Group calls for more research into Camp Lejeune cancer cluster

At a hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works committee Tuesday, a representative of an environmental research group urged the completion of a full investigation into a male breast cancer cluster surrounding Camp Lejeune.

A panel including well-known consumer advocate Erin Brockovich and National Research Defense Council senior scientist Gina Solomon said they had identified 42 suspected cancer clusters in 13 different states.

During the hearing, Solomon said disease clusters could point to an environmental contaminant, the way research into a Leukemia cluster in Woburn, Mass., first linked exposure to the chemical trichloroethylene, or TCE, to cancer in humans. The events formed the basis for the 1996 book A Civil Action and the movie of the same name starring John Travolta.

“Although it’s really difficult to conclusively prove what caused any specific disease cluster, what I want to say today to you is that we can gather invaluable clues and hints from these events, and those together can help us solve the mystery of chronic disease,” Solomon said.

She mentioned the incidence of male breast cancer in former Camp Lejeune residents, a cluster that advocates say now has 70 members.

“This is an extraordinary and alarming finding,” she said. “It’s almost impossible that that could occur by chance alone and deserves urgent attention.”

NRDC senior scientist Jennifer Sass told the Daily News the organization recommended that a health survey of former Camp Lejeune residents by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, due to begin this spring, should be expanded with special focus on the male breast cancer cluster. Sass said though NRDC mentioned the nearly four decades in which Camp Lejeune drinking water was contaminated with the chemicals TCE, PCE and benzene in a briefing paper on the cluster, staff didn’t assume causality, but urged further study.

“People have the right to answers,” she said.

Breast cancer survivor Mike Partain, who was born aboard Camp Lejeune, said the NRDC reports add credibility to the claims of former base residents.

“This is the first time that someone has come out and said, ‘Hey, it’s there,’ other than the media and us,” he said.

Partain, of Tallahassee, said he constantly discovers more former residents of Lejeune who are just discovering their illnesses may be connected to the period of base water contamination.

“The more exposure this gets, it’s going to drive the issue,” he said. “And if we’re right, and these chemicals do cause male breast cancer, then we’re going to see it at other exposure sites as well.”

Contact military reporter Hope Hodge at 910-219-8453 or hhodge@freedomenc.com.