May 15, 2023
According to a new study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, exposure to contaminated water at Camp LaJeune is responsible for causing Parkinson's Disease in many who were exposed to it. The water at Camp Lejeune was found to contain industrial solvents trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene and others.
According to JAMA, "Goldman’s new study compared the number of Parkinson disease cases and prodromal symptoms among more than 172 000 veterans who’d been stationed at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina, and more than 168 000 at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California, which did not have contaminated drinking water. Health data were available for slightly more than 158 000 of them during the follow-up period from January 1, 1997, to February 17, 2021.
The veterans, the vast majority of whom were male, spent an average of about 2 years living on their respective bases between 1975 and 1985, when VOC contamination at Camp Lejeune was at its highest. They averaged 20 years of age when they arrived.
More than 3 decades later, 279 veterans from Camp Lejeune and 151 from Camp Pendleton had been diagnosed with Parkinson disease, for a prevalence of 0.33% and 0.21% respectively, Goldman’s team reports in JAMA Neurology. In multivariable models, Camp Lejeune veterans had a 70% higher risk of Parkinson disease than Camp Pendleton veterans."
The related article is available by clicking here.