Male breast cancer linked to Camp Lejeune

A Tallahassee man is on a crusade to get answers from the government that might explain why he and 19 other men who lived on a Marine Corps base have been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Mike Partain, 41, was diagnosed in 2007 with a rare form of breast cancer - a condition that affects about 1,900 men in the United States every year. Partain had a mastectomy within a week of being diagnosed with cancer but his surgery didn't end his desire to find out what might have led to the rare cancerous tumor he developed.

Partain, an insurance adjuster, was born on Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, a 246-squre mile Marine Corps military training facility. Since his diagnosis, Partain has developed a list of 19 other men with breast cancer who once lived on the base. He has also compiled military documents and water analysis reports that indicate that solvents used to clean military equipment and in dry cleaning processes may have contaminated the water supply at the base.

The government has confirmed that they were aware of water pollution at the base in 1981, however the problem likely started as early as the 1950s and the base's wells (the source of contaminated water) were not shut off until the mid-1980s.

Partain maintains a website, "The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten" that provides regularly updated information about the water contamination problem at Camp Lejeune.

For more information, visit the site, or read the article on Mike Partain in the Los Angeles Times.

If you have questions regarding health problems that you think might be linked to the consumption of contaminated water from Camp Lejeune, contact the law firm of LaVan & Neidenberg.