23 News Investigation:
Cancer Concerns Parts I and II

An unusual amount of Stateline teens have been diagnosed with cancer and now a Madison doctor is trying to find out why.

Posted: 10:54 PM Jul 27, 2011

Reporter: Tina Stein
WIFR 23 News

PART 1
STATELINE, Wisc. (WIFR) — “That was furthest from my mind.”

It’s something these recent Hononegah grads wish they didn’t have in common.

“I was always tired. I actually always had a pain in my rib,” says Matt Rader.

“I was feeling really tired. I would come home everyday and just pass out on the couch,” says Amanda Babyar.

Both have Acute Lymphoma Leukemia or A.L.L.. Matt Rader was diagnosed in November 2009. Amanda Babyar just this May.

“It’s scary. It’s scary because it’s a bad disease and kids are dying from it,” says Matt’s dad Tom Rader.

A third Hononegah student, Miguel Barrera died from leukemia in March. This heartache of a journey has exposed these families to just how widespread pediatric cancer is in the Rockford region. There’s some belief the Roscoe-Rockton area has a cancer cluster.

“I have to emphasize that random chance could cause a so-called cancer cluster,” says Dr. Tiefu Shen, Division Chief of Epidemiology Studies at the Illinois Department of Public Health.

The Illinois Department of Public Health says the numbers are too low to qualify as an official cluster. However, their most recent figures are from 2007, before Miguel’s, Matt’s and Amanda’s diagnoses. During that five-year time period, 36 new leukemia cases were reported in their zip codes. 189 in all of Winnebago County. But the State doesn’t reveal age groups due to privacy reasons. (Click here for a link to cancer cases in your county and zip code. http://www.idph.state.il.us/cancer/statistics.htm)

“The tracking alone is not difficult. The difficult part is to understand them. Is to find a cause of them. The entire scientific community still hasn’t solved the puzzle of what causes cancer,” says Dr. Shen.

Many young Stateline cancer patients visit the University of Wisconsin American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison. And lately, more than usual.

“We’ve observed over the last few months there are more than there seems to be from the last five years coming from the southern part of the state (Wisconsin) and the Rockford area,” says Dr. Carol Diamond, Pediatric Hematologist-Oncologist at the UW Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Diamond is now tracking leukemia and hopes to work with other hospitals and state and federal agencies to pinpoint a cause. She’s most concerned about Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Dr. Diamond sees about four A.M.L. cases a year, but diagnosed ten patients within the last six months, half are from the Stateline. This strain is typically seen in infants, yet it’s now striking local teens like Neal Rylatt and Mitchell Riley.

“We know with myeloid leukemia, environmental exposure has played a role particularly adults. Whether it’s pesticides or herbicides or ionizing radiation, so it’s something we have to attend to in our environment certainly,” says Dr. Diamond.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease says at least two-thirds of cancers are caused by environmental factors. But finding that exact cause remains unknown.

“If it turns out it’s something in the environment or something that’s happening, it’s something that needs to be uncovered and found so we could help other families so it doesn’t happen to any more children,” says Amanda Babyar’s mother, Penny Cure.

The American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison has treated 82 patients for Acute Lymphoma Leukemia, which is the most common form of leukemia. That is what Matt and Amanda have. Dr. Diamond says ten of those patients are from the Stateline. The other pediatric hospitals in Milwaukee and Chicago frequented by Stateline families could not provide cancer data. Rockford’s hospitals do not specialize in pediatric cancer.

Family friends of Neal Rylatt, mentioned above, wanted to let our viewers know a fund has been set up in Neal’s name at Harris bank to help with medical costs.

PART II
STATELINE (WIFR) — When our health goes south, it’s often the water questioned first.

“I’m freaked out to have my little sisters drink the water. I’m like don’t drink that,” says Amanda Babyar.

Eighteen-year-old Amanda Babyar was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoma Leukemia in May. A year-and-half after her Hononegah classmate Matt Rader. And two months after fellow “Indian” Miguel Barrera died from cancer.

“I just think it’s odd. I just wonder maybe something is happening and if we could find out what it is, it could be prevented,” says Amanda’s mom Penny Cure.

Some question whether the now shuttered Warner Electric has something to do with this. The EPA reports the manufacturing plant did contaminate the water, but those contaminants don’t cause cancer.

“The groundwater plume from that site has moved on and is at such a low level that it’s not impacting human health or the environment,” says Matt Warneke.

Matt Warneke is President of Loves Park-based Trans Environmental, an environmental and hazmat clean-up company. Warneke tested several local families’ water wells in early 2009 when health officials found the water at Ledgewood Elementary School contaminated. Warneke didn’t find anything wrong.

“You try to figure out where it could be coming from whether it could be diet, whether it could be water, to me people put so many chemicals on their lawns,” he says.

A clean report far from eases the minds of these families. Especially since the network of Stateline teens with leukemia is growing larger and more complicated.

“It’s the Myeloid Leukemia that’s less common that we’re seeing more of which is very very concerning to us because we typically don’t see that many of these patients. They have a worse prognosis they have a very tough course of chemotherapy. There’s more suggestion there may be an environmental exposure with the Myeloid Leukemia than the lymphoid, so we don’t know,” says Dr. Carol Diamond, Hematologist-Oncologist at the University of Wisconsin American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison.

Dr. Diamond typically sees four Acute Myeloid Leukemia patients a year at the UW Children’s Hospital in Madison. However diagnosed ten in the last six months, half from the Stateline, including Neal Rylatt and Mitchell Riley.

“This is not a contagious illness. I think it’s something until we can sort it out we shouldn’t get hysterical by any means but it certainly is hard to ignore,” she says.

Hard to ignore, but hard to get answers. The most recent figures from the Illinois Department of Public Health are from 2007, before these teens’ diagnoses. Yet endocrinologists use those statistics to determine whether there’s a problem.

“I just don’t think we have evidence to show there’s something seriously wrong at this point,” says Dr. Tiefu Shen, Division Chief of Epidemiology Studies at the Illinois Department of Public Health.

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t investigate unless there’s a known pollutant. And the U.S. EPA doesn’t respond until they’re called. That leaves the Winnebago County Health Department, which until now was unaware of these cancer cases. Spokespeople say they’ll start gathering data from the Centers for Disease Control and the IDPH. However both are long outdated. They remind us the incidence rate is simply high. That one-in-three will get cancer at sometime in their lifetime and it’s the second leading cause of death.

“Everyone has cancer cells in them. It’s just whether they get activated or not. Something is activating these things to happen,” says Tom Rader, whose son Matt has leukemia.

There are known risk factors for leukemia. Such as genetics, high exposure to radiation and the chemical benzene. The EPA says benzene wasn’t used at Warner Electric and it hasn’t shown in local water samples. Leaving no clues as to why this is happening to so many local families.

“It really is a mystery, but until we find out for sure, we’re just going to have to battle it,” says Rader.

Dr. Diamond says she hopes to work with other hospitals and government agencies to better pinpoint a potential cause. And we’ll be following up with her by the end of the year.

The Illinois Department of Public Health is looking to improve how it classifies cancer cases, but that information won’t be made public. Statistics from 2008 will be released in the next few weeks, however even those are from before these local teens were diagnosed.

online article

More than 100 residents poured in to the McCullom Lake Village Hall this week after a crushing development in a court case that many had hoped would resolve once and for all whether a nearby chemical plant had polluted the water and air, causing dozens of their friends and neighbors to develop brain tumors.

In all, 32 separate claims were filed against the chemical company. But recently, a judge in a Philadelphia courtroom abruptly halted the first of the cases to go to trial and sent the jury home, reserving harsh words for the expert witness whose report had tried to show the cancers were somehow linked.

Margaret Boyer, a longtime resident of the tiny McHenry County community, voiced the fears of many when she said, “We’ll never find out how this story ends.”

Some who gathered Wednesday night tried to channel their disappointment as they discussed the offer by the Philadelphia-based chemical company, Rohm and Haas, to pay $100,000 to have more than 300 wells tested and evaluated beginning next month. Although wary of the company’s intentions, many admitted they were desperate. If they couldn’t get an answer in court, maybe the independent testing of their wells could provide one.

“The residents are all in fear,” said Terry Counley, the village president. “We have this black cloud over the village. Between the economy and the brain cancer, it’s very hard to sell a house here.”

Even if a buyer comes forward, it doesn’t guarantee a sale. About a month ago, an appraiser attached a newspaper story about the possible cancer cluster with the appraisal report to the bank, and the financing fell though, Counley said. It wasn’t the first time.

The shock waves from the legal setback in Philadelphia continue to ripple through McCullom Lake, where some residents wonder if a forgetful moment or a twitching leg will end with a diagnosis of brain cancer.

Of the claims of those who lived or worked around McCullom Lake, 18 contracted malignant brain tumors, 13 contracted benign brain tumors and one developed liver problems, documents show.

The judge who stopped the trial last month said he will soon either declare a mistrial or rule in favor of Rohm and Haas. The case involved a widow suing on her husband’s behalf after he and his two next-door neighbors were all diagnosed with rare forms of malignant brain cancer within a year of each other.

The suit alleges that the company spilled, leaked and dumped highly toxic chemicals into the soil and groundwater for more than five decades.

But some McCullom Lake residents who remain healthy after years of living in the community say they don’t believe cancer-causing chemicals invaded their village. They are sympathetic but say they just haven’t seen the evidence. Others have resigned themselves to the possibility.

“(I’m) up there in age, and if brain cancer doesn’t get (me), something else will,” said 76-year-old Eireen Rybak, who has lived for more than two decades in the same house overlooking the lake.

“It would be a comfort to know either way,” Rybak acknowledged.

McCullom Lake, population 1,200, has one restaurant (All Sports Bar & Grill) and six main streets. It’s overwhelmingly white and blue collar. Neighbors know each other and let their kids play together on the park’s green plastic alligator and grassy field.

The glistening, 245-acre McCullom Lake is the crown jewel of the town originally meant as a vacation destination for Chicagoans looking for a close getaway.

Dave Post, a retired truck driver, has lived in the village for 22 years. Like others, he worries he can’t sell his house.

Post, 52, followed the trial in hope of finding out if there truly is a higher risk of contracting cancer in the village where he raised his two daughters.

“My neighbor two doors down died of the small brain cancer,” he said.

On a recent afternoon, he stood in his backyard, his eyes squinting in the sun as he struggled to remember the name of a movie.

“Yeah, ‘Erin Brockovich.’ This is kind of like that,” he said triumphantly of the film, based on a true story about a legal secretary who exposed a utility company that contaminated the water of a small California town.

Rohm and Haas officials insist their plant in nearby Ringwood hasn’t tainted the water. An 8.2-acre chemical waste pit was in use on the site from 1959 to 1977, but it has since been closed.

The lawsuit alleges that vinyl chloride seeped into the water supply and caused the tumors. Although the company acknowledges the presence of an underground contamination plume, it asserts it has not reached private or public water supplies. Officials have previously said vinyl chloride has not been detected in the drinking water.

Rohm and Haas, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Co., has been working with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to clean up toxic chemicals on the site since 1991, and a 2009 letter from the state EPA states that “no potable water supply wells are currently at risk from the groundwater contamination.”

In stating there was no connection between cancers and their plant, Rohm and Haas has previously cited reports from the McHenry County Health Department, the Illinois Department of Public Health, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But attorneys for the residents took issue with the findings. The judge in the case had ruled the McHenry County Health Department report — which stated that an environmental analysis didn’t support evidence of a cancer cluster — and statements from a handful of other public agencies were inadmissible because they looked at the larger population instead of the McCullom Lake subset.

Citing a gag order by the judge, a spokeswoman for Rohm and Haas declined comment.

Although the residents’ attorney, Aaron Freiwald, said he couldn’t discuss specifics of the case, he argued that there was “no doubt based on the facts that there is a brain cancer cluster in McCullom Lake.”

During the hearing last month, the judge had called the expert testimony by Richard Neugebauer, the Columbia University scientist hired by the plaintiffs, “tantamount to being fraudulent,” according to court transcripts. Neugebauer had made a number of changes to his report alleging the existence of a cancer cluster.

The modifications were so egregious, the judge said, he couldn’t allow him to continue his testimony. Neugebauer described it as “a misunderstanding” and said the changes didn’t affect the validity of his report.

The trial’s sudden conclusion didn’t shake Sandy Wierschke’s conviction that the water and air caused her glioblastoma, a rare form of brain cancer. She and her husband, Tim, had made the grueling drive to Philadelphia for opening statements.

“They must think we’re idiots, that people are going to believe that it’s a coincidence,” said Tim Wierschke, 61, who owns a bowling pro shop in Crystal Lake. “This many brain cancers in this little community.”

Every few minutes, Sandy Wierschke, 48, adjusts her crooked glasses. The right temple had to be removed when it would no longer fit over the lump that starts in the middle of her head and juts all the way down to her ear. Her

life is reflected in two cardboard boxes in her living room — one filled with old bowling trophies and the other with empty pill bottles. She is eager for her day in court.

“They just have to admit that they did wrong,” she said.

Her daughter, Stephanie, has put off going to college so she can help take care of her mother.

At 22, she has her mother’s blue eyes, the same blond locks. And since her mother’s cancer diagnosis, she can’t bear to imagine a life without her.

Her eyes fill with tears before she gets a single word out.

“I try to have a positive attitude about it, but after four years, it’s kind of hard to stay positive,” she says.

She worries that her mother won’t be around for her wedding or for the birth of her children.

By now, she’s sobbing, gasping for air between words.

“Mostly, I’m scared that she’s not going to be around in the future, to see me grow up,” she said.

Tribune correspondent Terry Ganey contributed to this report.

–Duaa Eldeib

By KEVIN P. CRAVER – kcraver@nwherald.com

A Philadelphia judge hearing the first McCullom Lake brain cancer lawsuit against Rohm and Haas abruptly ended the trial and dismissed the jury five weeks into the case.

Judge Allan Tereshko late Thursday declared the trial over, an assistant to the judge confirmed Friday. The trial, which started Sept. 20, was expected to run eight to 10 weeks.Ring

A Friday order handed down by Tereshko indicates that his decision is related to “changes” in the expert report of plaintiff epidemiologist Richard Neugebauer, which concluded that a cluster of glioblastoma multiforme brain cancer exists in the McCullom Lake area.

Tereshko ordered plaintiff’s attorneys by close of business Monday to produce all communication between the law firm and Neugebauer regarding changes to his expert report. It also orders Neugebauer, a Columbia University epidemiologist, to “preserve the contents of his computer and any other devices that he has used in connection with this work on this case and/or for communications with Plaintiff’s counsel and his staff.”

That order reveals that plaintiff’s attorneys made an oral motion for a mistrial, and that attorneys for Rohm and Haas asked Tereshko to rule that the company is not liable. Tereshko gave both sides until Nov. 15 to file briefs in support of their motions.

Rohm and Haas attorney Kevin Van Wart declined to comment, and plaintiff’s attorney Aaron Freiwald would not elaborate on the development.

“We are disappointed that the trial is over, but the case is not concluded,” Freiwald said in a statement. “Plaintiff and defense motions that will impact the proceedings are pending before the court.”

The lawsuit by longtime village resident Joanne Branham is the first of 32 that alleges that air and groundwater pollution from the Ringwood specialty chemicals plant caused a brain and pituitary cancer cluster in the village and the Lakeland Park subdivision in McHenry. Branham lost her husband, Franklin, to glioblastoma in 2004, and her two former next-door neighbors were diagnosed with an even rarer but much more survivable form of brain tumor.

Rohm and Haas declined to comment.

“Rohm and Haas intends to reserve comment until all issues are resolved,” spokeswoman Maureen Garrity said Friday.

Neugebauer’s study, released last August with updated data from the Illinois State Cancer Registry, concluded that the incidence rate of glioblastoma multiforme in the area is between three and five times higher than the county and state. The year 2006 was the latest data set for the cancer registry, which runs three years behind as a quality control measure.

Van Wart, from the study’s release to trial, had said that Neugebauer’s work contained deep and significant problems.

A month after Branham and her two neighbors filed the first lawsuits in April 2006, the McHenry County Department of Health concluded that area brain cancer rates were not above normal, and that contamination oozing from a closed 8-acre waste pit at the Rohm and Haas site never reached village wells.

Northwest Herald investigations concluded that the health department’s work was deeply flawed and biased in favor of Rohm and Haas; several company executives got to review the department’s work before its public release.

The original lawsuits included Modine Manufacturing, a plant directly south of Rohm and Haas, which contributed to the contamination plume. Modine denied culpability for any illnesses but settled out of court with plaintiffs in 2008.

On the Net

You can read and watch the Northwest Herald’s ongoing coverage of the McCullom Lake brain cancer lawsuits at NWHerald.com/mccullomlake.

September 13, 2010

Jury selection begins Wednesday, September 15 and opening arguments on September 20 in the first of 31 related brain cancer-cluster trials, in which Dow Chemical’s Rohm & Haas subsidiary faces allegations that include wrongful death and negligence. Here is a summary of the case, believed to be the largest brain cancer cluster on trial in the U.S. courts.

Location: City Hall, Philadelphia – Courtroom 243 (The Hon. Allan Tereshko presiding). Philadelphia is the trial venue because Dow/Rohm and Haas, the primary defendant, is headquartered in Philadelphia. The trial is open to the public, but cameras and audio recording devices are prohibited by state Court rule.

Plaintiff: The lead case is that of Franklin Delano Branham (deceased, cause of death, brain cancer), formerly of McCullom Lake, Illinois, a village of about 1,000 in suburban Chicago. A former contractor, Branham is survived by his wife, Joanne Branham, who currently works as a waitress and lives in Apache Junction, Arizona. She represents his Estate and will be attending and testifying.

Defendant: Dow’s Rohm and Haas Chemical Company subsidiary owns and operates the chemical plant (the former Morton International plant) in Ringwood, Illinois, adjacent to McCullom Lake. Plant operations are at the center of the claims.

Allegations: Over decades, the plant secretly, recklessly and negligently dumped into a waste lagoon millions of pounds of hazardous chemical waste – including carcinogenic vinyl chloride – which seeped into the groundwater, eventually poisoning individuals, including Mr. Branham and at least 30 others who have filed claims. Ten of the brain-cancer victims to date have died as a result of their exposure. Mr. Branham and two of the other brain-cancer victims were next-door neighbors.

Related: An original defendant, Modine Manufacturing, which operates a condenser-manufacturing plant in Ringwood adjacent to the Rohm and Haas plant, settled with plaintiffs and agreed to pay $1.4 million toward a medical monitoring program to the benefit of the victims and their community. The monitoring program concluded this past spring, and the excess funds, approximately $850,000, will be distributed to several non-profit organizations to serve the community.

PHILADELPHIA, PA (September 12, 2010) – Jury selection is scheduled to begin September 15 in the first of 31 brain cancer-cluster trials, in which Rohm and Haas Chemical Company is the defendant. And opening arguments are set to begin September 20 in what is believed to be the largest brain cancer cluster series of cases being tried in the U.S. courts.

The trial focuses on allegations that the company dumped millions of pounds of chemical waste at the Ringwood, Illinois chemical manufacturing plant. The plant was operated for many years by Morton Chemical. In 1999, Philadelphia-based Rohm and Haas bought Morton for $5 billion. On April 1, 2009 the company became a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical, which acquired it for more than $18 billion.

Years of chemical waste dumping at the plant site have caused air and groundwater contamination. Among the chemical contaminants is vinyl chloride, which is associated with causing brain cancer. There have been more than two-dozen documented brain tumor cases and one case of severe liver toxicity in the nearby community of McCullom Lake, a village of about 1,000.

The victims, represented by attorney Aaron J. Freiwald, Esq., of Layser Freiwald, P.C., are seeking compensatory and punitive damages. Freiwald plans to begin his case by calling the company’s former CEO and the plant’s former manager following opening statements before presiding Pennsylvania Common Pleas Court Judge Allan Tereshko. According to court documents, both witnesses knew as early as 1973 that chemical waste from the plant’s eight-acre waste pit had leaked into the groundwater. However, they did not inform state or federal regulatory agencies of the situation for nearly a decade. Despite knowing that the waste pit was causing groundwater contamination, and suspecting that drinking water supplies were being impacted, records obtained through pre-trial discovery document that the company continued to dump waste into the pit for several years and then failed to implement a groundwater remediation plan until nearly another 20 years had passed.

The chemical plant, located in McHenry County, about 60 miles north of Chicago, came under scrutiny when on April 25, 2006, three McCullom Lake next-door neighbors, all diagnosed with rare malignant brain cancer within the same year, became the first of the victims to file complaints against Philadelphia-based Rohm and Haas, its then subsidiary Morton International and Modine Manufacturing.

Modine, which operates a condenser-manufacturing plant in Ringwood adjacent to the Rohm and Haas plant, settled with plaintiffs and agreed to pay $1.4 million toward a medical monitoring program to the benefit of the victims and their community. A Federal judge in Philadelphia is reviewing proposals to distribute funds remaining after the medical screening program was completed earlier this year. The funds will be distributed to several non-profit organizations to serve the community.

According to Freiwald, 17 of the 31 plaintiffs have been diagnosed with malignant brain cancer; 13 have benign brain tumors (most requiring brain surgery and other treatment); and one required a liver transplant due to severe organ toxicity. Ten victims – ranging in age from 42 to 74 – have since died, including Franklin Delano Branham, the subject of the first trial. Mr. Branham died in June 2004, just a few weeks after being diagnosed with glioblastoma, a malignant form of brain cancer. His wife, Joanne, a resident of Apache Junction, Arizona, near Phoenix, will represent his Estate at the trial in Philadelphia.

By KEVIN P. CRAVER – kcraver@nwherald.com

McCULLOM LAKE – Rohm and Haas is willing to pay for testing McCullom Lake’s air and groundwater for vinyl chloride contamination.

The manager of the company’s Ringwood plant made the offer in response to a request from County Board Chairman Ken Koehler, R-Crystal Lake. The Aug. 19 letter from Plant Manager Tom Bielas offers to cover the $50,000 projected cost of testing all of the village’s private wells for vinyl chloride, as well as pay $5,000 toward testing the village’s air.

Koehler revealed the letter at Wednesday’s meeting of the County Board Public Health and Human Services Committee. He said the tentative deal would go a long way toward giving village residents peace of mind that their air and water is safe today from contamination blamed in 31 lawsuits for causing a brain cancer cluster.

“It’s a good gesture on their part, and obviously, they would like to know, as we would like to know, if there was anything that was done to the water,” Koehler said. “It’s a nice, neighborly act.”

But plaintiffs’ attorney Aaron Freiwald said he believed that the gesture was a public relations move that had little to do with public safety and a lot to do with the fact that the first lawsuit goes to trial in a Philadelphia court in about three weeks.

“I’m very skeptical of the motives of the company and the county, as this proposal comes literally on the eve of trial and more than four years after we started with all of this,” Freiwald said. “They have always had each other’s interests in mind and have not shown any sincere concerns for the people of McCullom Lake.”

The families of three former village next-door neighbors diagnosed with brain cancer filed the first lawsuits in April 2006. They allege that air and groundwater pollution from the Rohm and Haas and neighboring Modine Manufacturing plants caused a cluster of brain and pituitary cancers in the village and the Lakeland Park subdivision in neighboring McHenry. Modine settled out of court in 2008.

Rohm and Haas also is offering another $50,000 to commission an “independent expert assessment of the various theories of vinyl chloride exposure in the village.” Vinyl chloride is a colorless gas with numerous industrial uses. It is recognized as a carcinogen by international health agencies, with some studies linking it to brain cancer.

The company’s proposal requests that either county government or the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency select certified firms to do the testing “to assure that such results are both independent and credible.” But county government’s independence and credibility in the matter is severely strained.

Within a month of the first lawsuits, the McHenry County Department of Health concluded before village residents and county government that brain cancer rates in the area were not above average and that the companies’ pollution never reached village wells.

Northwest Herald investigations since 2007 have concluded that the health department’s work was rushed, scientifically unsound and biased in favor of Rohm and Haas. The health department and county government still stand by the work, but Koehler said Wednesday that the health department would have no involvement in securing the proposed testing.

McCullom Lake Village President Terry Counley applauded Koehler’s effort to ask the company for funding. But Counley said that he would prefer for the IEPA, with the village’s input, to find the testing companies because residents do not trust the county or the health department in the matter.

Counley last month began fighting for the county to pay for well testing, but officials told him that the village needed to help pay for it. He said that he was “100 percent convinced” that Rohm and Haas’ offer was a public relations move, but he also said that he welcomed the funding.

“I’m not going to turn it down – I’d be out of my mind,” Counley said. “I’ve turned over every rock to find the money to pay for the well testing. If I had the money, I’d pay for it myself.”

Rohm and Haas spokeswoman Maureen Garrity said the company’s offer was not a public relations maneuver but a response to the county’s request for assistance and a measure of the company’s commitment to public safety. She said the company sympathized with area brain cancer victims, but that testing would back up its innocence.

“Our position all along is there has been no scientific link between the cancers and what happens at the Ringwood facility,” Garrity said.

By the numbers

$50,000 – The total amount that Rohm and Haas has pledged to test McCullom Lake’s private wells for vinyl chloride at an estimated $125 per well for all 400 homes.

$5,000 – The amount Rohm and Haas pledged to test the air in McCullom Lake for vinyl chloride.

$50,000 – The total amount the company volunteered for an independent analysis of “the various theories of vinyl chloride exposure in the village.”

31 – The number of plaintiffs since 2006 who allege that pollution from the Ringwood specialty chemicals plant caused a cluster of brain and pituitary tumors in McCullom Lake and the Lakeland Park subdivision in McHenry.

On the Net

To read and watch the Northwest Herald’s ongoing investigation of the McCullom Lake brain cancer cluster, visit NWHerald.com/mccullomlake.

Copyright © 2010 Northwest Herald. All rights reserved.

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Demolition of Naperville research facility provides little solace to cancer victims’ families

June 02, 2010|
By Gerry Smith,
Chicago Tribune reporter

The former setting of a medical mystery is now a pile of rubble. But for Gayle Palmer, the final chapter has yet to be written.

In recent weeks, BP demolished Building 503 of its Naperville research campus where at least six former chemical researchers of what was then Amoco Corp. — including Palmer’s husband, David — developed a deadly form of brain cancer in the 1980s and 1990s.

Researchers who conducted a three-year study of the cancer cluster concluded those six cases of glioma probably were workplace-related. Yet the scientists never could identify the source of the workers’ ailments.

The demolition of Building 503 gave little solace to Palmer and other victims’ relatives who still have unanswered questions about a mystery that was never solved.

“We still don’t know what happened,” Palmer said. “If we had a definitive idea of the source, it might have brought closure, but we never did get that.”

Once, the 39 labs and offices on the third floor of Building 503 were a beehive of researchers looking for new chemical products and polymers. But after an alarming number of employees at the Naperville research campus were diagnosed with brain tumors — some cancerous, some benign
— Amoco appointed university researchers to look into the matter.

The six employees who died of cancer all were long-term chemical researchers working in Building 503. Five of the six men worked on the third floor, which was later evacuated. At least 13 other tumors, all benign, showed no pattern that suggested a link to the job, the researchers said.

At least two dozen lawsuits were filed on behalf of employees who contracted other types of cancer after working for Amoco at the Naperville facility.

BP spokeswoman Valerie Corr said the company decided to raze Building 503 because it had been underused since BP divested its chemical business in 2005. She said the building also required upgrades the company deemed too expensive. She said BP is considering turning the location into green space.

But Ed Paschke, who developed a benign brain tumor while testing chemicals for three decades at the research center, saw the demolition as a long-awaited mea culpa from the company.

“BP is finally getting rid of the problem they never admitted they had,” said Paschke, who had his tumor surgically removed and received a settlement from the company. “They are concluding the building is not safe.”

Paschke said safety precautions at the research facility in the ’70s and ’80s were “extremely poor.” Paschke said he routinely stored mustard gas and worked near leaking solvents — all without proper ventilation.

“Those kinds of things were just rampant,” he said.

Long after the cancer cluster was discovered, BP’s Naperville research campus remained controversial in the community.

Three years ago, District 200 residents protested the decision to build a middle school near the research campus, contending the site was unsafe because it was once the setting of a cancer cluster. But the site received clearance from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, and district officials moved forward with their plans.

Meanwhile, relatives of former employees say Building 503 was a symbol of the potential hazards that faced chemical engineers.

“Anytime I hear anyone going into chemical engineering, I think, ‘Be careful,’” Palmer said.

David Palmer worked at the Naperville research center for 22 years. He was diagnosed with a malignant intracranial tumor in 1989 and died at age 55 in 1997, survived by his wife and three daughters. In 2000, BP Amoco PLC agreed to pay $2.75 million to David Palmer’s heirs.

But Marios Karayannis, an attorney who represented his father and other former Amoco workers who developed tumors at the Naperville research campus, said researchers knew the risks they were taking.

“Did they know they were dealing with nasty chemicals? Yeah, they did,” he said. “But if my father were here today and you asked him, ‘Would you still have worked at Amoco and done the research?’ His answer would be ‘Yes.’”

Collette Baranowski, of Naperville, said she would get mixed emotions when she drove past the glass-and-brown-brick buildings of the Naperville research campus along the Reagan Memorial Tollway.

Though she has fond memories of working at Amoco for nearly 25 years as a research assistant, her uncle Walter Kus, developed deadly glioma while working there. He died in 1998.

Baranowski said she prefers to focus on the relationships she made there.

“When I think of working there, I think of the wonderful people that I worked with,” she said. “It’s sad that some of them got brain tumors and what it did to them. I feel horrible for their families. It just wasn’t right.”

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