trichloroethylene or perchloroethylene before the wells were closed 22 years ago.
But the 1998 study was inconclusive.
