Joseph "Danny" Zambito was 18 when he trained as a Marine in
1964 at Camp Lejeune, where he -- like one million others at the base
-- was exposed to cancer-causing chemicals in one of the worst water
contamination cases in U.S. history, spanning more than three decades.
Zambito, now 70, lost both kidneys and his bladder to
cancer, but the Florida man said he hasn't received a single disability
benefit from the Department of Veterans Affairs -- whose anonymous panel
of "subject matter experts" renders medical opinions on veterans'
claims their diseases were caused by toxic drinking water at the North
Carolina military training base.
"It makes me feel very angry," said Zambito, who undergoes dialysis
four times a week at a center in Zephyrhills. "They're dragging their
feet on this and giving me the runaround."
"You just want to give up," added his wife, Judy. "How can you fight the government?"
On Monday, the Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School filed an extensive Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request
on behalf of three veterans groups seeking records from the VA about
its program for investigating claims. Since the program's launch three
years ago, the rate of Camp Lejeune toxic water disability claims being
approved has dropped from approximately 25 percent to 8 percent,
according to VA statistics. Advocates for veterans want to know who the
purported experts passing judgment on the claims are, and how they
arrive at their conclusions.
"There's been an enormous lack of transparency and it takes various
forms," Rory Minnis, 33, a former Marine and second-year Yale law
student, told FoxNews.com Thursday. "We want to know what qualifies them
to give opinions on these extremely complicated cases. We want to know
what the methodology is that they have in place."
Minnis and others fear the process is aimed more at limiting claims
than giving sickened Marines their due, and perhaps more ominously,
could be a blueprint for the military's handling of similar situations
in the future.
"This extends far beyond the issue of Camp Lejeune," said Minnis, who
served in Iraq and Afghanistan. "The VA has referred to it [the
program] in close door meetings as the model for the future for toxic
exposure claims facing veterans."
Between 1953 and 1987, nearly 1 million veterans, their families and
civilian employees at Camp Lejeune were exposed to drinking and bathing
water contaminated with dry cleaning chemicals, degreasers and a host of
other toxins. Many base residents developed illnesses -- including rare
cancers -- and disabilities in the aftermath.
According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry,
"past exposures from the 1950s through February 1985 to
trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), vinyl chloride, and
other contaminants in the drinking water at the Camp Lejeune likely
increased the risk of cancers (kidney, multiple myeloma, leukemias, and
others), adverse birth outcomes, and other adverse health effects of
residents (including infants and children), civilian workers, Marines
and Naval personnel at Camp Lejeune."
Victims claim the U.S. Marine Corps hid knowledge of the problem for
years and did not warn people their health might be at risk.
Retired Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger, founder of The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten
-- one of the groups seeking information -- lived on the base with his
family in 1975. Ensminger's young daughter, Janey, was diagnosed with
leukemia at age 6 and died when she was 9. After learning about the
water contamination in a local news report years after Janey's death,
Ensminger said he made it his mission to press the government for
accountability.
"We have denial decisions with the write-ups from these subject
matter experts with citations directly taken from Wikipedia," Ensminger
told FoxNews.com. "These so-called experts are going back and
questioning the judgment of the veteran's own physician, without ever
seeing the patient or their medical records."
"This program was not developed to assist veterans. This program was
developed to deny veterans their benefits," said Ensminger, 63, of White
Lake, N.C. "This cannot stand. It's an atrocity."
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