I’m Bonnie Stein Wolf, the managing attorney of the Melville, Long Island office for Meirowitz and Wasserberg. I have been practicing law for more than 20 years. Predominantly, I have spent most of my career representing men and women who are suffering from mesothelioma or lung cancer as a result of their exposure to asbestos. It has been a very rewarding experience to represent these families while they go through a difficult time in their lives, and bring their cases to fruition, helping them find a semblance of justice.Most recently, I have been involved in representing Marines and their family members who have been afflicted with a myriad of diseases caused by the contaminated water at Camp Lejeune. I represent these people throughout the country. This too has been another rewarding part of my career.

In order to qualify for a Camp Lejeune lawsuit, it’s pretty simple – you needed to have been at Camp Lejeune for 30 days or more between 1953 and 1987. It is not necessary for those 30 days to be consecutive. You could have been there for 30 days over the course of time and accumulate those days, so long as it’s more than 30. That would meet the criteria.

You don’t need to have just been a marine. You could also be a family member. There are wives that have been on base, along with children who were born thereafter who may have been affected by the water that their parents drank while on the base. People think that you have to be a marine to qualify, but it’s Marines and their family members, or anybody who lived or worked on that base that qualify.

So, I represent spouses of Marines and also people who were there regularly, they might have been there as a teacher or a carpenter, people who were just working there on a daily basis. In addition, there are children who are affected by their parents’ ingestion of the water. So, even though those children didn’t live there, they may have been impacted in utero.

The science is still evolving on what conditions or diseases are connected to the contaminated water. Some diseases that have already been causally connected include bladder cancer, kidney cancer, multiple myeloma, leukemia. There are scores of others. If you were there for 30 days or more between 1953 and ’87 and you have a concern about your health, contact me and I’ll let you know if I can help you.