BY BRUCE LIEBERMAN, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 2010 AT 12:04 A.M.

Frustrated parents appealed to public health and environmental officials at a forum Wednesday night to do something about what they perceive to be a cancer cluster in Carlsbad.

The county-sponsored public forum drew strong emotions from people calling for answers.

“We want to know what you’re going to do for our town — our soil, our water, our air,” said Stacey Quartarone, a Carlsbad resident whose son, Chase, died in December from large B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. “I can prove to you there’s a cluster here. We’re scared.”

Thomas Mack, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine and a state cancer expert, presented statistics during a presentation that lasted more than an hour — in the end showing data that he said show that cancer rates appear no higher in Carlsbad than across the rest of the county.

Parents, impatient during Mack’s talk on basic cancer epidemiology, said his data were out of date and didn’t account for a rash of cancer cases since 2007.

Wilma Wooten, the county’s public health officer, said more current data are needed to make a full assessment of what’s happening in Carlsbad.

“That is the next step, and we have to do that in a reasonable amount of time,” Wooten said.

Wooten said the county has posted a Web page that will allow people to enter information on the incidents of cancer they know of, and that the county is forming a task force to collect information.

Several parents said they specifically wanted soil testing conducted at Kelly Elementary School.

The National Cancer Institute defines a disease cluster as “the occurrence of a greater-than-expected number of cases of a particular disease within a group of people, a geographic area or a period of time.”

Cancer clusters can be suspected when people report that several family members, friends, neighbors or co-workers have been diagnosed with the same or related cancer or cancers.

In addition to Mack’s assessment Wednesday, two previous cancer studies in 2007 and 2008 did not find any unusual number or distribution of cases in Carlsbad.

Fifty percent of men and one in three women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetimes, according to the state’s Public Health Department. That means that out of a randomly selected group of 60 Californians, 25 will be diagnosed with cancer at some point.

Nevertheless, several cases of cancer in recent years in Carlsbad have alarmed parents and others.

John Quartarone, Stacey Quartarone’s husband, has said he believes his son’s illness was triggered by something in the air, water or soil in the city east of Agua Hedionda Lagoon.

The area around Agua Hedionda Lagoon was farmed extensively during the second half of the last century, and some farms are still operating.

The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society has claimed that the causes of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma are largely unknown, but the rate is higher in farm communities — possibly caused by pesticides.

John Quartarone said he has compiled a list of 265 cancer cases linked to the area of Carlsbad where his family lives, near Agua Hedionda Lagoon.

“There’s definitely a pattern here,” he said.

Bruce Lieberman: (760) 476-8205; bruce.lieberman@uniontrib.com

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Environmental Impact Report for refinery expansion ruled inadequate

Richmond, April 26, 2010 — In an unprecedented victory for the community, the California State Court of Appeals has upheld the majority of findings in a lower court decision that the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the expansion of the Chevron Corporation’s refinery in Richmond California violated state environmental law. The Community members have been campaigning to fight the proposed switch to refining dirtier, heavier oil for several years.

“This decision is a significant victory for environmental justice in the city of Richmond and beyond,” said Dr. Henry Clark, executive director of West County Toxics Coalition. ?African American, Latino and Asian communities near the refinery have borne a disproportionate burden of exposure to pollution from the refinery for decades. And the community has been fighting back for decades – this victory is huge.?

“The court agrees that the people of Richmond have a right to know just how dirty the crude oil processed in this refinery will be,” said Earthjustice attorney Will Rostov. “The court pointed out the legal deficiencies in Chevron’s refinery expansion plan and tells Chevron the simple steps it needs to expand their refinery in a legal way that won’t harm the neighbors.”

Environmental justice groups Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), and West County Toxics Coalition (WCTC), represented by Earthjustice, had sued the City of Richmond over its approval of the refinery expansion in 2008, on the basis that the inadequacies in the EIR rendered approval illegal under the California Environmental Quality Act. Last year, a California Superior Court in Contra Costa County agreed, tossing out that EIR and issuing an injunction preventing further work on the refinery expansion.

?In this difficult economic climate, Chevron has used jobs to hold our communities hostage,? said James Walker, member of Service Employees International Union Local 1021 and local city equipment services worker. ?As a Richmond resident and union worker, I shouldn’t have to choose between jobs and my family’s health. Times are tough. We’re all struggling to pay bills and put food on the table. It’s time for Chevron to come to the table and negotiate an agreement that protects community health and gets people back to work.?

The appellate court found today that the EIR should have addressed changes in the grade of crude oil the refinery would process after the expansion. The expansion project would increase the refinery’s ability to process dirtier grades of crude oil according to experts hired by the community, the State Attorney General’s office and the trade unions, all of whom independently reviewed Chevron’s proposed plans.

The groups charge that the refinery would likely emit significantly more toxic pollution if

it begins refining dirtier crude. This pollution would include chemicals linked to cancer and respiratory ailments, according to the groups’ expert. The EPA reported nearly 100,000 pounds of toxic waste from the site in 2007, including more than 4,000 pounds of benzene (a known human carcinogen) and 455,000 pounds of ammonia, repeated exposure to which can cause an asthma-like illness and lead to lung damage.

“This is a good decision,” said Socorro Garcia, a ten-year Richmond resident and neighbor of the refinery. “There are people like me living very close to the refinery. The refinery has damaged our health and our community. Our health is our future.”

In a precedent-setting decision on one issue, the Court also found fault with the EIR for failing to include specific and proven plans to mitigate a projected increase in greenhouse gas emissions from the expansion and for allowing Chevron itself (not the City) to come up with a mitigation plan later, outside the publicly involved CEQA process. The Chevron Richmond refinery is the single largest source of greenhouse gas pollution in the state, according to data released by the California Air Resources Board in 2009. The EIR indicated that the expansion could generate almost 900,000 tons of additional greenhouse gases.

?It’s a double whammy,” said Sandy Saeteurn, Lead Organizer with APEN and a Richmond resident. “Chevron is hurting Richmond residents like my family with its toxic pollution and hurting the planet with its greenhouse gases. I grew up in Richmond doing Chevron refinery accident drills instead of fire drills. I don’t want my 9-yr old son Nicky to keep doing the same. Accurate public information about the proposed refinery expansion will allow better decisions for protecting our environmental and economic health.?

Chevron’s plan to expand the Richmond refinery — allowing the facility to refine heavier crude oil than it can now process — could significantly increase the facility’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to CBE scientist Greg Karras. “Refineries that have begun the switch to heavier, dirtier crude oil emit up to 58 percent more greenhouse gases per barrel refined as compared with the average U.S. refinery,” said Karras.

“Asthma rates in Richmond are already twice the national average,” said Richmond resident Kay Wallis, a health educator with the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at UCSF. “For decades, Richmond families have paid a steep price for living near Chevron’s refinery. Now there’s evidence that the impact of Chevron’s pollution extends well beyond our beleaguered local neighborhoods – the damage is worldwide.”

“Richmond doesn’t need dirtier crude,” said Greg Karras. “Now we can move onto the task of creating healthy, green jobs that put people to work weatherizing buildings, expanding public transit, and moving Richmond toward economic and climate sustainability. Chevron could be a leader in this change. It can’t continue with business as usual — not for long.”

Through the Web, people from Resthaven area in Will County say they have discovered a troubling pattern of diseases they can’t easily explain.

By Joel Hood, Chicago Tribune reporter

Like millions of old friends and classmates reconnecting through Facebook after decades apart, former residents of tiny Resthaven had stories to share.

Their rural hometown in southern Will County had seemed an idyllic place to grow up in the 1970s, but now that they are in middle age, many are troubled by a pattern of serious diseases they can’t easily explain: breast cancers, colon cancers, leukemia, thyroid problems and various autoimmune and degenerative tissue problems.

“Knowing what I know now, I’m not going to sit still until I do right by the people I grew up with,” said Cathy Doolin, 51, a former Resthaven resident whose heavy metal count is so high that doctors once feared someone was trying to poison her. “This is about finding the truth.”
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So, what began as a way to reach out to long-lost friends has become an Erin Brockovich-style quest to find out what they may have been exposed to growing up and whether environmental contamination could explain why many have gotten sick.

No evidence links any of the illnesses to contamination in Resthaven, and health officials warn the cases are so complicated it be might be impossible to ever know for sure. It could simply be coincidence.

Residents in a rural area such as Resthaven are sometimes exposed to potentially harmful contaminants: pesticides from nearby farmland, discharge from power plants, landfill waste, radon gas, polluted well water and other hazardous chemicals that belie the natural beauty of the area.

Resthaven was the site of an illegal toxic waste dump throughout the 1970s, the extent of which was not well known or publicized at the time. Companies such as the former Mobil Oil, Kraft Foods and others dumped chemicals, plastics, oils, greases, solvents and other waste from several production plants stationed in the Chicago region, records show. EPA records indicate as many as 1,000 drums of potentially hazardous materials were buried at the site of an old septic cleaning service. The site was officially cleaned up in 1999, records show.

Soil samples collected at the site in the mid-1980s showed elevated levels of several known cancer-causing compounds, including chromium 6, benzene and styrene, as well as other harmful chemicals. But tests on numerous shallow backyard wells in and around Resthaven found no evidence that the toxins had leaked into drinking water.

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Subject: Hazardous emissions from refineries are not reported

By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI (AP) 4-23-10

HOUSTON — The nation’s oil and chemical plants are spewing a lot more pollution than they report to the Environmental Protection Agency — and the EPA knows it.

But the federal agency has yet to adopt more accurate, higher-tech measuring methods that have been available for years.

Significant changes will not be seen for at least two more years, even though an internal EPA watchdog called for improvements in 2006 and some of the more sophisticated measuring devices have been used in Europe since the 1990s.

Records, scientific studies and interviews by The Associated Press suggest pollution from petrochemical plants is at least 10 times greater than what is reported to the government and the public.

Some European countries employ lasers, solar technology and remote sensors to measure air pollution, while the U.S. relies to a large degree on estimates derived from readings taken by plant employees using hand-held “sniffer” devices that check for leaks in pumps and valves.

The failure to get a true assessment of industrial emissions hinders attempts to monitor and regulate public health and air quality. And the problem is seen as especially urgent in oil centers such as Houston, where plants line the city’s Ship Channel and nearby residents are ordered to stay inside many times each year for their own safety when the plants belch high levels of toxic substances such as benzene.

“Emissions, we do believe, have been underestimated in general,” a top EPA air quality official, Peter Tsirigotis, acknowledged recently. Asked why it has taken so long to modernize the measuring methods, he said: “That, I don’t know.”

Although U.S. oil and chemical companies have criticized some of the high-tech measuring devices, complaining they do not yield a full and accurate picture, industry representatives say they will embrace technologies that work and are affordable.

Under the federal Clean Air Act, plants must bear the cost of pollution-monitoring equipment. And the newer, high-tech devices could easily run a plant hundreds of thousands of dollars. Also, more accurate measuring devices could lead to bigger fines against industrial polluters and force them to pay for cleaner technology.

John Bosch, a chemical engineer who retired from the EPA last year, attributed the delays to the oil and gas industry’s lobbying muscle and resistance to change inside the EPA.

“They have to update the way they do this, but there are many forces against that, political and economic,” he said.

The EPA has known for at least a decade that its pollution measuring methods are suspect. In 2000, government-funded studies in Houston showed true emissions from plants were higher than reported.

And in 2006, the EPA inspector general, an independent oversight office, concluded that the scientific formulas used to calculate plant emissions were outdated, resulting in “significantly underestimated” pollution in the petroleum industry, wood products and ethanol production.

The report said the problem “has hampered environmental decisions, resulting in more than one million tons of uncontrolled emissions spanning years, and an increased risk of adverse health effects.”

“The air might not be as clean as the agency claims,” the report concluded.

Top EPA administrators promised the agency would update the “inherently uncertain and imperfect” scientific formulas and employ better technology to measure emissions.

But four years later, the goal of overhauling the science is at least two years off, and officials cannot say when — or even if — higher-tech measuring systems will be made mandatory.

Every state has at least one chemical plant, and all but 15 states have oil refineries. States such as Texas, Louisiana and California have more than a dozen petrochemical plants each. The EPA, under the Clean Air Act, has required plants since the early 1970s to measure emissions.

But Neil Carman, a chemist with Sierra Club who spent years inspecting industrial plants for Texas’ environmental agency, likens the system to “a police officer or trooper showing up on a highway every three months for 10 seconds. It’s a joke.”

“The numbers are erroneous,” he said.

Two state- and federally funded studies obtained by the AP found vast discrepancies in 2006 between reported emissions and pollution measured with high-tech systems in the Houston area, the heart of the Gulf Coast region that refines one-third of the country’s gasoline.

In the refinery town of Texas City, the high-tech equipment detected levels of smog-causing ethene — an odorless, flammable hydrocarbon — that were 12 times higher than those recorded by EPA-approved methods. In the Houston Ship Channel and in Baytown, ethene levels were 12 1/2 times greater than reported to the EPA.

One of the mobile laser devices now in use in Europe costs about $500,000 on average; another model about half that.

EPA officials are uncertain whether the European technology will be adopted here. They share a concern expressed by industry groups that the equipment generally captures pollution over several weeks and cannot be used to fairly estimate annual pollution.

The solution, Tsirigotis said, may be to use a combination of measuring methods. “There’s no silver bullet here,” he said.

Karin Ritter, an air quality expert at the 400-member American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s chief lobbying group, said more research is needed.

“Let’s wait and see what technology is the one to rise to the top,” Ritter said.

Other experts say the technologies have proved their effectiveness and should be used by the EPA.

The industries are arguing “you were here on a bad day. So when is a good day? Tell me when, and I’ll come on a good day,” said Alex Cuclis, a scientist at the Houston Advanced Research Center.

One Houston company that uses high-tech measuring systems, Texas Petrochemicals, has managed to cut emissions of butadiene, a toxic chemical used in synthetic rubber, by at least 75 percent, said Marise Textor, director of regulatory affairs.

“We see things very quickly that we would not have seen historically,” she said.

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BY DOUG SCHNEIDER •DSCHNEID@GANNETT.COM • APRIL 21, 2010, 8:50 PM

New Yorkers in the future will have a new way to help them determine if certain types of cancer are prevalent in areas where they live and work.

RELATED
Read the cancer cluster legislation

State senators Wednesday approved a measure that would require health officials to create maps of cancer cases across the state and make those maps available on the Internet. Officials hope the mapping will help them identify connections between cancers in specific locations, and environmental factors such as pollution.

“This information will be very, very helpful to identify types of cancer” within a geographic area, said state Sen. Thomas W. Libous, R-Binghamton. He is one of two sponsors of the measure, which adds the mapping requirement to a law adopted in 2008.

The proposal now goes to Gov. David Paterson for signature. Once signed, it would require preliminary maps to be posted by mid-2012, and updated maps in mid-2013.

Doctors will be required to fill out detailed reports for each cancer patient and submit that information to the state health department. That information will be fed into a database — updated periodically — used to create the maps. Patients would not be publicly identified.

Cancer “hot spots” — neighborhoods where the same types of cancers occur more often than typically would be expected — have become an issue in recent years in some Southern Tier communities.

Near Binghamton, cancer hot spots have been identified in Endicott and Hillcrest. The Endicott issue prompted lawsuits, the installation of basement-ventilation systems in more than 400 homes, and the construction of monitoring wells after vapor from a suspected carcinogen called trichloroethylene was detected underground near a former IBM plant on North Street and elsewhere in the village.

In Hillcrest, TCE was found in soil and groundwater samples taken from around a former military depot off Nowlan Road. Six children from that neighborhood were diagnosed with cancer in the 1990s.

In Elmira, New York and Chemung County health officials investigated a suspected cancer cluster among Southside High School students and alumni diagnosed with testicular cancer. The school was built in 1979 on property contaminated by more than a century of heavy industry. The probe concluded that the site posed no health risks.

The mapping project would help establish environmental links behind preponderances of certain cancers in an area, Libous said.

Libous said the data could help lawmakers direct funding for health or environmental initiatives that would benefit communities that have cancer issues. The project, however, will not include data from cancer deaths that occurred in the past.

The bill duplicates one approved earlier by the state Assembly, which was co-sponsored by Endwell Democrat Donna Lupardo.

Assistant Managing Editor Al Vieira contributed to this report.

McCullom Lake, Illinois – (April 19, 2010) This upstate village of slightly more than 1,000 residents will soon have a decision to make: how best to use hundreds of thousands of dollars that could be remaining at the end of the month in a cancer cluster, medical-monitoring settlement fund.

Philadelphia attorney Aaron J. Freiwald, Esq., who negotiated the 2008 class-action settlement with nearby Modine Manufacturing, Inc. on behalf of the residents, has been actively involved in discussions to ensure that the local citizens derive the most benefit from the funds. “There is understandably a great deal of interest in how these funds are applied to the betterment of the McCullom Lake community and its residents,” explained Freiwald. “The Federal judge supervising the case has made it clear that she wants whatever funds remain after April 30 to go toward a deserving, non-profit organization.” After receiving additional feedback from residents, elected officials and community leaders regarding prospects, he will make a recommendation in a formal petition to the Court.

Freiwald, a partner in the firm of Layser & Freiwald, P.C., is encouraging anyone with suggestions to present them to the independent settlement fund administrator at www.mccullomlakesettlement.com. Ideas may also be submitted to Layser & Freiwald, P.C. via the firm’s website, www.layserfreiwald.com.

The original settlement fund has been used to provide numerous vouchers for pre-paid medical testing to past and present village residents to screen for brain cancer and brain tumors. In fact, two of the cases were detected through MRI scans performed for residents using the settlement medical vouchers.
The first of more than two dozen cancer cluster cases against the non-settling defendants, including Rohm & Haas, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical (DOW: NYSE) is scheduled to begin trial in Philadelphia in early June.

Freiwald emphasizes that there is still time for eligible village residents to be screened under the settlement agreement. “If you lived there between January 1, 1968 and December 31, 2002, you are likely still qualified to obtain a voucher to have medical screening. But you must act before the end of April.”
The settlement agreement with Modine provides that any funds left over after a Court-imposed deadline will be directed to a non-profit organization for the benefit of McCullom Lake Village.

Children born with birth defects which resulted from the botched decontamination of a steelworks will receive compensation totalling millions of pounds after a council dropped its legal fight.

By Stephen Adams
Published: 9:00AM BST 17 Apr 2010

The hands of 10-year-old India Harrison, to whom Corby Borough Council has finally agreed to pay compensation, along with 18 other children and young people Photo: GETTY
Corby Borough Council agreed an out of court settlement almost a year after the High Court ruled it was negligent in the way it dismantled a steelworks and disposed of toxic waste.
That led to a “statistically significant” cluster of birth defects between 1989 and 1999, including clubbed feet, shortened arms and missing fingers, found Mr Justice Akenhead.

Related Articles
Corby children win High Court birth defects claim
Corby: worst poisoning case since thalidomide
Ten-year struggle that echoes Erin Brockovich
Corby Borough Council ordered to pay £1.6m legal fees
Corby poisoning scandal: parents accuse council over compensation
Corby birth defect commentary: a very significant ruling
Lawyers had argued that the mothers of 16 children had been left exposed to “an atmospheric soup of toxic materials” while pregnant, because of the council’s mistakes. They included the loads of trucks carrying away contaminated waste not being fastened shut.
Despite the High Court decision, at the time the council said it would fight the ruling.
But yesterday it agreed to drop its challenge.
In a joint statement with the families’ solicitors, the council announced it had reached a final, binding agreement with 19 youngsters, included three not originally included. Negotiations had gone on for weeks.
The contract forbids disclosure of the financial arrangement.
However, other compensation lawyers have estimated that each affected youngster could be in line for £100,000 to £500,000, depending on how badly they were affected.
Sarah Pearson, whose 15-year-old Lewis Waterfield was born with significant deformities to both hands, said after the announcement: “We are just so relieved our fight is finally at an end.
“On behalf of all the Corby children and their families, I would like to thank all those who have supported us during our long campaign.”
She added: “We would also like to give credit to the council for including three other children in this agreement, despite the court’s ruling last year.”
Louise Carley, 35, whose 11-year-old daughter Ashleigh Custance has problems with her right hand and arm, said: “This is closure, it means we can move on with our lives. We know what happened and we know why and we can get on with our future.”
She said of the council: “It’s the first time they have said sorry. That means more than anything. It’s the fact it’s not my fault any more.”
Chris Mallender, chief executive of Corby Borough Council, said in the statement: “The council recognises that it made mistakes in its clean-up of the former British Steel site years ago and extends its deepest sympathy to the children and their families.”
Although he said the money “cannot properly compensate” the young people, he said the council “sincerely hopes” the agreement would mean they could put the legal battle behind them.
Des Collins, solicitor for the families involved, paid tribute to “the immense determination and spirit of the Corby children and their families have shown”.
He said: “Today’s agreement recognises the many years of emotional and physical suffering the 19 families have endured and will continue to endure.
“It marks the end of an arduous 11-year legal challenge and removes the prospect of further litigation.”
Although the council has decided not to pursue the case, it has not accepted liability.
There are also thought to be about 60 more families considering coming forward to pursue claims against the council.

The poisoning of Corby is widely regarded as Britain’s biggest child poisoning case since the thalidomide scandal, unearthed in the 1970s.

In the late 1950s and 1960s, more than 10,000 babies were born with deformities as a result of what was considered a “wonder drug” to lessen morning sickness in pregnant women.

Telegraph

Elizabeth Grossman
Author of ‘Chasing Molecules’ and ‘High Tech Trash’

The Huffington Post

This is what we know happened. On March 31, 2010, Park Ji-Yeon, who worked at Samsung’s On-Yang semiconductor plant in South Korea, died of leukemia at age 23. According to Korean news accounts, Park began working at the Samsung plant in 2004 and was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2007.

And it was in 2007 that a 22 year-old woman named Yu-mi Hwang who had worked at Samsung’s Gijeung semiconductor plant since just before graduating from high school died – also of leukemia. A year later, another woman who worked in the same plant in South Korea and shared a work bay with Yu-mi died, also of leukemia, at age 30.

There are now accounts from Korean news media, from SHARPS – an organization advocating for South Korean electronics workers – and from an international coalition of occupational health, safety, and workers’ rights organizations – that there are now over 20 documented cases of Samsung workers at On-yang, Giheung, and other plants in South Korea suffering from leukemia, lymphoma, and other cancers. Nine have died of such diseases, including a 30 year-old man who died of leukemia in 2004.Additional Samsung workers are known to be suffering from skin disorders, neuropathy, fertility problems including miscarriages, and chronic nosebleeds.

At Samsung, Park inspected semiconductor circuits – a job that involved using chemicals, high heat, and an x-ray machine. Yu-mi and her colleague also worked in semiconductor production as have other stricken Samsung workers.

On April 2, family and friends held a funeral service to honor Park Ji-Yeon in Seoul where she had gone for medical treatment. Following the ceremony her supporters held a press conference at Samsung headquarters. As was captured on video, shortly after the press conference began it was broken up by police who arrested and jailed seven activists – including an occupational health physician. They were released two days later without charges.

Doris Lee, of the Asia Monitor Resource Center tells me that rules governing public assemblies in South Korea have become increasingly restrictive and complex. Previously, she says, “a press conference would not have been dispersed, but now they are frequently vulnerable to being dispersed as illegal assemblies. This has even happened with funeral processions.”

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Elizabeth Grossman
Author of ‘Chasing Molecules’ and ‘High Tech Trash’

The Huffington Post

This is what we know happened. On March 31, 2010, Park Ji-Yeon, who worked at Samsung’s On-Yang semiconductor plant in South Korea, died of leukemia at age 23. According to Korean news accounts, Park began working at the Samsung plant in 2004 and was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2007.

And it was in 2007 that a 22 year-old woman named Yu-mi Hwang who had worked at Samsung’s Gijeung semiconductor plant since just before graduating from high school died – also of leukemia. A year later, another woman who worked in the same plant in South Korea and shared a work bay with Yu-mi died, also of leukemia, at age 30.

There are now accounts from Korean news media, from SHARPS – an organization advocating for South Korean electronics workers – and from an international coalition of occupational health, safety, and workers’ rights organizations – that there are now over 20 documented cases of Samsung workers at On-yang, Giheung, and other plants in South Korea suffering from leukemia, lymphoma, and other cancers. Nine have died of such diseases, including a 30 year-old man who died of leukemia in 2004.Additional Samsung workers are known to be suffering from skin disorders, neuropathy, fertility problems including miscarriages, and chronic nosebleeds.

At Samsung, Park inspected semiconductor circuits – a job that involved using chemicals, high heat, and an x-ray machine. Yu-mi and her colleague also worked in semiconductor production as have other stricken Samsung workers.

On April 2, family and friends held a funeral service to honor Park Ji-Yeon in Seoul where she had gone for medical treatment. Following the ceremony her supporters held a press conference at Samsung headquarters. As was captured on video, shortly after the press conference began it was broken up by police who arrested and jailed seven activists – including an occupational health physician. They were released two days later without charges.

Doris Lee, of the Asia Monitor Resource Center tells me that rules governing public assemblies in South Korea have become increasingly restrictive and complex. Previously, she says, “a press conference would not have been dispersed, but now they are frequently vulnerable to being dispersed as illegal assemblies. This has even happened with funeral processions.”

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The Indiana Department of Health (ISDH) released a study of cancer rates in Blackford County at the urging of concerned residents.

They found higher than expected cancer rates were detected in cancers of the bladder, colon & rectum & anus, lung & bronchus, thyroid & endocrine glands, and malignant lymphoma. There is also evidence that suggests recent cancer incidence, as a whole, has increased from periods in the 1990’s. Cancer of the lung & bronchus is the only specific cancer site where significant increases were detected during the 1993-2007 time period.

However, there is sufficient evidence that suggests elevated rates are not isolated to Blackford County, but similar rates are present in much of the East Central Indiana region. This generally includes the adjacent counties of Blackford, Delaware, Grant, Jay, Madison, Randolph, Henry and Wayne.

Interim Report on Blackford County, Indiana Cancer Incidence [pdf, 250 KB]

Energy Matters blog by
Roger Witherspoon

For the past 20 years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has used an epidemiologically invalid study to reassure the public that the continuous release of radioactive material from power plants into the surrounding regions did not contribute to increases in cancer.

To correct that unsubstantiated claim, the NRC has contracted with the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a two year study of both cancer incidence and mortality around former, current, and proposed nuclear reactor sites. The $5 million study, which is expected to take a year to design and two more years to complete, would be the first, comprehensive, government study of the health implications of the continuous release of radioactive into the air and water around nuclear facilities.

It would replace the 1990 study conducted for the NRC by the National Institutes of Health – National Cancer Institute titled “Cancer in Populations Living Near Nuclear Facilities.” That study concluded that the continuous release of radioactive gas, liquids, and particles – both intentionally and accidentally – did not contribute to the cancer mortality rates in the counties surrounding the 62 reactor sites housing 107 reactors. From an epidemiological standpoint, that study was flawed in its conception and implementation, and hampered by a dearth of data.

According to an NRC statement, the NIH-NCI study involved a review of more than 900,000 cancer deaths from 1950 – 1984 using mortality records from the counties surrounding nuclear sites. The study looked at just 16 types of cancers, evaluating changes on a county-wide basis. The problem with that methodology is that cancers triggered by long term exposure to radioactive particles takes years to develop – and the nation’s nuclear plants being studied came online in the late 1970s to 1982.

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The so-called cancer cluster at The Acreage in Palm Beach County may be claiming animals as victims in addition to people.

BY KRISTINA WEBB
Beacon Blog
Miami Herald

Acreage resident Gail Bass never expected what she saw from her window five months ago.

The creature perched on her bird feeder looked like a squirrel, but it was covered with tumors.

“It was strange because I noticed the one and it kept getting worse,” Bass said.

The tumors covering the squirrel varied in size and the number of tumors increased over the next three months. Then, Bass said, the cold snap came and she hasn’t seen the squirrel since.

The Acreage, a pastoral community in western Palm Beach County, is the focus of a state investigation into whether a pediatric cancer cluster exists in the area.

Bass wonders whether there is something making animals in The Acreage sick.

Dr. Vanessa Rolfe, a veterinarian with the Bird and Exotic Hospital in Greenacres, said the tumors on the squirrel were probably caused by myxomatosis — a disease usually seen in rabbits and very rare in the United States — or one of several bacterial or fungal infections.

“Chances are not great that is a noninfectious neoplastic condition, but certainly possible,” Rolfe said.

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, neoplasia is “the uncontrolled, abnormal growth of cells or tissues in the body.” The resulting growths are not always malignant.

`ALWAYS IN THE POND’

Bass’ two Chesapeake Bay retrievers both had cancer by the time they were 2 years old, and both died after suffering from autoimmune disorders for several years — one from thyroid problems, the other from Cushing’s disease.

“They were always in the pond [on my property] swimming and drinking,” Bass said. The dogs did not come from the same litter, she said.

The veterinary medical association reports cancer is the cause of death in almost half of pets over 10 years old. The proportion is higher among dogs than among cats.

Susan Coffman saw the signs of a potential cancer cluster years ago.

Coffman, vice president of Doberman Rescue Concern in West Palm Beach, lives near the intersection of Seminole Pratt Whitney Road and Okeechobee Boulevard in The Acreage.

In her home, Coffman keeps urns of all the dogs who have died under her care.

“This is Eli,” she said. “Eli had head cancer.”

Coffman noticed a large number of dogs with cancer coming out of The Acreage when she began working with Doberman Rescue in 1985. She said “warning sirens” began to go off in her head when she tried to adopt several dogs from Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control.

“They were euthanizing any dog that came from The Acreage and had a tumor,” Coffman said.

Coffman said she understands the need for doing that.

“They did not want to house and spend money on animals that are not adoptable,” Coffman said.

Animal control officials could not be reached for comment on their euthanization policy.

Before long, Coffman began to notice other warning signs in The Acreage.

CAUSE OF DEATH

According to the Doberman Pinscher Club of America, cardiomyopathy — weakened heart muscle — is the No. 1 killer of Dobermans nationwide.

However, Coffman has kept records for almost 15 years that show cancer as the No. 1 cause of death among Dobermans in The Acreage.

“Cancer has always been a problem out here,” Coffman said.

Several of her dogs have died and one is undergoing treatment to remove a malignant tumor.

Coffman said she has also noticed an increase in autoimmune problems in Acreage dogs.

“I have tried to tell people about this for so long, but they seemed resistant,” Coffman said. “You can look at it as dead Dobermans or you can look at it as a warning.”

According to state investigators, there are many potential causes for the cancer cluster, including pesticide runoff from farms and orange groves.

The area is also surrounded by several industrial sites, including Pratt and Whitney to the north and the Palm Beach Aggregates to the west.

A lawsuit dismissed in federal court last month accused Pratt and Whitney of causing the cancer cluster. According to a Palm Beach Post article from 1999, the Pratt site on Beeline Highway just north of the J.W. Corbett Wildlife Management Area has been the focus of federal environmental clean-up efforts since the 1980s.

Corbett and the Pratt property are directly north of the affected area in The Acreage.

Lake Worth resident Brandon Zapf goes hunting and fishing at Corbett a few times a month. According to Zapf, he was hunting at Corbett about a year ago when he encountered a “strange” deer.

“I shot the deer, and between the skin and the meat there was green slime,” Zapf said. “I started to dress the deer and ended up just leaving it there.”

Zapf said he has also run across deer with growths.

A spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission could not comment on sightings of abnormal animals at Corbett because, she said, none had been reported to her.

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by GREG ALLEN, National Public Radio (NPR)

In Florida’s Palm Beach County, residents of a rural community find themselves caught in a medical mystery. Over the past 16 years, at least 13 cases of brain cancer have been diagnosed among children living in an area called The Acreage.

State and federal health officials have designated it a “cancer cluster” — meaning they’ve found a higher-than-expected number of one type of cancer in a single area.

As resident Michelle Damone noted at a recent residents’ meeting, that designation hasn’t brought any answers.

“Is there a contaminant out there? Do we need to do more testing? Have we not looked at something? Is there more to look at?” Damone said. “We need to review statistics together. We all need to ask, what do the statistics mean?”

For residents who have been packing into the meetings here in The Acreage, the issue is not statistics but the health of the community’s children.

A Chance Meeting

The Acreage is a sprawling area, with about 40,000 residents spread out over more than 100 square miles northwest of West Palm Beach. Homes are on acre-plus lots with septic systems and well water.

Jessica Newfield had a malignant brain tumor. Doctors successfully operated, and nearly five years later, Jessica is healthy and cancer-free.
Tracy Newfield says she moved here with her family in 2002 because of the area’s beauty and the large lots. The extra land gave her family room for Jet Skis, a boat and ATVs. But about two years after they arrived, her young daughter, Jessica began complaining of headaches. Newfield says doctors conducted tests and prescribed medicine but couldn’t identify the problem.

“Finally, as the tumor grew, in sixth grade, she came home from school one day and couldn’t stand the headache. And so I took her directly to the hospital. We did an MRI. We started to drive home and they told me to come back, come back to the hospital,” Newfield says.

Newfield’s daughter had a malignant brain tumor. Doctors successfully operated, and nearly five years later, Jessica Newfield is healthy with no recurrence.

For years, Newfield says, she thought her daughter’s cancer was an isolated — and rare — incident. That changed in 2008 with a chance meeting at Miami’s Children’s Hospital.

“Two families ran into each other in a hospital when they were getting the same exact surgery. They go to the same church and you’re told by the surgeon, you’ll never see one of these in your neighborhood. Little by little, when those two mothers found each other, and word got out in the neighborhood, we then found there were many of us,” Newfield says.

More Question Marks

After months of prodding, Florida’s health department began investigating. This year, the agency concluded that The Acreage was the site of a cancer cluster.

The finding was a vindication for some, but what followed infuriated many: A state health official said there was no plan to search for an environmental cause. Residents and elected officials protested, and that position was quickly reversed. But many residents in The Acreage remain suspicious about the state’s commitment to the investigation.

Stephanie Peskowitz is a nurse and a mother, with two kids younger than 5. Like many here, she’s frustrated that state investigators haven’t told residents exactly what they plan to do.

A cancer cluster is a statistical increase, but that does not mean there is one single cause for all the cancers in the cluster.
- Lauren Lewis, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

“They’ve just started on the soil testing, and there are a lot of questions about that. So they really haven’t educated us enough about what their plan of action is. We haven’t seen actually even a plan of action, so, we don’t know where it’s going to go from here,” Peskowitz says.

The department hasn’t released a plan of action for its Acreage investigation, officials say, because it’s a process that unfolds step by step.

Carina Blackmore, the state’s environmental epidemiologist, says she can’t say how long the investigation will take or even what the next step will be.

“We will evaluate the data that the Department of Environmental Protection is collecting. And then we will get together with our partners in the state and the Centers for Disease Control and based on those results determine what the most prudent next step is,” Blackmore says.

All along, Florida’s health department has been upfront with a basic truth about cancer-cluster investigations — that they rarely pinpoint a cause, environmental or otherwise.

Peskowitz says she’s heard that a lot.

“I don’t want to hear that anymore, I really don’t, because that was the first thing that was said when they did the confirmation,” Peskowitz says. “And as far as I’m concerned, you can’t start being on the negative before you’ve done any investigating, before you know what’s going on. We want to hear that you are actively looking to see what the problem is, and you are going to do everything to the extent of your power to try and rule out what it is.”

While state health officials are investigating, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also been involved, advising the state and monitoring the results. Lauren Lewis, an environmental epidemiologist for the CDC, says that in decades of cancer-cluster investigations, the CDC has never yet been part of one that pinpointed a clear environmental cause.

She says cancer-cluster investigations are difficult for a number of reasons: People move, cancers take years to develop and the numbers of cases are usually small.

“A cancer cluster is a statistical increase, but that does not mean there is one single cause for all the cancers in the cluster. And because there may be a cluster or there may be an increase in the number of cancers, it doesn’t mean those cancers are linked,” Lewis says.

Staying Or Leaving

In The Acreage, for every resident like Stephanie Peskowitz, a mother concerned about the health of her children, there are also residents like Sean Foster. Foster is a 35-year resident who helped build the neighborhood. He’s a homebuilder who put in many of the wells that are now being tested as part of the state investigation.

What worries Foster about the cancer-cluster designation is not just what it means for the health of residents but also what it means for the future of his community. He says that real estate agents tell him that some Acreage residents are talking about moving at the end of this school year.

I have to heal and make sure I can look at my daughter and say, ‘I don’t think it’s an environmental cause.’ I don’t feel that right now.
- Tracy Newfield

“And we need some leadership that puts out this positive news that defends our community and lets people know that with every good test, that there may be more and more reason to stay,” Foster says.

Realtors are unhappy that they’re now required to add a cancer-cluster disclaimer to homes sold in The Acreage. Some residents have already moved, including one of the families who prompted the cancer-cluster designation.

That decision — whether to move or to stay — is one Tracy Newfield says many families in The Acreage are wrestling with, including hers. She says she and her husband want the facts before they make any decision. If all the tests come back negative, she says, with time, she may eventually feel comfortable staying in the community.

“I have to heal and make sure I can look at my daughter and say, ‘I don’t think it’s an environmental cause.’ I don’t feel that right now,” Newfield says.

Officials with Florida’s Departments of Health and Environmental Protection seem to be getting the message. They’ve opened a special office in The Acreage to answer residents’ questions and to share information about the ongoing cancer-cluster investigation.

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By Louis Sahagun
LA Times

Reporting from Kettleman City, Calif.
On a rainy afternoon in a cramped trailer, the five homemakers listened as state officials with clipboards asked personal questions: Did they or their husbands smoke, drink or take illicit drugs? Had they been exposed to pesticides or other toxic substances in the United States or Mexico? Do their families have histories of birth defects?

Each had miscarried a fetus or given birth to a child with severe birth defects within the last three years. Each suspected it had something to do with a nearby toxic waste facility.

“You want to know if we ever smoked cigarettes or took drugs,” Maura Alatorre said bitterly. “But I’m telling you that if the dump is allowed to expand, we’ll suffer more damage and illness. Why? Because we are poor and Hispanic. The people who issue those permits don’t care about us getting sick from it because all they think about is money.”
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