Jill U. Adams
The Los Angeles Times

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered state health and environmental agencies to continue to investigate a rash of birth defects that occurred in the small San Joaquin Valley town of Kettleman City.

Five of 20 babies born in Kettleman City over a 14-month period had cleft lips or cleft palates, an unusually high rate compared with what’s considered normal. Worldwide, cleft deformities occur in about 1 in every 700 live births, according to a November study in the journal the Lancet.

Residents suspect a nearby toxic waste dump is to blame, although it’s only one of many potential causes.

Smoking, nutrient-poor diets and use of certain medicines by pregnant women have been linked to cleft deformities, as have environmental exposures such as pesticides, organic solvents used in industry and infectious diseases.

A high rate of disease within a specific locale, as is the case in Kettleman City, is called a cluster. Here’s a look at what’s known about disease clusters and how scientists go about determining cause and effect.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines a cluster as “an unusual aggregation, real or perceived, of health events that are grouped together in time and space and that is reported to a public health department.”

Sometimes clusters happen just by chance. Disease rates, after all, are averages, but the cases aren’t distributed perfectly evenly: Within a large population there will be subgroups with higher and lower rates. “It’s like flipping a coin,” says Daniel Wartenberg, an epidemiologist at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, N.J. Getting five heads in a row doesn’t mean the coin isn’t fair — and in the same way, a local cluster of some disease does not automatically mean there is an environmental cause.

Certain kinds of clusters are more easily pinned to a cause than others. Examples are clusters that involve infectious disease — such as outbreaks of illness from food contamination or the 1976 outbreak of pneumonia at an American Legion convention in a Philadelphia hotel, an infection now known as Legionnaires’ disease.

In addition, diseases resulting from workplace exposures or from adverse drug effects are often solved because it’s easier to figure out what everyone in the cluster had in common.

There are also some rare instances in which scientists can link an environmental factor in a community to a very specific disease.

For example, a 2002 study published in Toxicology Letters linked a cluster of lung cancer cases in Turkey to asbestos-containing rocks in the area, with which people built their homes.

A 1997 study, published in the journal Environmental Research, found a similar cause for a lung cancer cluster in Manville, N.J., home to the largest asbestos manufacturing plant in the U.S. People who lived in town (but had never worked at the plant) had 10 times the rate of lung cancer as residents living outside the town. Key to unraveling the mystery was the fact that the type of lung cancer involved was mesothelioma, which is a very specific and known outcome of asbestos exposure, says Dr. Beate Ritz, professor of epidemiology and environmental health at the UCLA School of Public Health.

Cluster investigations work well when you have a cause and an effect within a very short period of time, Ritz says. But more often, they are fraught with uncertainty. They’re extremely difficult with diseases that take years to develop or when many different factors can contribute to a disease. For cancers other than mesothelioma, “it’s almost hopeless,” Ritz says.

Birth defects are similarly difficult because there are so many things that might cause them.

No one disputes that the rate of birth defects in Kettleman City is higher than usual. Many doubt that they will find the cause, though.

“By the time [babies] are born, the toxin may have left the mom and never be shown,” Ritz says. “And in areas where clusters happen, there’s usually more than one thing happening: a toxic waste site, constant pesticide spraying.”

And, says Wartenberg, “we know some of the things that cause clefts, but we don’t know that much.”

Moreover, he adds, “even when the numbers are improbable, that doesn’t mean they’re impossible by chance.”

A preliminary investigation by the California Department of Public Health compared rates of birth defects in Kettleman City with those in neighboring towns for the years 1987 to 2008 and found no evidence of a common cause. The investigation will continue, says Dr. Rick Kreutzer, chief of environmental and occupational disease control at the state agency.

health@latimes.com
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Layton family: ‘We are heartbroken’

By Bob Mims, Erin Alberty and Jason Bergreen

The Salt Lake Tribune

A Layton family has lost its second daughter since toxic pesticide fumes apparently wafted into their home last weekend.

Rachel Toone, 15 months, died Tuesday at Primary Children’s Medical Center. Three days earlier her 4-year-old sister, Rebecca, died at Davis Hospital after she had begun struggling to breathe in the family’s home.

“We are heartbroken,” the Toone family wrote in a press statement announcing Rachel’s death. Rachel’s health deteriorated after heart failure early Monday, the family wrote.

Authorities suspect the toxic gas phosphine sickened the family. Investigators say the gas may have entered into the family’s home after an exterminator dropped Fumitoxin aluminum phosphide pellets in burrow holes in the lawn Friday to kill small rodents known as voles.

Rebecca Toone died Saturday after she grew sick in the family’s home. Her parents and siblings also were hospitalized with flu-like symptoms the same day. They were all discharged Sunday, but Rachel fell ill again later that day.

Meanwhile, a Sandy woman, Alice Pittman, said Wednesday that she now wonders if a September 2008 Fumitoxin application by the same exterminators – Bountiful-based Bugman Pest and Lawn – may be connected to the deaths of her two Basset hound puppies. She said the poison was applied in a rodent-infested pasture abutting her fence line.

full article here

By MITRA MALEK
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

THE ACREAGE — Outrage erupted among residents and politicians Wednesday after state health officials announced they don’t plan to search for an environmental cause of The Acreage’s cancer cluster — and instead will mount a campaign to raise “awareness” about childhood brain cancer.

The announcement came from Dr. Alina Alonso, director of the Palm Beach County Health Department, who noted that brain cancer is thought to be rising across the industrialized world, with potential contributors including cell phones, microwave ovens, artificial sweeteners and genetics.

Alonso said the state’s investigation hasn’t pointed to a cause of the central Palm Beach County community’s elevated levels of childhood brain cancer and brain tumors. And she doubts it will, even after investigators wrap up the second phase of their work in mid-March.

“From what we have right now, it does not seem practical or reasonable to start searching blindly,” said Alonso, whose agency is part of the state Department of Health.

“It’s frustrating for me not to give them a cause,” Alonso said. “I can’t make up science.”

In response, some residents scoffed at what they called the department’s “complete mishandling” of the cluster, whose existence the agency confirmed this week.

“That infuriates me,” said Greg Dunsford, whose 7-year-old son had a brain tumor removed two years ago. “It’s like, ‘Hey best of luck to you.’”

Some elected leaders were equally upset.

“To ask us to accept the unknown is ridiculous and unacceptable,” said Michelle Damone, president of Indian Trail Improvement District, which governs some aspects of The Acreage. “There will be no comfort for anyone in those terms.”

Tying the Acreage cluster to a general brain-cancer rise worldwide is “speculation,” said state Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, who is running for attorney general.

“It’s unreasonable to simply say there is no known cause, when many factors could have contributed to environmental contamination in The Acreage,” he said. Among them: large groves and farms, as well as the nearby Pratt & Whitney plant, which has spilled chemicals on its property over the years.

Alonso told reporters that she has “nothing saying these cancers are a result of Pratt & Whitney.”

State Rep. Joseph Abruzzo said he was “deeply disturbed” with Alonso’s general reasoning.

“These are all hypotheses until we do a certain level of testing,” said Abruzzo, D- Wellington.

Since June, the state Health Department has been investigating whether the 32,000 to 39,000 residents of the semi-rural Acreage are experiencing higher rates of brain tumors and cancer than normal. Results released Monday confirm that they are. They show “significantly elevated” pediatric brain and central nervous system cancers, particularly for girls, in those up to 19 years old.

It’s unclear what exactly causes brain cancer, but excessive radiation is a known contributor. Brain cancer is the second most common type of cancer in children, behind leukemia.

Epidemiological experts acknowledge that a specific cause isn’t necessarily linked to a cluster — which the National Cancer Institute defines as a higher-than-expected number of cases within a certain group of people in a geographic area over a period of time.

Sharon Watkins, a state Health Department environmental epidemiologist involved with The Acreage study, wrote to a worried parent this week that a cluster “does not mean or imply that this elevation is related to one particular cause or that it must be linked to a contaminant.”

“I think that people automatically assume that any increase in cancer must be linked to an environmental cause and that is not always true nor can it be proven,” Watkins added. She wrote: “It is unlikely that all types of pediatric brain cancers have exactly the same risk factors.”

Both Watkins and Alonso said pediatric brain cancers might be elevated in other parts of the county as well, but no one would know without an investigation.

Health officials pinned assurances that well water in The Acreage is of good quality based on random samples that the state Department of Environmental Protection took at 50 wells last year. A few of those tests, however, showed elevated levels of radiation, which could have been from natural causes.

Through a spokesman, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson reiterated his call for environmental tests to start quickly and said he would “insist” that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention help state health officials “in getting to the bottom of this concentration of cancer cases.”

Alonso said she would welcome federal help but plans to put energy into public awareness and pushing for large-scale research.

“Our best way of trying to help children is to have early detection,” she said. She said the health department is not planning to take soil samples, do genetic testing or go beyond the interviews it has conducted with patients’ families.

Calling for more awareness is absurd, said Tracy Newfield, whose 15-year-old daughter had a brain tumor removed in 2005.

“We’ve been focusing on awareness for the last nine months,” Newfield said. “I don’t know where she’s been.”

The CDC isn’t expected to step in, nor does the state health department plan to ask the agency to investigate anything at this point, county health department spokesman Tim O’Connor said.

“They’ve been with us from the beginning,” O’Connor said. “They know what’s going on.”

Staff writer Stacey Singer contributed to this story.article online

11:17 AM CST on Thursday, January 28, 2010

By RANDY LEE LOFTIS / The Dallas Morning News
rloftis@dallasnews.com / The Dallas Morning News
s Wendy Hundley and Elizabeth Souder contributed to this report.

Nearly one-fourth of the sites monitored in North Texas’ Barnett Shale natural-gas region had levels of cancer-causing benzene in the air that could raise health concerns, state regulators said Wednesday.

They emphasized, however, that gas companies have fixed the worst emission problems and are working on less-serious sites where the state still wants benzene levels to come down.

“We don’t have a widespread air-quality issue, at least according to the data,” said John Sadlier, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s deputy director for compliance and enforcement.

Mayor Calvin Tillman of the tiny Denton County town of Dish criticized the study for not including enough tests in residential areas or enough long-term sampling.

The town commissioned its own monitoring last year that found extremely high benzene levels.

“I don’t think they want to find anything in a populated area, and I think their sampling reflects that,” Tillman said.

The commission report follows public worries over air and water effects from the Barnett Shale drilling boom, which has seen more than 12,000 wells drilled in metropolitan Fort Worth and areas to the north, west and south since about 2005. With wells come compressor stations and pipelines.

Earlier this month, the commission said three days of air tests from Fort Worth found no cause for concern. It gave Flower Mound a similar report. Wednesday’s study covered the entire Barnett Shale region.

In the state’s latest tests, two of the 94 places checked for airborne toxic chemicals had extremely high benzene levels – in one case, as much as a person might breathe in at a gasoline nozzle during a fill-up.

Both were in eastern Wise County, about six miles west of Dish. State officials said new tests after companies fixed leaks showed negligible benzene in the air.

At 19 other Barnett Shale sites – in Tarrant, Johnson, Hood, Parker, Wise and Denton counties – tests found benzene levels that were lower but still high enough to require reductions. Those sites are all being addressed, Sadlier said.

The other 73 sites in the commission’s investigation had benzene levels that were below the commission’s long-term effects screening level. Below that level, said commission chief toxicologist Michael Honeycutt, a lifetime exposure for 70 years would not be expected to harm a person.

“Right now, based on the data we’ve seen, there’s no need for widespread alarm,” Honeycutt said.

How study was done

The commission took air samples at 73 of the 94 sites. At the 21 others, it used infrared cameras to find airborne chemicals – the same practice that led to criticism of its Fort Worth report, in which most sites were sampled with cameras instead of actual air tests.

The site with the highest benzene level was a wellhead owned by Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corp. Benzene was one of 35 airborne chemicals leaking at the well in amounts above the environmental commission’s level for short-term effects, signaling the potential for health problems with only brief exposure.

The benzene level at the well, 15,000 parts per billion, was more than 83 times the short-term effects level of 180 ppb. After repairs, benzene dropped to about 0.25 ppb, the commission said.

“Essentially, somebody left a valve open,” said Honeycutt. “Hopefully, there’s not a lot of people leaving valves open.”

When that happens, he said, “they’re losing a lot of money.”

Devon Energy spokesman Chip Minty said an employee doing routine checks found a relatively small leak at a valve on a new well. The company fixed the valve before the state gave Devon the benzene test results, he said.

The other site with the highest level – 1,100 ppb – was Targa North Texas LP’s Bryan Compressor Station. The company made repairs after the state provided the test results. Follow-up tests found levels of about 0.25 ppb.

Sadlier, the environmental commission’s chief compliance and enforcement officer, said the state agency’s recently enhanced presence in the Barnett Shale had spurred companies to watch their operations more closely.

So far, however, enforcement has not been part of the state’s strategy. None of the companies that had been emitting high benzene levels has been fined, Sadlier said, since the state is relying on a “find-and-fix” program that encourages voluntary compliance.

That leniency only has a few months left before enforcement could start, he said, although he added that the maximum fine of $10,000 per violation per day might have little effect on a multinational corporation.

EPA role

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is working with the state and is conducting its own independent inspections in the Barnett Shale to ensure compliance with federal law, EPA spokesman David Bary said. The EPA wants to make sure the state’s emissions estimates for gas operations are accurate, he said.

Flower Mound resident Tammi Vajda, whose town has been divided over a gas company’s requests to expand operations, said she doesn’t oppose drilling but wants better practices.

“Every day I lose more faith in the TCEQ and feel the standards they use to test for benzene are way too high,” Vajda said. “I feel it’s time for the EPA to step in.”

Chris Tomlinson praised the report as “solid as a rock” and said it should ease concerns.

“It clearly identified some areas as having problems, but the vast majority were safe,” said Tomlinson, who holds gas leases on his property in western Flower Mound.

He said the state commission is “doing their job of protecting the people of Texas.”

Chesapeake Energy, among the biggest Barnett Shale drillers, issued a statement saying it was pleased that the state confirmed that its production “does not negatively impact the ambient air quality.”

Devon Energy’s Minty said his company wasn’t doing anything differently under increased government oversight.

“Actually, we haven’t changed our practices because we’ve been quite proactive in our operations up to now,” he said.

Staff writers Wendy Hundley and Elizabeth Souder contributed to this report.

What’s next?

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality plans to:

•Investigate residents’ complaints within 12 hours under newly instituted guidelines for oil and gas production areas.

•Install two new monitors at Dish and Eagle Mountain Lake to get a better understanding of long-term air conditions.

•Continue surveys in the area, using both ground- and air-based monitors, and conduct a special emissions inventory, including a gas analysis from each site.

•Investigate sites for proper permit authorizations and require testing of sites with continued excessive emissions.

•Review permitting rules to ensure that authorizations and permits are enforceable and protect public health.

•Continue to provide compliance assistance to small operators.

SOURCE: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality

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By Barbara Barrett | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Families of Marines stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., three decades ago might receive a sliver of military-sponsored health care to address diseases caused by drinking and bathing in toxic water.

Legislation passed by a key Senate committee Thursday would require the Department of Defense to offer health care to spouses, children and other family members who were exposed to contaminated water at the base in the 1970s and ’80s.

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., opposed the bill, saying it takes the wrong approach and will unfairly give false hope to thousands of struggling families.

He and U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., have co-sponsored a competing bill that makes the Veterans Affairs department responsible for health care. They say the VA would do a better job.

Their bill, offered Thursday as an amendment, failed along partisan lines in the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, with Democrats on the committee unanimously opposed. (Burr is the committee’s top Republican. Hagan does not sit on the committee.)

Instead, the committee approved legislation that requires the military’s health care program, called Tricare, to treat those diseases directly linked to the exposure.

It’s unclear yet how much that would cost, and how the military would decide exactly which ailments to cover. Studies have yet to provide direct links between the toxins and a variety of cancers and other ailments among Camp Lejeune’s former inhabitants.

Burr and Hagan argue that the Department of Defense can’t be trusted to take care of Marines and family members to whom it has spent decades denying a connection.

“I can’t in good conscience agree to give these brave men and women a false hope that they’ll get health care,” Burr said. “Do you really believe the Department of Defense will accept responsibility for this health care when it still doesn’t accept responsibility for the contamination?”

He pointed out that the U.S. Department of Navy has been ordered by Congress to pay for a scientific study on the potential link between exposure and disease, but that hasn’t happened.

And he threatened to exercise what power he could until his amendment is passed.

“There will not be a Navy nominee considered on the Senate floor until this is resolved,” Burr said.

Thousands of Marines and their family members living at Camp Lejeune were exposed to tap water contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), dichloroethylene (DCE), benzene and vinyl chloride.

Military veterans already are entitled to health care through the VA system. At issue is where family members also might receive care.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki warned the Burr/Hagan bill could apply to half a million military dependents and cost the VA $4.16 billion over 10 years.

Committee Chairman Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, who sponsored Thursday’s legislation, said he agreed with Burr that families exposed to contaminated water should receive health care from the federal government.

But he and other Democrats on the committee argue that the Department of Defense has to be held responsible for problems it created, instead of being allowed to foist health care coverage onto the Veterans Affairs Department, which already struggles with funding.

That view is endorsed by several major veterans groups.

“Family members would be better served under the Department of Defense health care program,” Akaka said.

He argued that the issue should be handled on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and recommended that he and Burr meet with that committee’s leadership, Sens. John McCain and Carl Levin, to discuss Camp Lejeune.

His bill, unlike Burr’s, also addresses contamination at another base, Naval Air Facility Atsugi in Japan. There, families were exposed to air-borne and water-borne toxins from an incinerator.

Burr, meanwhile, vowed to fight on in his cause for Lejeune veterans.

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School Principal Leon Muhammad shows NDCA science advisor Zoe Kelman the superfund site next to the playground.

NDCA representatives visited the Bayview neighborhood in South San Francisco last week, receiving a tour of the area affected by the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard superfund site. The community has several specific requests:

1. The Navy should clean up the remaining contaminated sites, and not just cap them.

This is especially important given the risk that an earthquake will cause the harbor fill under the superfund site to dissolve in a process known as liquefaction Unsteady Ground: Lennar, liquefaction and other related meltdownsSF Bay Guardian, 12/31/2008.

2. Construction should be stopped until it is shown that the clean-up will be conducted in a manner that ensures the safety of the schoolchildren and nearby residents.

3. Health testing and bio-monitoring should be conducted to assess if the children and residents have already suffered health impacts from this site.

4. Homes and schools should be tested for contamination associated with the superfund site.

5. Long term health monitoring should be provided to the community because some associated health effects can have long latency periods before the onset of disease.

Other Resources

ARC Ecology’s “Community Window on the Hunters Point Shipyard” with multiple maps, descriptions of contaminants found on various parcels, and links to clean-up documents.

EPA page on Hunter’s Point

Greenaction’s page on Hunters Point

Beyond Toxic: Pollution in Bayview Hunters Point photo journal page.

S. Boston cluster may be genetic, not environmental, but true cause is elusive

Elizabeth Lombard is among the residents of South Boston who has scleroderma, the autoimmune disease that hardens muscles and internal organs. Elizabeth Lombard is among the residents of South Boston who has scleroderma, the autoimmune disease that hardens muscles and internal organs. (Suzanne Kreiter/ Globe Staff)

By Meghan Irons
Globe Staff / January 25, 2010

Elizabeth Lombard’s right hand is stiff and wooden, unable to flex or move.

“It won’t bend,’’ she said, displaying the tightened skin that is pulling back her fingers into a crooked and clawlike form.

Lombard has scleroderma, a rare, life-threatening autoimmune disease that hardens muscles and internal organs, and causes the body’s immune system to attack itself.

The disease, which has no cure, has long confounded South Boston, where a cluster of longtime residents from the City Point section – most of them middle-aged women – were falling ill with it. The residents, who lived near a power plant and hazardous waste sites, believed they were victims of their environment.

Their case gained national media attention and sparked an 11-year investigation by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. In their findings, released earlier this month, state researchers acknowledged “higher than expected cases’’ of scleroderma in South Boston, a neighborhood of roughly 30,000 people.

But it determined that genetics, not the environment, played a significant role.

“It’s not necessarily that the community they were living in was producing this disease,’’ said Robert Simms, the chief of rheumatology at Boston Medical Center and a researcher in the study. “When you look at the data, it does not support that.’’

Researchers also said low participation in the $1.75 million study may have limited their ability to find an environmental link.

Without a large enough sample, Simms said, it was difficult for scientists to gather reliable estimates on scleroderma’s link to the residents’ proximity to toxic wastes and other pollutants.

“Those are the things the South Boston study tried to do and came up short,’’ said Simms, who added that the study now opens the door for much larger, national research.

The study found that people with a family history of specific autoimmune-rheumatic diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, Raynaud’s disease, lupus, and thyroid disease, were more likely to develop scleroderma.

For the women afflicted with the disfiguring disease, the findings have come as a bitter disappointment.

“I thought that if we had an answer then we could fix it,’’ said Lombard, whose eyebrows have fallen out and whose face is tight and covered with red blotches. “It would help us make sense of why so many of my neighbors have this horrible disease.’’

Ann Dilorati Macaulay, another woman with scleroderma, recalled being slick with oil after swimming in the bay and seeing soot raining down from the oil-burning former Boston Edison power plant, blackening residents’ clothing and backyard laundry. The plant now uses natural gas.

“I still believe that there is something in the environment that is causing this,’’ Macaulay said. “I do think there is a genetic component, but when we are exposed to it, it triggers the disease.’

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By WENDY HUNDLEY / The Dallas Morning News

State health officials will launch an investigation to find out if there is an unusually high number of childhood leukemia cases in Flower Mound.

“We will do a statistical analysis to determine if there’s anything statistically significant compared to rates throughout the state,” said Allison Lowery, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services.

The investigation is expected to begin at the end of the month, when the state agency receives 2007 data from the Texas Cancer Registry. It should be completed in February.

The study will focus on two ZIP codes – 75022 and 75028 – that cover most of the southern Denton County town. Investigators will look at childhood leukemia cases between 1998 and 2007, the most recent year with complete data, Lowery said.

The agency decided on the study after several residents contacted the agency in December, Lowery said.

Some residents are concerned about the health effects of gas drilling. The issue came up at recent public hearings about a company’s request to expand its operations.

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# # # For more information:

WFAA-TV story: Health officials to investigate cancer cases in Flower Mound.

Flower Mound Citizens Against Urban Drilling
Our Mission: To work in a legal, ethical, and civil manner to stop urban gas drilling in the highly residential areas of North Texas. We are not against all gas drilling, but rather that which will adversely affect the public safety, the enjoyment of our homes, and our overall quality of life. We support the need for better regulation and accountability of the Oil & Gas Industry in rural and urban areas of Texas.

By Jan Hefler
Inquirer Staff Writer

Kiddie Kollege, a day-care center that opened inside a heavily contaminated building in Gloucester County with a fresh coat of paint and little else, is about to be razed, nearly four years after state inspectors discovered the contamination.

Workers in protective jumpsuits and masks have been preparing for the demolition, which is expected to start early next month, now that legal hurdles have been cleared. State, county, and local officials welcome the removal of the building, which has stood as a constant reminder of an embarrassing and troubling saga.

“Our concern for the welfare of these children will be ever-present, but at least we can get the site itself cleaned up and ensure it won’t cause any more harm,” State Sen. Fred Madden (D., Gloucester) said in a statement. “I don’t want any more lives put at risk.”

As many as 100 babies and children were exposed to toxic mercury vapors in the former Accutherm thermometer factory, a one-story concrete building in Franklinville, after it opened as a day care in January 2004. When the state Department of Environmental Protection ordered it shut in July 2006, 60 children who were tested had mercury in their bodies.

Mercury can cause damage to the central nervous system.

Over time, the mercury levels in the children dropped, but DEP reports revealed the building had harbored vapors 27 times acceptable limits.

Ed Putnam, an assistant director with the DEP site remediation program, said the boarded-up building would be knocked down with a backhoe and about 700 tons of debris would be taken to a toxin disposal facility in Indiana. Workers are deconstructing the interior, Putnam said.

Fog spraying will keep down the dust, and the air will be monitored to protect neighbors from mercury vapors.

The process, which is expected take more than 30 working days, will cost roughly $600,000 and is being handled by Atlantic Response Inc. of East Brunswick. New Jersey will pay for it and decide later whether to sue to recoup the money from the bankrupt factory owner and/or the former owner of the day-care building, Putnam said.

“We put them on notice to pay for it,” Putnam said, noting that neither party agreed to assume responsibility.

Diane Lilley, who lives behind the building, said she was happy to see the building go.

“Thank God,” she said last week, as a half-dozen workers were at the site. “It’s been a long time coming. I want it over and done with, and cleaned up the way it should have been done long ago.”

Lilley, a longtime resident, had warned Julie Lawlor, one of the day-care operators, about mercury spills in the old factory and said that the building was never properly cleaned up. But Lawlor, who had rented the facility, said in a 2006 interview that she had dismissed Lilley’s remarks as a rumor. She said her landlord, real estate broker Jim Sullivan III, had assured her the place was cleared for occupancy.

Lawlor is now a fugitive on unrelated embezzlement charges and was last seen in Ireland.

Sullivan testified in a court hearing earlier this year that he had misinterpreted documents that said the building was contaminated and said he believed it posed no health threat. He and family members acquired it in a tax foreclosure.

A year ago, Sullivan had blocked demolition by the DEP when he denied access. After lengthy litigation, the DEP a few months ago won approval to proceed.

A class-action lawsuit filed by parents and the day-care employees accuses Sullivan, the DEP, Franklin Township, the factory owner, and others of negligence. It is awaiting trial.

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Too many electromagnetic fields surrounding us–from cell phones, wifi, and commonplace modern technology–may be seriously harming our health. Here’s how to minimize your exposure.

By Michael Segell
Prevention Magazine

The California Cluster

IN 1990, the city of La Quinta, CA, proudly opened the doors of its sparkling new middle school. Gayle Cohen, then a sixth-grade teacher, recalls the sense of excitement everyone felt: “We had been in temporary facilities for 2 years, and the change was exhilarating.” But the glow soon dimmed. One teacher developed vague symptoms– weakness, dizziness–and didn’t return after the Christmas break. A couple of years later, another developed cancer and died; the teacher who took over his classroom was later diagnosed with throat cancer. More instructors continued to fall ill, and then, in 2003, on her 50th birthday, Cohen received her own bad news: breast cancer. “That’s when I sat down with another teacher, and we remarked on all the cancers we’d seen,” she says. “We immediately thought of a dozen colleagues who had either gotten sick or passed away.” By 2005, 16 staffers among the 137 who’d worked at the new school had been diagnosed with 18 cancers, a ratio nearly 3 times the expected number. Nor were the children spared: About a dozen cancers have been detected so far among former students. A couple of them have died.

Prior to undergoing her first chemotherapy treatment, Cohen approached the school principal, who eventually went to district officials for an investigation. A local newspaper article about the possible disease cluster caught the attention of Sam Milham, MD, a widely traveled epidemiologist who has investigated hundreds of environmental and occupational illnesses and published dozens of peer-reviewed papers on his findings. For the past 30 years, he has trained much of his focus on the potential hazards of electromagnetic fields (EMFs)–the radiation that surrounds all electrical appliances and devices, power lines, and home wiring and is emitted by communications devices, including cell phones and radio, TV, and WiFi transmitters. His work has led him, along with an increasingly alarmed army of international scientists, to a controversial conclusion: The “electrosmog” that first began developing with the rollout of the electrical grid a century ago and now envelops every inhabitant of Earth is responsible for many of the diseases that impair–or kill–us.

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