A new grassroots movement led by a Marine family is demanding Congress overhaul the Department of Veterans Affairs presumptive conditions list. The group is exposing systemic gaps in how the government handles victims of the Camp Lejeune water contamination disaster.
The Lejeune Justice Project is mobilizing to force federal policy to catch up with modern science. Founded by Marine spouse Lauren Merrell, the organization’s fight is born from the harrowing medical ordeal of her husband, Luis Martinez Junior. He was a Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune from 1984 to 1987. The base stands as one of the worst public drinking water contamination disasters in American history.
For Martinez, who now lives in Baltimore, the toxic legacy manifested aggressively last year. “Last spring, very suddenly out of nowhere, a spot appears in his mouth. He's having it monitored by his dentist and within 30 days it was a two-centimeter mass,” Merrell explained. “So, had it biopsied and it stage four oral squamous cell carcinoma.”
Martinez underwent a grueling twelve-hour surgery. Surgeons removed his upper jaw, nose tissue, and sinus cavity, later harvesting bone and skin from his leg to reconstruct his mouth.
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While the Camp Lejeune Justice Act allowed toxic water victims to sue the federal government, it included a strict two-year filing window. Martinez didn’t get sick in time. “It closed seven, seven months before, seven months,” he said. Merrell added, “Before, he got sick. So, no, we are not in on the lawsuit.”
This March, the VA formally recognized Martinez’s oral cancer as service-connected. But Merrell says that official recognition only came after an exhausting battle that placed the entire burden of proof on her as his caregiver. “It took away from our family,” she said.” You know, I would sit here on my phone just scrolling and taking my notes. Or after we put the kids to bed, after a long day, I would be printing out my reports and laying across the bed and I'm just flipping and I'm ... just putting it all together, putting the puzzle together. And all that did was it got his claim through. And ... it just seems obvious that, well, 'Someone else should be able to use this now.' It shouldn't just have been just for our use. All that effort and if I was able to pull all the science and lay it out for them, why can't that be used for the next person with oral cancer?”
Because oral cancer is not classified as a "presumptive condition" by the VA, every applicant must legally prove a direct link to their service. The Lejeune Justice Project argues this framework robs terminally ill veterans of the one resource they cannot afford to lose: time. Merrell asked, “To lose that time and putting it on ...a system that isn't working for them?" “We're having to do a choice of whether your family and living a good life or trying to get your benefits, so which one do you choose?” Martinez questioned.
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The group is petitioning Congress to update and expand the Camp Lejeune presumptive condition list to accurately reflect contemporary scientific data. Proponents point out that while policies for other toxic exposure groups have modernized over time, Camp Lejeune survivors remain tethered to outdated standards. “They're proving case by case these same diseases over and over again, but ... they won't, you know, give us a number on it. And that is what we want. They need to acknowledge that in some way, and they need to update the ... latency period on oral cancer. It's up to 50 years. So, you can have that toxic exposure, and it can take 50 years for your symptoms to show,” Merrell said.
While frustrated by the slow pace of federal help, Martinez remains a proud Marine, calling for a system that is fair for everyone. He said, “I don’t have anything against the Marine Corps. At the same time, the Marine Corps gets all the **** anyways from everybody else. So, we're the bottom feeder, so to speak. There is a time where everything should be, at least with health, it should be not as easy as a cookie cutter but be able for everybody to be on the same page on both sides to get things passed.”
Merrell says the organization intends to aggressively lobby lawmakers in Washington to demand systemic transparency, and, “The overarching goal is we stop this whole normalizing, oh, you know, this country doesn't treat their veterans good. Well, no more. Why? Why? This is a chance for us all to step up and say, ‘We're done. We want accountability. We want transparency within the VA.’ Why do we need secrets within the VA?”
