By Scott Schwebke and Beau Yarbrough
Orange County Register – August 13, 2018It was early July 1988 when Rennie Auiler, the 28-year-old wife of an airman, sat in a hospital examination room at George Air Force Base waiting for a routine checkup.
Having given birth six weeks earlier to a premature 6-pound girl following a difficult pregnancy marked by acute morning sickness, she sought assurance from her physician that her next baby would come easier.
Instead, the prognosis stunned her.
“The doctor recommended that I shouldn’t get pregnant again because I had a high chance of dying and the fetus would not make it to full term,” said Auiler, 53, of Springfield, Missouri. “I was in tears.”
Although the doctor didn’t elaborate, Auiler — who has never had another child and suffers from large B-cell lymphoma along with a host of other medical problems — now believes he was alerting her to hidden dangers at George.
“I think he was trying to warn me of the toxic things going on at the base,” she said in a phone interview.
Superfund site
In 2004, the Federal Correctional Complex in Victorville, where about 1,000 men have been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement since early June, opened on what was once a weapons storage area at the former 5,347-acre military installation.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency simply refers to the property as Superfund site number CA2570024453. …
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