By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Saturday, March 27, 2010

A government decision to give disability benefits to a former Marine sickened by toxins at Camp Lejeune, N.C., could have far-reaching effects for thousands of other families who lived and worked at the military base over the years.

Paul Buckley, who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma four years ago, received a letter from the Department of Veterans Affairs earlier this month stating that “all reasonable doubt has been resolved in your favor.” Buckley’s incurable bone marrow cancer “was directly related to military service,” the letter continued.

“This is not the type of cancer you get from smoking or eating French fries,” said Buckley, 46, who now lives in Hanover, Mass. “I was too young to get this illness and I didn’t have any of the risk factors.”

But in the 1980s, Buckley was assigned to Camp Lejeune, where scientists found the presence of the degreaser trichloroethylene, or TCE, the dry-cleaning solvent tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, and the carcinogen benzene in the drinking water.

His doctors believe exposure to those chemicals was the likely cause of his cancer ? a claim the U.S. government repeatedly denied until he received his letter from the VA on March 8.

For Buckley, the sudden reversal means that he can start collecting VA benefits, which will extend to his wife when he dies.

The VA’s ruling could have much broader ramifications: By some estimates, up to 1 million people lived or worked at the base between 1957 and 1987.

“I think this has enormous national implications and is truly a breakthrough,” said U.S. Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass. “The government has acknowledged, at long last, that there is clearly a causal relationship between the contaminated water and the cancer that afflicts Mr. Buckley.”

The letter, Delahunt said, will establish a precedent.

“It’s highly significant,” for the thousands of others, according to Joseph Anderson, a Winston-Salem, N.C., lawyer representing a woman who lived at Camp Lejeune in the 1980s and suffers from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. His client, Laura Jones, recently won a small battle in federal court when a judge ruled that her case against the Navy could go forward. The Navy had argued that the statute of limitations had expired.

“[The VA decision] can help us as we fight on behalf of families,” said Anderson, adding his office receives an average of 30 calls a day from military and civilians and families who once were stationed at Camp Lejeune.

Veterans Affairs spokeswoman Katie Roberts declined to address the department’s letter to Buckley or the reason for the reversal.

While not addressing the Camp Lejeune case specifically, Roberts stated that generally, the VA is working with the Defense Department on a number of exposure-related concerns, and the two departments have created a data-sharing agreement to let researchers cross-reference data and information.

She declined to speculate on whether the department’s decision would affect other veterans’ claims for benefits.

There are 2,044 pending legal claims by people who lived and worked at the Marine base, the Navy said Friday. In 2007, Stars and Stripes reported there were 853 claims pending.

For years, Marines have blamed their and their families’ ailments on the contaminated tap water.

The presence of TCE and PCE in the camp’s water sources was discovered in 1982. Yet some of the wells that supplied the water were not shut down until 1985. An environmental engineering company found benzene in a well near the base’s Hadnot Point Fuel Farm at levels of 380 parts per billion when water was sampled in July 1984; the EPA has established that levels more than 5 parts per billion in water is dangerous to human health.

As the health effects continue to be examined, the Marine Corps is trying to reach between 500,000 to 1 million people who lived and worked on the base during the three decades, according to Capt. Brian Block, a Corps spokesman. The Corps’ search for former base residents was spurred, in part, by health officials’ needs to conduct tests to determine whether exposure to the contaminated drinking water is causing ailments.

To date, 160,000 people have registered, which can be done online at https://clnr.hqi.usmc.mil/clwater or by calling (877) 261-9782.

Buckley hopes the letter he received will lead to help for more Marines and their families who lived at the base.

“I’m hoping the VA will loosen up, and maybe, just maybe, this means I can help a million people or so,” he said. “Giving hope to somebody is a wonderful thing.”

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BY FRANK X. MULLEN JR. • Reno Gazette Journal

The metal tungsten remains an important clue in research related to the Fallon leukemia cluster, which sickened 17 children and killed three of them between 1997 and 2004, scientists said Thursday.

Presenters at the University of Nevada, Reno symposium described their research into cancer genetics, water contamination, electro-magnetic fields, mouse studies, and contaminants found in tree rings and on tree leaves. They are looking for possible environmental underpinnings of the cancer outbreak, whose odds of being random have been estimated at 1 in 232 million.

Researchers from the UNR; the University of Arizona and the University of California San Francisco presented final reports on three years work relating to the cluster. The research was funded by about $700,000 in federal grants obtained by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., on behalf of the Fallon families affected by the outbreak.

The theory is that something in Fallon’s environment makes the area unique. For eight years, the metal tungsten, which is found in greater concentrations in the area’s water, air and people than in other parts of Nevada, has been an element of interest.

“We have been looking at linking environmental exposures unique to leukemia clusters to the development of leukemia,” said Cynthia D. Fastje, who exposed laboratory mice to tungsten and a virus at the University of Arizona.

Scientists have a two-hit theory of cancer cluster causes. The first “hit” is something from the environment that damages a child’s genes, perhaps while it is in the womb. The second “hit” could be an infection, a chemical or a virus that strikes the community but causes further damage to children’s genes already affected by the first hit.

In the experiments conducted by Fastje, Dr. Mark Witten and others, pregnant mice were given tungsten water at levels similar to those found in Fallon. The mouse pups were born and exposed to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which causes a common childhood illness.
Tungsten weakens immune response

Fastje said the tungsten appeared to weaken the animals’ immune response to the virus. About half the mice had enlarged spleens and 25 percent developed tumors in their jaws and necks. Some mice had symptoms consistent with leukemia.

She said more research into the effects of tungsten exposure is needed and noted that it’s a big leap between mice and humans.

Dr. Paul Sheppard of the University of Arizona said his research since 2002 has looked at tungsten and other metals as airborne contaminants in Fallon. His studies indicated spikes over time in the tungsten levels in tree rings and that tungsten found on tree leaves in 2008 was more concentrated on the trees closer to the center of Fallon, a finding consistent with previous studies of airborne metals.

Since the 1960s, the Fallon area has been home to a tungsten refinery and a tungsten plant in the center of town. That firm has consistently denied its operations can have anything to do with the cancer outbreak. It’s undetermined whether the tungsten found in the latest tree or leaf studies is the industrial or naturally-occurring form of the metal.

Dr. Joseph L. Wiemels, associate professor of cancer epidemiology, University of California, San Francisco, has looked at the genetic roots of cancer and studied leukemia cases in California and the Fallon cluster. He said because of Nevada privacy laws he was only able to look at the genetics of four of the 17 Fallon patients, but found nothing unusual in their DNA makeup.

Based on the disease registry information that has been made available, he said, “it appears to be clusters of other types of cancer in Churchill County at the time of the leukemia cluster.”
Overall, he said, children who have early exposure to viruses and thus develop immunities seem to be more protected against leukemia than those who have limited viral exposure, such as children without older siblings or those who don’t interact with other children at an early age.

A change in the environment
One question that scientists have been asking throughout their investigations: what sharply changed in Fallon’s environment in the mid-1990s that may account for the cancer outbreak between 1997 and 2004?

Dr. Chris Chris A. Pritsos, UNR professor of nutrition, and Dr, Ralph Seiler, a geologist, have been investigating Fallon’s groundwater. They looked at the concentrations of arsenic, tungsten, uranium and polonium-210 in the water and exposed lab mice to the Fallon water and water from other sources.
The studies indicated that exposure to groundwater high in tungsten, arsenic and polonium-210 induced “oxidative stress” in mice. Oxidative stress affects the body’s ability to repair itself at the cellular level and may be involved in the development of several diseases.

Although tungsten remains an element of interest, Sheppard cautioned that “we can’t link environmental findings to leukemia itself based on environmental data alone.” He noted that Nevada health authorities and the federal government have no interest in further probes of the Fallon cluster.
Future investigations are up to scientists outside the government labs, he said.

“We’ll keep on trying,” Sheppard said. “It’s important to carry on environmental monitoring in Fallon and I intend to do that.”

WASHINGTON – Today, EPA is releasing the Health and Environmental Research Online (HERO) database, a milestone in transparency. HERO provides access to the scientific studies used in making key regulatory decisions, including EPA’s periodic review of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for six major pollutants.  It is part of the open government directive to conduct business with transparency, participation, and collaboration.

“The HERO database strengthens our science and our transparency — two pillars of our work at EPA. Giving the public easy access to the same information EPA uses will help open the lines of communication, increase knowledge and understanding, and open the doors of EPA,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “Americans have a right to know the background of decisions that affect their lives and livelihoods. We’re taking a big step forward in opening government to the people.”

The publically accessible HERO database provides an easy way to review the scientific literature behind EPA science assessments, which are used to support agency decision-making.  The database includes more than 300,000 scientific articles including the authors, titles, dates, and abstracts.  In addition, through a simple keyword search, anyone can see information from the articles that were used to develop specific risk assessments.

HERO includes peer-reviewed literature used by EPA to develop its Integrated Science Assessments (ISA) that feed into the NAAQS review. It also includes references and data from the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), a database that supports critical agency policymaking for chemical regulation.

More information on HERO database: http://www.epa.gov/hero

More information on IRIS: http://www.epa.gov/iris

By Paul Whaley and Dr John Newby, PhD; cross-posted from Health & Environment

To understand the importance of the new science of epigenetics for health, we have to visit cell development and the cellular processes which, if they go wrong, lead to cancer. Understanding these processes could help us better anticipate and prevent possible health hazards from environmental chemicals, develop better models for risk assessment, and even lead to novel treatments for cancer.

Epigenetics and development
One single fertilised cell, in order to become a human, has to differentiate itself into about 200 cell types. Every single cell, however, contains the same complete set of around 25,000 genes. This means different genes have to be turned on and off at certain times in order for a cell to develop into and function as, for example, a skin cell rather than a liver cell.

This regulation of when genes are turned on and off is governed by epigenetic processes. Rather than mutations, which are changes to the genetic code, epigenetic changes affect genes themselves, like software in relation to DNA hardware.

During development, epigenetic regulation is one factor responsible for determining the course of development of a cell, setting it on the path to becoming a skin cell rather than a liver cell, or a brain cell instead of a muscle cell.

Sometimes, however, external influences can result in genes being silenced or activated at the wrong times. In effect, this can confuse the developmental instructions being acted on by a cell, subtly taking it away from its natural developmental pathway and down an altered route, with a range of potential knock-on effects.

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On his March 9 episode Dr. Oz discussed cancer clusters and how people can work to keep themselves, their families and their communities safer:

One of the first questions people faced with a cancer diagnosis ask is, “What caused this?”, especially when it strikes young children who don’t typically get cancer. Sometimes you learn why; a DNA defect could foreshadow certain types of colon cancer for instance, or an unhealthy behavior such as smoking jacked up your risk. But it could also be something lurking in the environment, a carcinogen that has entered the water supply, soil or the air where we live, work, play or attend school.
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The evolution from patient to environmental activist came naturally

BY ROCKY BARKER – rbarker@idahostatesman.com
Copyright: © 2010 Idaho Statesman

Shawn Raecke/Idaho Statesman

Trevor Schaefer, 20, from Boise had brain cancer earlier in his life. The cancer has been gone now for over five years but the illness set the wheels in motion for Trevor and his mother Charlie Smith to become strong advocates for looking for answers about the causes of childhood cancer. “We want to help cancer survivors and we want to help prevent new cancers,” Schaefer said.

Trevor Schaefer woke up at age 13 in November 2002 with a terrible headache that McCall doctors said was a sinus infection. His mother, Charlie Smith, wasn’t satisfied and urged them to give him a CAT scan.

When he woke up after the scan he could see the truth on his mother’s face.

“It’s not a sinus infection, is it, Mom?” he asked.

Schaefer had brain cancer and doctors urged immediate surgery. After surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, Schaefer healed. He then began a volunteer campaign to fight childhood cancer and to support cancer survivors like himself.

He was recognized by the Statesman in 2007 as the Treasure Valley’s most courageous person. Now at 20, he’s a Boise State University student and he’s moving his campaign to a national stage.

“We want to help cancer survivors and we want to help prevent new cancers,” Schaefer said.

He and his mother are working with California Sen. Barbara Boxer to upgrade cancer registries so scientists can use them more effectively to spot childhood cancer clusters. And they have used their own connections to help researchers learn more about the links between toxins and childhood cancer.

“Trevor and Charlie have helped us with our research and helped get us in with (Environmental Protection Agency Administrator) Lisa Jackson,” said Mark Witten, a researcher with the University of Arizona, who has linked leukemia cancer clusters to toxins in Nevada and Arizona.

Cancer clusters are occurrences of cancer found in a small area or a short period of time at rates higher than statistically normal. But linking a cluster of cancers to a particular toxin or event is very hard scientifically.

One in two men and one in three women in the United States will be diagnosed with cancer sometime in their life, according to the Cancer Data Registry of Idaho. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in both the United States and Idaho, accounting for about 22 percent of deaths in the state in 2005.

Smith asked the registry to study a cluster of brain cancers in McCall at the same time as Trevor’s case. In 1998-2002, there were 457 cases of brain cancer diagnosed among Idaho residents, including six in Valley County, ranking it third-highest in the state. But the cluster was not considered statistically significant.

Registry officials said other cancers that metastasized into the brain made it appear there was more brain cancer than there was, said Chris Johnson, epidemiologist with the Cancer Data Registry of Idaho.

Smith said measuring at the county level isn’t enough. She wants records kept uniformly nationwide down to the zip code level.

Witten and his associate Paul Sheppard, also of the University of Arizona, have been tracking down cancer clusters and possible causes by measuring toxic substances in tree rings. This gives them definitive time frames for when a population was exposed to toxins.

In Fallon, Nev., they found high levels of tungsten associated with a cluster of childhood leukemia cases. Animal studies suggest that respiratory virus outbreaks may trigger the cancer in children sensitized by high tungsten exposure, Witten said.

They have done tests in Idaho but have not found anything conclusive, he said. But working with Schaefer and Smith has helped him create better animal testing.

“Coming to Idaho has helped us develop models to show what’s happening,” he said.

Schaefer caught Boxer’s attention when he gave a speech in California. Smith and Schaefer have gone to Washington to push for the establishment of a federal disease network.

“She said, ‘I really respect your passion because I’m a mother, too,’” Smith said.

Justin Hayes, program director of the Idaho Conservation League, said Schaefer already is making a difference in Idaho efforts to fight toxins like mercury and heavy metals. His testimony before environmental officials put a face to the threats that numbers can’t.

“He really crystallizes the issues from the abstract to the concrete,” Hayes said.

Rocky Barker: 377-6484

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Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

A study that identifies the bottom third of Florida as a massive brain cancer cluster has set off a firestorm among Acreage residents worried about their community’s reputation.

They insist the report, which surfaced on the Internet last month, is proof that cancer isn’t a problem solely for their central Palm Beach County community, where health officials last month declared a cluster of cases among children and teenagers.

They have besieged state legislators, health officials and anyone else who could change the local designation or spread word of the report.

But in interviews, the study’s authors say their findings don’t discredit the state’s cluster designation in The Acreage.

What’s more, The Acreage’s cluster is part of what’s pushing up rates throughout southern Florida in the new study, said Richard Clapp, an epidemiologist and professor of environmental health at Boston University.

The state Department of Health declined to discuss the study, due to be published next month in the scholarly journal Pediatric Blood & Cancer. The authors include researchers from the University of West Florida in Pensacola and the Nemours Center for Childhood Cancer Research in Delaware.

The study has swiftly grabbed attention in The Acreage.

“Our community has been labeled as the poster child for ‘Pediatric Cancer Clusters’ in the State of Florida,” Acreage residents Carl and Debra Garcia wrote to state Rep. Joseph Abruzzo last week in an e-mail seeking answers about the new report. “We want the truth both for those directly stricken by health issues and the community at large.”

The study, which compares childhood cancer rates throughout Florida ZIP codes from 2000 through 2007, wasn’t meant to challenge or conflict with state findings, its authors said.

The report doesn’t address causes of the elevated cancer rates but says the findings “are suggestive of environmental factors or common risk factors in the areas.”

The study found that in 2006 and 2007, southern Florida had more than twice as many childhood brain tumors and cancers as would be expected in that size population: 52 cases instead of 24.

“This may be an area of concern for the health authorities to look deeper into — that’s pretty much where the results in the article end,” said study author Raid Amin, a statistics professor at the University of West Florida.

Based on maps accompanying the study, the region with elevated cancer rates appears to include the Glades and other parts of western Palm Beach County, as well as barrier islands along the Atlantic, but not the bulk of the county’s cities and suburbs. It also includes parts of Broward and Miami-Dade counties, the Gulf Coast and sites north of Lake Okeechobee.

Researchers declined to provide more detailed geographic data.

The study has its acknowledged shortcomings, chief among them its population counts.

The authors used 2000 U.S. Census data to estimate the region’s overall population, which they then compared with numbers of cancer cases taken from a state registry.

“You have to wonder as you get further away from 2000 whether that rate is influencing the results,” said Kimberly J. Johnson, a postdoctoral research fellow with the University of Minnesota’s Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Research. Johnson peer-reviewed the study, titled “Epidemiologic Mapping of Florida Childhood Cancer Clusters,” for its publication in the journal.

To ensure that nearly decade-old population figures hadn’t skewed the results, the researchers examined census estimates and state demographic data for later years. Those estimates made them reasonably confident that southern Florida’s population did not rise significantly faster than other parts of the state, Amin said.

Still, “you could have small-area migration that could really influence the rates,” Johnson said. “They did the best they could.”

Population, as well as age breakdowns within the population, could skew the results, agreed Babette Brumback, an associate professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida.

“The validity of the results would depend on the validity of those projections,” Brumback said.

In verifying The Acreage’s cluster, state health officials used multiple methods to estimate population and age, including school district data and customer counts from Florida Power & Light.

The study’s five authors used statistical analysis software known as SaTScan, which Harvard biostatistician Martin Kulldorff developed more than a decade ago. The program, which the National Cancer Institute also uses, compares cancer rates in adjacent ZIP codes. The study’s authors used the patients’ addresses at their times of diagnosis. They obtained cancer data from the state’s cancer registry and considered children up to 19 years of age.

The Nemours Center for Childhood Cancer Research initiated the study almost two years ago. The center is part of the Nemours Foundation, which was formed through industrialist Alfred duPont’s estate in 1936 and owns several children’s clinics and hospitals in Florida. It is building a new facility in Orlando and hoping to attract patients and philanthropy from the entire state.

The online version of the study was circulated around the same time that state health officials last month declared the cluster in The Acreage.

Health officials said in early February that five pediatric cases of brain tumors or cancer had occurred from 2002 through 2007 among The Acreage’s estimated 39,000 residents, when only two to three cases should have occurred.

At the same time, county health director Dr. Alina Alonso told reporters that a broader area of South Florida likely had an elevated rate of pediatric brain cancer as well. She didn’t cite a study and did not respond later to requests for comment on the West Florida findings.

At the health department’s main offices in Tallahassee, a spokeswoman responded with only a few comments this week.

“The data analysis methods by the University of West Florida Report are relatively new and untested,” spokeswoman Susan Smith wrote. She added: “The authors indicate that their findings cannot be used to determine health impacts in small geographic areas. Independent researchers will use this report to identify areas that require additional study using more traditional methods to verify the University’s hypothesis.”

State health officials hadn’t contacted the study’s authors since they released their findings, Amin said Wednesday.

On Thursday, Brian J. Calkins, director of the Florida Association of Pediatric Tumor Programs, which collects state cancer registry data, said he had just gotten word that state health officials were trying to coordinate a meeting with the study’s authors.

Staff writer Stacey Singer contributed to this report.

Number of childhood brain and central nervous system tumor and brain cancer cases from 2006-2007 in southern Florida, according to new study:

Expected: 24

Observed: 52

Number of cases the Florida Department of Health’s investigation of The Acreage showed for 2002-2007:

Expected: 2-3

Observed: 5

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Chicago Tribune
Tribune reporter Jared S. Hopkins contributed to this report.

Researchers unable to make definite link to tainted water some residents unknowingly drank for years

Cancer rates are “significantly elevated” in Crestwood, according to a new state report that focuses on a south suburb where residents unwittingly drank contaminated water for more than two decades.

Prompted by a Tribune investigation that revealed the village’s secret use of its tainted well, the Illinois Department of Public Health looked at cancer cases in Crestwood between 1994 and 2006 and found higher-than-expected cases of kidney cancer in men, lung cancer in men and women, and gastrointestinal cancer in men.

In a report to be released Friday, researchers determined it was possible that toxic chemicals in the drinking water caused the extra cancer cases, but they could not make a definite link. Other factors could be involved, too, or it could be a statistical blip in the working-class community of about 11,000.

As with nearly all studies of cancer clusters across the nation, specific causes are difficult, if not impossible, to determine. But the Crestwood situation is still different than most other cancer investigations.

“We are dealing with a situation where we have known exposure,” said Ken Runkle, a state health department toxicologist. “That means we can view these elevated cancer levels in a different light.”

Kidney cancer in particular is associated with exposure to perchloroethylene, also known as PCE or perc, a common dry-cleaning solvent that years ago leached into Crestwood’s well. Research also links lung and some types of gastrointestinal cancer to perc and related chemicals, which state officials first detected in the well water in 1985.

Crestwood officials avoided scrutiny for years by telling residents and regulators that the village relied exclusively on treated Lake Michigan water. But records show they kept using the polluted well for up to 20 percent of the drinking water pumped to residents.

The well wasn’t shut off for good until late 2007, after state officials tested the water again and found it was contaminated with two perc-related chemicals. One of those compounds, vinyl chloride, is a known carcinogen so toxic that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says there is no safe level of exposure.

In response to the Tribune investigation, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., urged federal and state health officials to take a closer look at Crestwood. Gov. Pat Quinn also demanded an investigation as part of a broader effort to ensure that citizens get more information about water contamination in their communities.

Tiefu Shen, a state epidemiologist who oversaw the report, said assessing cancer cases was complicated, in part because Crestwood shares a ZIP code with neighboring Midlothian, people moved in and out of town, and records weren’t available to determine how much contaminated water residents ingested over the years.

Shen’s group ended up pinpointing Crestwood-specific cases from the Illinois Cancer Registry and found 952 that could be grouped by age, sex, race and cancer type. Those numbers were compared with similar figures for Cook County and the state as a whole.

Researchers found 23 kidney cancers in men when 12 were expected, 63 colorectal cancers in men when 45 were expected and 12 cases of esophageal cancer in men when 6 were expected. With lung cancer, there were 89 cases in women when 66 were expected, and 79 cases in men when 59 were expected.

There were no cases of angiosarcoma, a liver cancer linked to vinyl chloride exposure. But the finding wasn’t surprising because that type of cancer is extremely rare and typically is related to workplace exposure, state officials said.

The number of other liver cancers was higher than expected but not statistically significant, according to the report. Childhood cancers were lower than expected.

Many Crestwood residents have been clamoring for answers since finding out they drank polluted water for years. The new state study can’t say what caused a specific incidence of cancer, but it highlights some statistical anomalies that can’t be easily explained.

“This is what we’ve been asking for,” said Steven Nelson, a Crestwood resident who helped organize a Facebook group to spread information about the contaminated well. “What’s been missing is the hard data about any illnesses in the community.”

Several residents interviewed Friday said they were concerned the state’s findings could mark the beginning of a disturbing trend. Citing the long latency of many chemically related cancers ? at least 10 years can lapse after exposure before cancer is detected ? researchers urged continued study in Crestwood.

“I can’t help but wonder if what happened to me had something to do with the water,” said Frank Caldario, who has lived in Crestwood since 1993 and was diagnosed with kidney cancer last year at age 29.

Caldario, an office worker who doesn’t smoke, said surgeons removed a gumball-sized tumor and about 40 percent of his right kidney. Early detection meant he was able to avoid radiation or chemotherapy.

The report’s conclusions are a sharp contrast to statements made by some state officials after the disclosure of the tainted well. Last April, Doug Scott, director of the Illinois EPA, said “the public’s health never was at risk” because the well water was diluted with treated Lake Michigan water. That statement has been frequently repeated by Crestwood officials.

Mayor Robert Stranczek couldn’t be reached for comment. Stranczek; his father, Chester, who was mayor from 1969 to 2007; and Crestwood’s top water official face a federal criminal investigation from the U.S. EPA and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office.

Meanwhile, village taxpayers paid lawyers more than $1 million last year to defend the Stranczeks from nine civil lawsuits, including one filed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan that accuses Crestwood officials of lying more than 120 times about their secret use of the well.

State and federal health officials are planning a community forum to answer questions about the cancer study. The meeting is scheduled for 2 p.m. March 13 at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights.

Most cancer cluster studies start with reports of unusual cancers and search for possible causes. When scientists have been able to demonstrate a common link, it typically has been in occupational settings.

In those cases, workers get sick after being exposed repeatedly to a cancer-causing substance. It might be a radioactive leak in a nuclear facility, asbestos at a shipyard or certain chemicals, like vinyl chloride in the plastics industry.

Such cases are easier to prove because investigators are studying small groups of people in controlled, well-defined environments over specific periods of time. But even those probes often leave researchers scratching their heads.

For instance, a 1999 study of a cancer cluster at a BP research center in Naperville found that six cases of brain cancer probably were workplace-related. Yet the scientists couldn’t identify the source of the workers’ diseases.

“Is it something that occurred by chance, or something that signals a specific cause?” said Leslie Stayner, chief of epidemiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who wasn’t involved in the Crestwood study. “It’s tough to explain to the general public, especially when they see people in their families or their communities with unexplained cancers.”

mhawthorne@tribune.com

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Barregard L, E Holmberg and G Sallsten. 2009. Leukaemia incidence in people living close to an oil refinery. Environmental Research 109:985-990.

Synopsis by Negin P. Martin, Ph. D for Environmental Health News

Swedish scientists have discovered a remarkable increase in the incidence of leukemia in people living close to an oil refinery.

Lysekil is one of the largest and most modern oil refineries in Europe. Yet, during the past 10 years, communities downwind of the refinery had twice as many cases of leukemia as would be expected based on the refinery’s low emissions.
But, without further research, the study’s authors can only guess as to why the rates vary so much from risk estimates. It could be due to the emissions, an unknown factor or chance.
A number of scientific studies have raised concerns over cancer risks associated with living close to a refinery. This is the first study to compile and analyze information about cancer incidence in a large Swedish population who live near an oil refinery.
Refineries release organic compounds that can cause cancer. For example, the chemical benzene is associated with an increased risk of leukemia.
Regulatory agencies set safe exposure levels for chemicals by testing for effects at high concentrations, then, using statistical extrapolation to determine safe exposure levels. This method assumes that if exposure goes up so do effects and if exposure goes down so will effects. But, research is beginning to show that chemicals do not always follow this rule and may cause different effects at higher and lower levels.
Based on the results, the organic pollutant levels in the exposed areas were well below accepted levels and the incident of cancer should not have increased. But actual measurements showed a doubling in the risk for leukemia in the last 10 years.
The scientists note that more studies are needed to determine why the rates varied so much from predictions. Further research could discern if the increased incidence of leukemia is caused by – rather than just associated with – the refinery’s emissions or if some other unknown factor is responsible.
Researchers studied seven parishes in the vicinity of the Lysekil refinery on the west coast of Sweden. Two parishes located 2 to 5 kilometers downwind from the refinery were classified as exposed to refinery fumes. Five other parishes that were greater than 7 kilometers away from the refinery were used for comparison.
The average amount of air pollutants in exposed parishes was estimated from air sample measurements provided by the Swedish Environmental Research Institute. The average exposure was similar to that found in a Swedish city with road traffic, except the levels of propene were five times higher.
The number of refinery employees as well as geological and socioeconomic backgrounds of inhabitants in exposed and unexposed parishes were similar in the exposed and unexposed groups. Within these populations, leukemia cases and total cancer incidence from 1975 – the year that refinery was built – to 2004 were retrieved from the Regional Swedish Cancer Registry.
Reference parishes used as control groups had the expected rates of leukemia and other combined types of cancers. In exposed parishes, the incidence of leukemia was 50 percent higher than expected for the past 30 years – 33 cases were found when only 22 were statistically expected. The highest number of leukemia cases was reported in the last 10 years with 19 cases when only 8.5 would be expected.
The oil refinery and the people in the community were made aware of the study’s findings.

by Al Pefley
CBS12.com

Tonight, an I-Team Investigation reveals there was possible ground contamination discovered years ago in the Acreage.

It happened long before the pediatric cancer cluster was ever confirmed.

A new report shows state health officials likely knew about environmental contamination in the Acreage decades ago.

We just got our hands on a report that shows authorities knew there was a problem.

They were asking about contamination then, and they are asking about it today.

The report is dated October 1988.

And it basically says investigators determined that Pratt and Whitney, located just miles from the Acreage, had contaminants that posed a human health threat. This week, health officials are taking soil samples, looking for the cause of the Acreage cancer cluster.

But this report points the finger at Pratt and Whitney as one possible source.

The report, prepared in October 1988 by the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, says Pratt produced a number of hazardous wastes that it stored and buried on its property.

Even back then, 22 years ago, authorities found Pratt was a potential threat to public health.

As this aerial map shows, Pratt and Whitney, a major defense contractor, is only about 7 miles from the Acreage in northern Palm Beach County.

The report says: “…this site is considered to be of potential public health concern because of the risk to human health caused by the possibility of exposure to hazardous chemicals in the ground water and air…”

Among the stuff that Pratt disposed of in landfill and incineration trenches on its site were solvents, sludges, pesticide and herbicide residue, fuel, mercury, asbestos and unnamed commercial and laboratory chemicals.

The report says: “Human exposure to contaminated ground water is of concern.”

And it also says: “Surface water runoff and flooding may introduce contaminants to the wetlands and canals that drain the site.” It also says contaminated, wind-blown dust is a concern at the Pratt site. Again, that was in October 1988.

Richard Cotromano and his wife live have lived in the Acreage for almost 8 years and they have a 6 year old girl, Elizabeth, with an inoperable brain tumor.

“They should’ve cleaned it up. I mean, that to me is unacceptable.”

It angers him he says, to know that Pratt was identified as a concern 22 years ago.

“Being the area was not very heavily populated at that time…who knows what could’ve been dumped out there.”

We just received a statement from Pratt and Whitney.

It says in part “We maintain a comprehensive network of groundwater monitoring wells at this facility, overseen by state agencies, that shows our past and current operations pose no threat to human health. We continue to cooperate fully with all regulatory agencies in their investigation of health concerns in The Acreage.”

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