Camp Lejeune: Two Condition Lists, Two Legal Routes, One Closed Door

Thirty days at Camp Lejeune, cumulative, between August 1, 1953 and December 31, 1987. That is the whole service requirement at 38 CFR 3.307(a)(7)(iii). The regulation says consecutive or nonconsecutive, so thirty separate visits count the same as thirty straight days.

The regulation defines service at Camp Lejeune as any service within the borders of the entirety of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station New River, North Carolina, as established by military orders or other official service department records. New River is named in the regulation. Someone who was only ever at New River is inside the definition.

The contaminants are named too: trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene, benzene and vinyl chloride, in the on-base water supply systems during that period. Anyone who meets the 30-day requirement is presumed to have been exposed to them, unless there is affirmative evidence otherwise.

There is no manifestation deadline. 38 CFR 3.307(a)(7)(ii) requires only that the disease became manifest to a degree of 10 percent or more at any time after service. A 2026 diagnosis from 1970s service is inside the rule.

38 CFR 3.309(f) lists them: kidney cancer, liver cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, adult leukemia, multiple myeloma, Parkinson's disease, aplastic anemia and other myelodysplastic syndromes, and bladder cancer. VA's website presents the same eight alphabetically. Same eight, different order.

These eight are regulatory in origin. They came from VA rulemaking, not from a statute that enumerates them. No section of title 38 of the United States Code lists these eight conditions as presumptive for compensation. If something describes a law that created eight Camp Lejeune presumptives, that description is wrong about where the eight live.

38 U.S.C. 1710(e) covers a different set for a different purpose: esophageal cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, leukemia, multiple myeloma, myelodysplastic syndromes, renal toxicity, hepatic steatosis, female infertility, miscarriage, scleroderma, neurobehavioral effects and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The service requirement is the same 30 days in the same window. The statute also reaches family members who lived at the base during the period, through the Honoring America's Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012.

Six conditions are on both lists: bladder cancer, kidney cancer, leukemia, multiple myeloma, myelodysplastic syndromes and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The wording differs slightly between the two sources, which is a labeling difference and not four separate conditions.

Nine conditions are on the health care list and not on the disability list: lung cancer, breast cancer, esophageal cancer, scleroderma, hepatic steatosis, renal toxicity, female infertility, miscarriage and neurobehavioral effects. Two are on the disability list and not named in the health care statute: liver cancer and Parkinson's disease.

That nine-condition gap is the most misleading thing in Camp Lejeune advertising. A Marine with lung cancer or a spouse with breast cancer traced to the base water is covered for treatment and is not covered by the compensation presumption. The compensation route for those conditions runs through direct service connection instead, on the evidence, with a medical opinion connecting the condition to service. That route is open. It is simply a different kind of claim, and nobody should discover the difference after being told the condition was on the list.

They disagree because they are reading the same statutory term differently. The va.gov disability page lists the health care condition as neurobehavioral effects and never names Parkinson's disease in that list, which matches 38 U.S.C. 1710(e) exactly. The publichealth.va.gov page renders the same bullet as neurobehavioral effects and Parkinson's disease together, reading Parkinson's into the broader term.

The statute itself names only neurobehavioral effects. What is not in dispute is the compensation side: Parkinson's disease is unambiguously one of the eight presumptive conditions at 38 CFR 3.309(f).

This is worth knowing beyond Parkinson's. VA runs at least two public condition-list surfaces and they are not kept in sync, on Camp Lejeune and on burn pits alike. A condition list is more reliable when it is checked against a single named VA page plus the underlying statute or regulation than when it is assembled from several VA pages at once.

That is a third route and it is not a VA claim at all. The Camp Lejeune Justice Act of 2022, section 804 of Public Law 117-168, created a federal tort claim against the United States. It requires an administrative claim to the Department of the Navy first, under 28 U.S.C. 2675. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina has exclusive jurisdiction and is the exclusive venue. Punitive damages are not available, and any recovery is offset by VA, Medicare and Medicaid payments relating to Camp Lejeune water exposure.

The limitations provision has two prongs. A claim may not be commenced after the later of two years after the date of enactment, which is August 10, 2024, or 180 days after a denial under section 2675.

As of August 21, 2026 the practical effect is a split. A person starting fresh has no path under the first prong; that date passed more than two years ago. A person who filed an administrative claim with the Navy on or before August 10, 2024 and receives a denial later still has 180 days from that denial to file suit, so cases are still being filed validly under the second prong.

The VA routes have no deadline of any kind. The presumptive disability route and the health care route both remain open with no filing window. Anyone who saw an advertisement, missed the Navy claim window, and concluded that Camp Lejeune is closed to them has been given a wrong impression about the part of the system that is still open.

Then the compensation claim runs as direct service connection rather than as a presumption. 38 CFR 3.303(d) allows service connection for a disease diagnosed after discharge when the evidence establishes it was incurred in service. That takes a current diagnosis, evidence of the exposure, and a medical opinion linking the two.

Nothing about the presumptive lists forecloses that route. A presumption removes the burden of proving why a condition happened. Its absence does not mean the condition cannot be connected to service; it means the connection has to be documented rather than assumed.

A free accredited VSO can prepare and file either type of claim and does not charge for it. VA also publishes an accreditation database for checking anyone who offers to help.