"House Hearing To Probe Camp Lejeune Water Contamination"

"Thirteen years ago, a federal scientific agency in Atlanta issued a sweeping report on the potential health effects of 30 years' worth of contaminated water at the big Marine base at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

It concluded that exposed adults were unlikely to get cancer from the water.

However, the report failed to consider more closely the effects of a key poison: benzene, which is a component of fuel and a chemical known to cause cancer.

The omission happened even though scientists had been warned that they were overlooking crucial data, and even though the scientists themselves had reviewed a document that mentioned the benzene contamination.

Now the 1997 report has been withdrawn, millions of tax dollars are being spent for more research, and congressional investigators want to know what went wrong."

Barbara Barrett reports for McClatchy Newspapers September 11, 2010.