Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Camp Lejeune Veteran,Thomas McLaughlin, Received 30%, Kidney Cancer

Full Article at: Another Lejeune vet gets VA disability related to contaminated water
June 22, 2010
HOPE HODGE

"A Marine veteran from Hampden, Mass., is the latest in a series of former Camp Lejeune residents to get full or partial disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs related to exposure to contaminated water aboard the base.

Thomas McLaughlin, 68, received a 30-percent disability grant in April for kidney cancer that more likely than not resulted from his residence aboard Lejeune’s Camp Geiger in 1962, according to the VA. He was honorably discharged from the Corps as a staff sergeant in 1969, and was diagnosed with cancer in 2007.

McLaughlin attributes his successful claim to the work of his late wife, Sally, who hired law firm Nixon-Peabody, made contact with doctors and lobbied various Washington, D.C. offices on behalf of her husband and all veterans affected by the volatile organic solvents and benzene that polluted base residential drinking water between the 1950s and 1980s. Sally McLaughlin died suddenly in January of stomach cancer; McLaughlin said he does not know whether or not her illness was water-related as well.

Gregory Deschenes, the lawyer who assisted with McLaughlin’s claim after it was first denied by the VA last year, said strong medical support and a doctor’s opinion helped his client join the handful of water contamination victims to receive related VA benefits."