12 Infants Die in 4 Years at Fort Bragg
Failure to identify and fix the problem, families say, could endanger thousands of future residents of base housing in years to come.
According to the paper, the Army says it doesn't know, either, why 12 babies have died in four years, beginning with Jaden. An investigation of more than six months that included reviews of the children's medical records and autopsy reports -- and hundreds of environmental tests at the homes where some of the families lived -- failed to find a common cause.
Though the military can't say what killed the children, it is confident what didn't: Army housing, though three of the babies, including Jaden, lived at different times in the same townhouse on the North Carolina base.
"Multiple independent tests on the homes have identified no structural or environmental issues that would have caused these unfortunate deaths," Col. Michael P. Whetston, spokesman for the base, said last week.
"We certainly wouldn't put soldiers [or] family members in quarters that are not safe and would take immediate actions if any of the test results indicated a potential environmental risk."
"What the families want is information," said Jamie B. Hernan, a Roswell, Ga., lawyer who has asked the military for documents on behalf of several Fort Bragg families whose children died. "They're looking for a way to understand what happened to their children and to know what needs to be done so that it doesn't happen to someone else."
"It's not a story you can walk away from, especially when you hear that kids continue to get sick, or another child has passed away," he said. "The families don't need any more motivation than their own tragedies they have suffered. But they're going to find the answers, hopefully with the cooperation of the military."
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