Moms blame military housing in S.C. for children’s leukemia

Some military families believe oil tanks below military housing in South Carolina are causing cancer in their children. They say at least 15 children who lived on or near the Laurel Bay military housing community are sick with cancer.

The Marine Corps is studying potential contamination and the tanks have since been removed.

Laurel Bay is made up of more than 1,000 homes near the Marine Corps Air Station and Parris Island bases. Some families who lived here are now asking whether there’s a relationship between where they lived and their child’s cancer, including one woman who took to the internet to alert others, reports CBS New correspondent Anna Werner. 

Amanda Whatley’s personal story has been viewed nearly 50,000 times on YouTube, describing how she nearly lost her daughter to leukemia.

“So this is our daughter Katie. She was six years old when this picture was taken,” Whatley explained in the video. “We are fairly confident that had we not taken her to the emergency room that night, that she would have died in her sleep.”

But hers wasn’t the only case. Three years earlier, the four-year-old son of a friend, Melany Stawnyczyj also was diagnosed with leukemia. Both families had lived in Beaufort, South Carolina in the vicinity of the Laurel Bay military housing complex. Their children were born less than two months apart. 

Watch the full story on “CBS This Morning” at around 7:40 a.m. ET.