How Many Adult Adoptees Left Behind?

On Wednesday, the Associated Press released an article “US Does About Face on Camp Lejeune’s Tap Water”. This story is regarding the contaminated water at Camp Lejeune. Between June 1957 until March 1, 1987, two separate water distribution systems aboard Camp Lejeune were found to be highly contaminated with various chemicals such including VOCs (volatile organic compounds) known as PCE (Tetrachloroehlyene aka Percholoroethylene), TCE (Trichloroethylene), DCE (Dichloroethylene), Vinyl Chloride, and BTEX (Benzene, Tolune, Ethylbenzene and Xylene). These are known or suspected carcinogens.


Reported health problems in children who were exposed in the womb from their mother drinking water contaminated with TCE and/or PCE include: Leukemia, Small for gestational age, low birth weight, fetal death, major heart defects neural tube defects oral cleft defects (including cleft lip), Chonal atresia (nasal passages blocked with bone or tissue) and eye defects.

Reported health problems in children who were exposed in the womb from their mother working with TCE and/or PCE include: Low birth weight, miscarriage, major malformations.
In 1997 ‘The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry concluded that adults had little or no increased cancer risk from the past contaminated water, but raised concern about effects on developing fetuses. It recommended studies on the fetal effects’.

On Tuesday, Federal health officials withdrew this 1997 assessment of health effects from the water contamination because of omissions and scientific inaccuracy. The article states as many as 1 million people may have been exposed to water toxins over a 30 year period before the bad wells were closed in 1987, with the Marines estimating the number at 500,000.


In 2006, the chairwoman of the NC Coalition for Adoption Reform (NCCAR), Roberta MacDonald, brought to Jeff Bryon’s attention, (a founder of The Proud, The Few and The Forgotten website) another class of people who were being forgotten. All of the children born in Onslow County and were relinquished for adoption.


Ms. MacDonald told Jeff there was no way of knowing how many women stationed either on base or off, may have either relinquished children for adoption. There are others who may have been stationed on or near the base who may have had their parental rights terminated at a later date. The children of these relinquishments and parental right terminations will never be able to know about their possible exposure to these chemicals. These children who are now adults would have no way of knowing they had been exposed either in utero to these chemicals or after birth, due to the adoption statute which seals adoption records upon finalization of adoption.
If adults who were actually stationed at Camp Lejeune, no nothing about the contamination, how can we expect the children of adoption to know?


Members of NCCAR believe original identity is a basic human right, and that every adult adoptee deserves access to their original birth certificate, the very same access afforded to all non-adopted persons. They believe that government should never be in the business of sealing a person’s identity without their permission, under any circumstances.


However because of adoption records being in North Carolina, there are probably a few thousand children at least who were adopted in Onslow County between 1957 and 1987 and will never know they were exposed to these chemicals.


The members of the NC legislature should know it is their responsibility and duty, to find a way to let this class of people know they were exposed to harmful chemicals which may have affect them or their children. There should be no adult adoptee or their children left behind, when it comes to this matter.

For more information regarding any upcoming legislation regarding access to original birth certificates in North Carolina, please see our website at http://adoptionreform-nc.org and for more information regarding The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten see http://tftptf.com/