The San Diego Channel

Updated: 7:07 p.m. PST January 24, 2002

Experts To Investigate Cancer Cluster

Several Cancer Cases Found In Valley Center

VALLEY CENTER, Calif. — Some Valley Center parents may finally get answers to life and death questions about an unusually high number of cancer cases in the area, 10News reported.

County Leaders Starting To Listen

Medical experts from the University of California, Irvine, have arrived in the area to try to determine the reason, if any, for the cancer cluster.

The first cases started popping up in 1997, affecting people like Michael Cooper.

Cooper has been fighting one of the most aggressive forms of leukemia since last summer. After several rounds of chemotherapy and a stem cell replacement, Cooper’s chances of survival are better, but the fight has left his family emotionally and financially exhausted.

“Everything from financial to emotional, it has been the most horrifying experience of our lives,” Cooper’s mother, Kim, said.

Cooper is not alone.

Penny Gipson’s daughter, Laura, died from a brain tumor just days before her 20th birthday.

“It looked like she was going to make it. It really did,” Gipson told 10News.

Valley Center residents have documented 14 cases of childhood cancer in the last five years, 10News reported. The small community began to pick up on the trend, comparing notes.

Parents believe there may be a link in the cases, with most of the children affected living in the same general area.

“Some of are main concerns are with pesticides,” Gipson said. “We’d like to have the soil and water tested at the homes of the children who have been diagnosed with cancer. And the school, too.”

The experts from UC Irvine will be joined by members of the California Cancer Registry in searching for an answer.

“People are listening to us, and that’s all we’re asking for. If there’s nothing, then there’s nothing. But if there’s something, let’s look into it,” Gipson said.

A community forum will be held Saturday to answer residents’ questions. The experts will not have any answers about the existence or lack of a cause but will seek community input:

Valley Center Community Forum Saturday, January 26th V.C. Upper Elementary School gym 1p.m.-4 p.m.

Regardless of the official findings, the Cooper family said they are focused on one thing: making it to the day when Michael feels like himself again.

“All I want is: My son to have a life again, and to just put all this behind us,” Kim Cooper said.

A fund has been set up to help the Cooper family deal with the expenses sparked by his cancer treatments:

Michael Cooper Fund CA Bank & Trust, Valley Center – 760/749-1311

Copyright 2002 by TheSanDiegoChannel.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source url: http://www.thesandiegochannel.com/sand/news/stories/news-120600420020124-200152.html

==============================================

* November 17, 2001: Unit10 Investigation: Valley Center Cancer

Unit10 Investigation: Valley Center Cancer

Some Suspect ‘Cancer Cluster’ Posted: 6:20 p.m. PST November 16, 2001 Updated: 8:37 p.m. PST November 16, 2001

SAN DIEGO — An unusually high number of illnesses in Valley Center has county officials investigating the possibility of a cancer cluster, 10News’ Kim Edwards reported in a Unit10 Investigation.

Numbers Caught Attention Of Residents, County Officials

In Valley Center, open spaces, rolling hills, and orange trees outnumber people. When a dozen residents got cancer during the last decade — numbers better suited for a crowded city — it set off alarms. The numbers caught the attention first of parents and now county officials.

“I know of about seven kids that have different types of cancer,” resident Vicki Sheedy said.

Sheedy has watched neighbors get sick — even die — and worries about the odds for her healthy kids.

County Supervisor Bill Horn said that the numbers deserve attention, but warned residents not to panic.

“We are investigating,” Horn said. “We’re looking to see if there is a cancer cluster situation.”

The California Cancer Registry documented six cases of childhood cancer in Valley Center during the last 12 years. Those include three brain cancer cases, one case of leukemia, one Hodgkin’s disease case and one thyroid cancer case. When it comes to the most recent cases, investigators will need more information on the children including names, dates of birth, diagnoses and addresses so that they can piece together whether or not there is any connection between the cases.

The community may have to wait five months for the results of the investigation.

In the meantime, a fund-raiser will be held Saturday for young Michael Smith, another victim of leukemia in Valley Center.

Horn’s office plans to host community meetings in Valley Center to discuss the issue.

Source url: http://www.thesandiegochannel.com/sand/news/stories/news-108356120011116-201101.html

Download the No Disease Clusters Anymore Fundraiser Registration Form

Outside help tapped in Victor pollution case
By Julie Sherwood
Messenger Post
Thu Aug 02, 2007, 11:31 AM EDT

Victor, N.Y. -
Professionals from California and the University of Rochester joined a dozen or so residents Tuesday at a Dryer Road home to try and speed an investigation regarding groundwater contamination.

State officials have set a 2008-09 time frame for completing testing and cleanup for the contamination that was first discovered 17 years ago. The citizens’ group that met at the home of Michael and Jackie Barry is working to speed up that process, as well as bring about change in Albany and Washington, D.C. regarding tougher regulations and more oversight of pollutants.

“The bottom line is safety for the community,” said Dominic Mazzaferro of Gates, who built his Dryer Road home in 1986.

He lived there until 1995, never knowing he and his wife, Shirley, had been drinking well water contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE) far above a level deemed safe.
Shirley Mazzaferro died of brain cancer in 2005. She is one of 16 people the citizens’ group has identified as having died of a cancer that they believe is linked to TCE that was found in western Victor along a mile-long area south of Modock Road springs. The group discovered 50 households whose families have had members stricken with a cancer they believe to be tied to TCE exposure.

Dee Lewis, executive director of National Disease Cluster Alliance, and Lenny Siegel, executive director of Center for Public Environmental Oversight — both California-based advocacy groups — counseled residents Wednesday about how they can find answers and protect others from TCE exposure.

Based on the premise that no government agencies track or respond sufficiently to disease clusters in communities, Lewis explained how her organization began with a group of citizens discovering and tracking themselves the effects of TCE in a neighborhood in South Sacramento, Calif., in the late 1990s. They collected data on 25,000 people from 8,000 homes, and called on national experts in the analysis, she said. It caught the attention of government officials, who then closed off the polluted well and cleaned up the contamination.

“You have to come together,” said Lewis.

In the case of Victor, citizens are looking for tighter restrictions on acceptable levels of TCE exposure, as well as more efficient methods of tracking exactly what that exposure is.

Siegel said his group based near San Francisco helps and encourages people to organize themselves and lobby hard for action.

“There is a direct relationship between what people demand and what the government does,” he said. “You always have to stay on their case.”

Siegel advised the group to petition to have Victor’s contaminated area identified as a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site — those sites prioritized primarily according to their toxicity and/or proximity to residential areas.

Joining the meeting via speaker phone was Deborah Hall of Hopewell Junction, a community north of New York City that was put on the EPA Superfund list for TCE contamination. Hall said the benefits of getting on the list included access to tools and equipment that tracked and analyzed data more quickly and effectively.

Katrina Smith Korfmacher is community outreach coordinator for a division of the University of Rochester’s Department of Environmental Medicine. While the university can’t directly staff or fund citizens’ efforts, she said, it can “work around the edges” to help community groups link with national organizations, researchers, and scientists who can help. Also attending the meeting to offer help from the university was Kate M. Kuholski, project manager for the university’s Center for Science Education and Outreach.

Two Democratic candidates running for the two open seats on Victor Town Board also attended the meeting at the Barry home. John Palomaki and John Accorso both said they supported efforts to resolve the many problems related to the pollution.

“The town needs to be an advocate,” said Accorso.

“It’s time to stop blaming and start doing something,” said Palomaki.

Julie Sherwood can be reached at (585) 394-0770, Ext. 263, or at jsherwood@mpnewspapers.com.

[ad#square]

DATE: September 13, 2008
TIME: 11:00 A.M.
WHERE: The walk will start at St. Luke’s MSTI, Boise, Idaho.
The walk will proceed down Idaho Street to Capitol
ending at the steps of Boise City Hall, where a brief
ceremony will conclude the walk.

Sometimes the greatest distance
traveled is accomplished in just a few
steps. After Trevor Smith’s surgery for
brain cancer in November, 2002, at the
age of thirteen he couldn’t even get
out of bed. When he fi nally took his
fi rst steps, it was with someone holding
onto him. During his chemotherapy
and radiation treatments he became
too weak to stand up. When he took
his fi rst steps again, his balance was
impaired and he had a limp (A side eff
of chemotherapy). Facing a change
new school during his treatments, he
told not to do it; the kids would laugh
at him because he “walked funny.” But he went to the new school
anyway, deciding that if he could face up to cancer, he could face
to a few kids who might make fun of him.
Trevor Smith is a survivor. At the age of eighteen, he has become
forceful voice for the children of Idaho who are suff ering from cancer.
Trevor, and all the other childhood cancer patients who will be
alongside him at the second annual Trevor’s Trek on Saturday,
September 13, 2008, invite you to: Walk a Mile in Our Shoes.
TREVOR SMITH

“A FEW STEPS CAN TURN INTO A MILE.
A MILE CAN BECOME A MILESTONE
BY RAISING PUBLIC AWARENESS OF
THE ALARMING RISE OF CHILDHOOD
CANCER IN IDAHO.”

Website Registration:
www.idahowish.org
Fax Registration:
208-342-8878
Voice Registration:
208-345-9474
Mail Registration:
Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Idaho
4355 Emerald Street, Suite 280
Boise ID 83706

Waste Coal Cogeneration Plant
On August 25, 2008, scientists from the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) held a public meeting in Hazleton, Pennsylvania about the results of their investigation into the polycythemia vera cancer cluster in this area. The main point being reported in the press is that the federal agency confirmed the presence of a polycythemia vera cluster – the first and only cluster of polycythemia vera ever recorded in the United States. We have three specific comments on the meeting.
First, the federal scientists also reported that they found three areas within Luzerne, Schuylkill and Carbon counties with a significant elevation of the polycythemia vera rate. The three areas were identified as an area south of Hazleton and north of Tamaqua, an area south of Frackville and an area in eastern Carbon County near Jim Thorpe.
Dr. Vincent Seaman, a research toxicologist at the ATSDR, stated that a conservative estimate of the polycythemia vera rate in these three areas was four times higher than the rest of the tri-county region. In October 2007, the ATSDR reported that the rate in the tri-county region was approximately 4 times the state rate (see Archives: C3Polycythemia Vera Cancer Epidemic, November 9, 2007). Thus, it is fair to state that the ATSDR results indicate an approximate 16-fold increase in the polycythemia vera rate in these three areas.
The ATSDR report did not indicate what is the cause of this polycythemia vera epidemic but did identify hazardous waste sites, air pollution and coal mining operations as three environmental similarities in these areas. We can go farther than the ATSDR.
In 2006, Sue Sturgis, a reporter from North Carolina reviewed the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s data of reported cases of polycythemia vera by county for the years 2001 through 2003 and suggested a possible association between polycythemia vera and power plants that burn waste coal (see Cancer researcher confirms possible link between polycythemia, waste-fuel-burning power plants, December 7, 2006, www.hometownhazards.com.
In 2007, we published an article indicating that there was evidence suggesting a possible link between the polycythemia vera and waste coal burning power plants (see Archives: ìPointing the ATSDR in the Right Direction,August 24, 2007).
There are waste coal burning power plants in the three areas identified in the ATSDR report. We can only hope that the scientists at the ATSDR will open their eyes and look at the most likely cause of the polycythemia vera epidemic.
Second, a representative from the office of Senator Arlen Specter ann ounced that Senator Specter had arranged for $262,000 in federal funding for Drexel University School of Public Health in Philadelphia to investigate the polycythemia vera problem in this area. The full Senate, the House of Representatives and the President must still approve the appropriation.
We found this direct appropriation to a school in Philadelphia to be of particular interest. In 2007, Senator Specter wrote about the initial ATSDR report as follows, “I am heartened by the study’s findings that there are no environmental or occupational causes for the disease….”
In addition, the usual method for funding scientific research is to give the money to a federal agency such as the National Institutes of Health and have a scientific panel select the best proposal for the funding. I am suspect of the motives of any politician who is heartened by findings of no environmental or occupational causes and who gives money directly to a university in his hometown.
Finally, in 2006, the Pennsylvania Department of Health reported statistically significant increases in the incidences of buccal cavity (mouth), cervix, colon-rectum, larynx, leukemia, polycythemia vera, skin (malignant melanoma), stomach and uterus cancers in the tri-county area. However, the government scientists have failed to follow up on any of these cancers other than the polycythemia vera cancers.
Perhaps our elected officials can put some pressure on the federal and state scientists to do their jobs.

Cancer cluster confirmed in northeast Pennsylvania
August 25, 2008 – 10:08pmBy MICHAEL RUBINKAM
Associated Press Writer

HAZLETON, Pa. (AP) – Nearly a year after federal epidemiologists first sounded the alarm over a cluster of rare blood cancers in northeastern Pennsylvania, their research has zeroed in on a hardscrabble region 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia that is home to several Superfund sites and a power plant fired by waste coal.

The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said Monday that it confirmed an elevated number of cases of polycythemia vera, or PV, in a 20-mile stretch between Hazleton and Tamaqua.

It remains the first and only cluster of PV ever recorded in the United States, though the condition became reportable to state cancer registries only in 2001, and officials said it’s statistically likely there are others.

Residents in the affected area were four times as likely to suffer from PV as residents living in outlying areas, according to the government.

Researchers cautioned, though, that their investigation was not designed to uncover an environmental link to PV, a cancer that results in the overproduction of red blood cells and can lead to heart attack or stroke. PV’s cause is unknown.

“We don’t want to give the message that there are no connections,” said researcher Vince Seaman. “We just don’t have the data.”

Some residents blame their illnesses on a recycler that accepted hundreds of thousands of gallons of paint sludge, waste oils, used solvents, PCBs, cyanide, pesticides and many other known or suspected carcinogens.

Environmental officials shut down the site in 1979, and it was later placed on the federal Superfund list and cleaned up. Other Superfund sites dot the area, too, along with a power plant that burns waste coal that some residents also suspect has caused health problems.

Researchers said they confirmed 33 cases of PV in Luzerne, Carbon and Schuylkill counties. That was a slightly lower number than they reported last October at the conclusion of their preliminary investigation into the cluster.

The agency revealed its latest findings at a community meeting in Hazleton on Monday night.

Researchers said they found that Pennsylvania does not accurately report the number of PV cases statewide. That’s because the criteria for diagnosing the illness have changed and because PV is reported only by hospitals.

Seaman said inaccurate PV reporting is also likely a problem in other states.

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter announced Monday that the Senate Appropriations Committee approved $262,000 for a planned Drexel University investigation into the cluster. The funding has yet to clear the full Senate.

“It is clear that more research is necessary to pinpoint the reasons for this cluster, including whether environmental contaminants are a factor,” Specter said in a statement.

___

Gene Found For Rare And Deadly Childhood Cancer Neuroblastoma
27 Aug 2008

US scientists have found that mutations of a gene called anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) were behind most incidences of hereditary neuroblastoma, a rare and deadly childhood cancer, and they also discovered that the same mutations played an important role in high risk forms of non-inherited incidences of the disease, which are more common.

The study was the work of first author Dr Yael Mossé, a pediatric oncologist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and colleagues and is published in the 24th August advance online publication of the journal Nature.

“This discovery enables us to offer the first genetic tests to families affected by the inherited form of this disease,” said Mossé.

She explained that because there are drugs already being developed that target the same gene in adult cancers, it shouldn’t take as long to test treatments for childhood neuroblastoma using these drugs as it would with new drugs.

Neuroblastoma, a very rare disease, but the most common solid cancer of early childhood, is rarely found in children over 10 years old. It accounts for 7 per cent of all childhood cancers but is disproportionately responsible for 15 per cent of childhood cancer deaths due to its aggressive nature. About 600 new cases of all forms of neuroblastoma occur every year in the US.

The disease can be inherited, but until this study the genetic factors involved were largely a mystery to scientists.

Belying its name, neuroblastoma is an “extra-cranial” cancer, ie it forms outside of the brain, wherever there are clusters of developing nerve fibres, or nerve-like fibres (such as in the medulla of the adrenal glands). Most neuroblastomas start in the abdomen, while the rest start in the chest, neck, pelvis, or more rarely, in the spinal cord.

Because neuroblastoma is so rare, and inherited forms of the disease are even rarer, Mossé and colleagues used family data collected from all over the world to examine the genes of 20 families with a history of neuroblastoma. The data came from the laboratory of Dr John M Maris, senior author of the study and director of the Center for Childhood Cancer Research at he Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The lab holds the world’s largest collection of neuroblastoma tissue samples.

The researchers performed genome-wide scans of the DNA of 10 families with a history of neuroblastoma and for which there was the most information.

The first thing they found was that a region of chromosome 2 was linked to the disease, and then when they looked at the DNA sequences in that region they found that 6 of 8 families with at least three cases of the disease had extra copy mutations of a gene called anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK). The other two families had mutations in a different gene, the PHOX2B gene, which has been found before in a small number of inherited cases of neuroblastoma.

The authors concluded that:

“Our results demonstrate that heritable mutations of ALK are the main cause of familial neuroblastoma, and that germline or acquired activation of this cell-surface kinase is a tractable therapeutic target for this lethal paediatric malignancy.”

“This is a very important discovery,” said Maris, because “it not only helps us understand the genetic roots of this terrible disease, but also has led to dramatically new ideas for curative therapy.”

Mossé explained that:

“This finding means that it is possible to offer simple, non-invasive screening for patients with a family history of neuroblastoma.”

She said an ultrasound or urine test could be used to monitor children with an ALK mutation, and aid early detection of potential neuroblastomas.

“As we increase our knowledge of ALK mutations, we will also offer specialized diagnostic testing for all newly diagnosed patients with neuroblastoma, to eventually allow oncologists to better customize treatment to a child’s genetic profile,” added Mossé.

In the next stage of the study, Mossé and colleagues looked at the more common form of neuroblastoma, the sporadic or non-inherited form. And again they found ALK mutations played an important role: they occurred in 12 per cent of 194 tumor samples of the aggressive, high-risk form of the disease.

The study is actually the first to report an example of a childhood cancer caused by mutations in a cancer-causing gene.

Scientists already knew that abnormalities in ALK were linked to lymphoma and lung cancer, where it triggers the translocation of DNA between chromosomes to make new cancer-causing genes. In this study, it appears that ALK gene mutations also trigger the production of neuroblastoma cells. This abnormality is an obvious target for treatments that inhibit the ALK protein that delivers the trigger.

Several drug companies are already developing ALK inhibitors, and one is going through early phase adult clinical trials for treating lung cancer and lymphoma.

Mossé and colleagues are planning pediatric clinical trials of ALK inhibitors in children with high-risk neuroblastoma.

“Identification of ALK as a major familial neuroblastoma predisposition gene.”
Yaël P. Mossé, Marci Laudenslager, Luca Longo, Kristina A. Cole, Andrew Wood, Edward F. Attiyeh, Michael J. Laquaglia, Rachel Sennett, Jill E. Lynch, Patrizia Perri, Geneviève Laureys, Frank Speleman, Cecilia Kim, Cuiping Hou, Hakon Hakonarson, Ali Torkamani, Nicholas J. Schork, Garrett M. Brodeur, Gian P. Tonini, Eric Rappaport, Marcella Devoto & John M. Maris.
Nature, Advance online publication, 24 August 2008.
DOI:10.1038/nature07261

Plans nixed for BP asphalt plant
(http://www.post-trib.com/1129553,asphalt.article)

August 27, 2008

By GITTE LAASBY Post-Tribune staff writer

HAMMOND — BP Whiting has scrapped its plans for an asphalt plant in Hammond.

In a letter to the city of Hammond, the refinery has withdrawn its petition for conditional use and developmental variance for a property at 1304 129th St. across from the Lost Marsh Golf Course.

“At this point, BP has exercised its right to withdraw its petitions that are currently before the Hammond board,” BP spokesman Tom Keilman told the Post-Tribune Wednesday morning.

He said BP is considering whether and where to build another plant.

“We’re currently reviewing our options in terms of the asphalt operations,” he said.

Keilman acknowledged that the city of Hammond had a number of conditions for granting the petition, including requirements to monitor emissions, but he would not comment on whether requirements had anything with BP canceling its plans.

Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott Jr. said he felt he had no choice but to put conditions on granting the request because the asphalt plant would harm the community.

“We didn’t really support it. I support the expansion but the part of moving the asphalt plant to where they wanted in Hammond, we didn’t like it,” McDermott Jr. said. “There was a lot of concern about the health issues. There’s been studies that this can cause cancer clusters in the neighborhood around it. It doesn’t make sense you take that and move it closer to a neighborhood. I didn’t want that to be my legacy if I found out 20 years from now that kids got sick.”

The zoning issue was on the agenda of tonight’s meeting of the Hammond board of zoning appeals.

For more details, read tomorrow’s Post-Tribune.

Contact Gitte Laasby at 648-2183 or glaasby@post-trib.com. Comment on this story at www.post-trib.com.