A new set of reports shows that federal policy on chemicals testing neglects breast health.

By Daily Mail Reporter

Scientists have shed new light on a link between Parkinson’s disease and two pesticides, which they hope will improve both prevention and treatment for the neurodegenerative disease.

At present fewer than five per cent of Parkinson’s cases are attributed to genetics while 95 per cent have unknown causes.

Now a team from the University of Missouri School of Medicine thinks toxins such as pesticides could play a part.
Spraying stops pests from eating crops, however it may also contribute to a host of diseases. Most recently it has been linked to Parkinson’s disease

Spraying stops pests from eating crops, however it may also contribute to a host of diseases. Most recently it has been linked to Parkinson’s disease

The scientists studied the molecular dysfunction that happens when proteins are exposed to enivironmental toxins such as rotenone and paraquat.

‘This study provides the evidence that oxidative stress, possibly due to sustained exposure to environmental toxins, may serve as a primary cause of Parkinson’s,’ said assistant professor Zezong Gu.
What is Parkinson’s?

Parkinson’s Disease is a chronic neurological disorder.

People with the condition don’t have enough of a chemical called dopamine because some nerve cells in their brain have died.

This affects the way the brain co-ordinates the movements of the muscles in different parts of the body.
Actor Michael J. Fox announced he had Parkinson’s disease in 2000 at the age of 39. The disease mainly affects the over-50s Actor Michael J. Fox announced he had Parkinson’s disease in 2000 at the age of 39. Scientists are still struggling to find out what causes it

The disease mainly develops in the over 50s. About 5 in 1,000 people in their 60s, and about 40 in 1,000 people in their 80s have the condition.

The main symptoms are slowness of movement, stiffness of muscles and shaking. These tend to slowly worsen with time although the rate varies from patient to patient.

The condition is diagnosed from the symptoms shown by the patient.

It also increases your risk of dementia. About half of people with PD develop dementia at some stage. Depression is also common among sufferers.

There is currently no cure. Drugs and physiotherapy can treat symptoms. There have also been recent promising trials using deep brain stimulation.

For more information on Parkinson’s visit www.parkinsons.org.uk

‘This helps us to unveil why many people, such as farmers exposed to pesticides, have an increased incidence of the disease.’

Scientists already knew that the disease was associated with oxidative stress, which is when electronically unstable atoms or molecules damage cells.

However, the latest study reveals how oxidative stress causes parkin, a protein responsible for regulating other proteins, to malfunction.

Assistant professor Gu and his team invented a new antibody that allowed them to detect how oxidative stress affected proteins when exposed to a variety of pesticides, including rotenone and paraquat.

They then demonstrated how oxidative stress caused parkin proteins to cluster together and malfunction, rather than performing normally by cleaning up damaged proteins.

‘This whole process progresses into Parkinson’s disease,’ Gu said.

‘We illustrated the molecular events that lead to the more common form of the disorder in the vast majority of cases with unknown causes.

‘Knowing this, we can find ways to correct, prevent and reduce the incidence of this disease.’

Roteone is used in the UK and the U.S however paraquat was banned in Europe in 2007.

The team hope to extend their investigation into preventive treatments and therapies through work at MU’s Center for Botanical Interaction Studies.

After Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease is the most common neurodegenerative disorder.

The condition affects around one million people in the U.S and 120,000 in the UK.

The latest study was published in the journal Molecular Neurodegeneration.

Daily Mail

By Rob Stein, Washington Post

A drug that farmers have given to chickens for decades is being pulled off the market after federal scientists found a potentially carcinogenic form of arsenic in the livers of animals treated with the substance, officials announced Wednesday.

Alpharma, a subsidiary of Pfizer, is voluntarily suspending sales of the drug 3-Nitro, which has been given to chickens since the 1940s to protect them from a parasitic disease and help them gain weight, the Food and Drug Administration announced.

The action comes after an FDA study of 100 broiler chickens found a form of arsenic known as inorganic arsenic, which is a known carcinogen, at increased levels in the livers of birds treated with the drug compared to those that were not, the agency said.

During a briefing for reporters, David Goldman of the Agriculture Department and Bernadette Dunham of the FDA stressed that the levels of arsenic detected in the chickens were very low and do not pose a health risk to consumers.

As a result, there is no need to recall any chickens treated with 3-Nitro from the market or for consumers to avoid eating chicken while the drug is removed, the officials said. The decision to remove the drug was made to eliminate a source of exposure to the substance.

“Consumers can continue to eat chicken as 3-Nitro is recalled from the market,” Dunham said.

Alpharma will continue to sell the drug for 30 days to give farmers time to switch to other drugs, the FDA said.

The FDA approved 3-Nitro, also known as Roxarsone, in 1944 as the first new animal drug containing a form of arsenic known as “organic arsenic,” which is harmless and was thought to be excreted by the animals. While it is used in turkeys, chickens and pigs, farmers give it primarily to chickens to help control the parasitic disease coccidiosis, to promote weight gain and for “improved pigmentation,” the FDA said.

The agency conducted its study after research in recent years indicated that organic arsenic could be converted to the carcinogenic inorganic form.

Although organic arsenic is found in other animal drugs, there is no indication they pose a danger, the officials said.

In a statement, the National Chicken Council, an industry group, said that chicken remains safe to eat. “Chicken companies will continue to safeguard chicken flocks because healthy flocks are needed to produce healthful food for people. Consumers can continue to buy and eat chicken as they always have,” it said.

Charles W. Schmidt
Environ Health Perspectives

After his first child was born, black and blue marks started showing up on Stanley Finger’s body. Jolted awake most nights by his crying infant, Finger would stumble half asleep toward her room, bumping into walls and furniture in the dark. “My wife and I would joke about it,” says Finger, a chemical engineer from Bluffton, South Carolina. But during a routine checkup, Finger learned his easy bruising was caused by a precipitous drop in blood platelets. The body relies on these cell fragments for clotting, and Finger’s platelet count had dropped to nearly a third its normal value. After ruling out cancer and other illnesses, Finger’s doctor eventually arrived at a diagnosis: immune thrombocytopenia purpura (ITP).

ITP is an autoimmune disease, a condition that occurs when the immune system attacks the body’s own cells and tissues. When Finger was diagnosed in 1974, autoimmune illnesses weren’t yet perceived as the public health menaces they’re often seen as today. But according to Fred Miller, director of the Environmental Autoimmunity Group at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, autoimmune diseases are now recognized as among the leading causes of death among young and middle-aged women in the United States.

What’s more, prevalence rates for some of these illnesses are rising for what Miller says must largely be environmental reasons. “Our gene sequences aren’t changing fast enough to account for the increases,” Miller

says. “Yet our environment is—we’ve got 80,000 chemicals approved for use in commerce, but we know very little about their immune effects. Our lifestyles are also different than they were a few decades ago, and we’re eating more processed food.” Should prevalence rates for heart disease and cancer continue their decline, Miller says, autoimmune diseases could become some of the costliest and most burdensome illnesses in the United States.

Read full article at:
Environmental Health Perspectives

But levels may not pose health risk, experts say

By Monica Eng, Chicago Tribune

Just in time for cookout season, some unsettling news arrives for guacamole and salsa lovers: Federal testing turned up a wide array of unapproved pesticides on the herb cilantro — to an extent that surprises and concerns government scientists.

At least 34 unapproved pesticides showed up on cilantro samples analyzed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as part of the agency’s routine testing of a rotating selection of produce. Cilantro was the first fresh herb to be tested in the 20-year-old program.

“We are not really sure why the cilantro came up with these residues,” said Chris Pappas, a chemist who oversees the Virginia-based USDA pesticide testing. Researchers suspect growers may have confused guidelines for cilantro and flat-leaf parsley, for which more pesticides are approved.

In all, 94 percent of the 184 cilantro samples tested in 2009 came up positive for at least one pesticide, according to an annual Pesticide Data Program report posted online last week.

Chris Campbell, a pesticide analyst for the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization, said data show that 44 percent of cilantro samples had residues of at least one pesticide not approved for use on that crop — “higher than I have ever seen” in nearly a decade of analyzing the USDA’s pesticide reports.

By comparison, only about 5 percent of spinach samples and 2 percent of apples had at least one pesticide that violated federal rules, according to Campbell’s calculations.

The news comes as a one-two punch to cilantro growers and distributors, who in March were hit with a rare “guidance letter” from the Food and Drug Administration citing 28 positive salmonella findings in cilantro since 2004 and warning the industry to “take action to enhance” cilantro safety. This is only the fourth such letter the agency has issued since 2005, according to FDA officials.

Samir Assar, director of produce safety at the FDA, advised consumers with compromised immune systems to consider the salmonella findings when choosing their food. He noted that cooking and thorough washing can reduce, but not necessarily eliminate, the risk from disease-causing bacteria.

Washing did not remove the unapproved pesticides found on cilantro samples tested by USDA.

The cilantro results have captured the attention of both regulators and industry leaders, who said they would take action in response.

“I can assure you that some of these will be followed up,” said Ronald Roy, a food safety specialist at the FDA. “When we have a clustering of non-permitted residues around a certain (crop) or with a certain grower, then we investigate to find the cause and correct the specific problem so that it doesn’t continue.”

“It’s something we need to look into,” said Kathy Means, vice president of the Produce Marketing Association, a major industry group. “We need to determine: Why this year, why this crop? What’s going on? … There aren’t that many cilantro suppliers. And so if you have a problem with one supplier, percentage-wise (contamination) may be higher.”

Means said that in the wake of the FDA’s salmonella letter, the industry had been working on “safety protocols for cilantro” and strategies “to be more careful with cilantro in the future.”

Of the samples tested, about 81 percent were grown in the U.S. and 17 percent were imported, with the rest of unknown origin.

Regulatory officials caution that unapproved pesticides on cilantro may not always represent a health threat. Many pesticides not approved for cilantro are OK for use on other plants at certain levels, and regulatory officials recommended taking those levels into consideration when assessing the health threat posed by pesticide residues.

Most levels of the unapproved pesticides found on cilantro did not exceed average limits set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for other crops, the Tribune found. But the fungicide quintozene was found at levels as high as 0.3 parts per million, above the limit of 0.1 ppm set for foods such as tomato paste, and the insecticide diazanon was found at levels as high as 1 ppm, when the limits for other foods on this year’s USDA list range from 0.1 to 0.75 ppm.

One insecticide found on 37 percent of the cilantro samples, the organophosphate chlorpyrifros, is approved for cilantro but, in at least one case, was three times higher than the EPA’s established limit for the herb.

The USDA’s pesticide program usually tests fewer than 20 fresh fruits and vegetables a year from a rotating lineup of produce items. Tested this year were apples, asparagus, cilantro, cucumbers, grapes, green onions, organic lettuce, oranges, pears, potatoes, spinach, strawberries, corn and sweet potatoes — with the vast majority of tests showing no violations of federal rules.

In terms of unapproved pesticide residues, cilantro was the outlier of the group, with at least 34 of 43 pesticide residues not allowed for use on the herb. The next greatest number of non-permissible pesticides were found on cucumbers, with 17.

Azoxystrobin and captan are legal for use on potatoes but were found 16 times at levels that exceeded federal limits, the most such detections in this round of testing. Next on the list for excessive amounts of legal pesticides were imported asparagus and domestic spinach.

Scientists, industry representatives and regulators interviewed for this story say the cilantro test results should be addressed but also note that most Americans — and especially American kids — don’t eat piles of cilantro at a sitting.

* Related
* Chart Graphic: Graphic: 11 foods testing positive for pesticides
* Produce industry seeks to soothe fears on pesticides Story: Produce industry seeks to soothe fears on pesticides
* Prenatal pesticide exposure linked with lower IQ Story: Prenatal pesticide exposure linked with lower IQ
* With no labeling, few realize they are eating genetically modified foods Story: With no labeling, few realize they are eating genetically modified foods

“We would not pooh-pooh these violations,” said Roy, of the FDA. “They all constitute adulterated food. But we are also talking about a relatively minor food. … We have to be risk-based and apply our main resources to foods consumed most often by infants and children — and those are your major fresh fruits and vegetables.”

Still, Means said cilantro growers recognize the importance of addressing the potential safety issues.

“Cilantro is a very important herb in a lot of cuisines, and it’s delicious, and I happen to love it,” she said. “So we don’t want people thinking that there is anything wrong with cilantro. We need to be sure our food safety protocols are up to snuff and listen to FDA and see what it suggests.”

The EPA is concerned by the number of unregistered pesticides found on the crop but believes the small amount of cilantro consumed, paired with relatively low levels of residue, make it unlikely to “present a big risk,” said David Miller, chief of the Chemistry and Exposure Branch in the agency’s Health Effects Division.

Some medical experts, however, are increasingly concerned about even low-level exposure to pesticides, especially in utero.

“The story of pesticides in food is part of a larger story of our growing knowledge of the exquisite vulnerability of the developing human brain to pesticides and other toxic chemicals,” said Dr. Phillip Landrigan, director of the Children’s Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. Along with colleagues, he has been researching the effects of chlorpyrifros on humans.

Serving a diet rich in fruits and vegetables remains the healthiest course of action for parents, said Bill Jordan, senior policy adviser to the director of the EPA’s pesticide programs.

Jordan suggests thorough washing and peeling to remove some of the surface pesticides on fruits and vegetables like apples, oranges and cucumbers.

“And if people are very, very concerned,” he said, “then choosing foods that are grown organically is another option.”

Of the six samples of organic cilantro tested by the USDA, only one was found to carry residues of an unapproved pesticide other than the chemical descendants of DDT, which was banned years ago but persists in the environment.

Pappas, of the USDA, advised consumers who are still worried to follow his lead and plant their own.

“I grow cilantro on my deck,” he said. “There is less waste because I only take as much as I need, which is only a little at a time, and it’s always fresh. If someone is really concerned, they can do that too.”

meng@tribune.com

Chicago Tribune

The National Disease Cluster Alliance (NDCA) is looking for passionate cluster advocates to join them in their efforts by sitting on one of its four committees—Executive and Organizational Development, Alliance/Direct Response, Science and Policy, or the Fund Development. Below is more information about each of the committees and some of the exciting initiatives they’re working on.

If you’re interested in becoming more engaged in the work of NDCA, please send an email to Anna Dillingham, (annie_dillingham at yahoo.com), with the following: 1.) your name and contact information; 2.) a couple of lines about your background; and 3.) which committee you’d like to join and why.

We hope you will join us!

Sincerely,

Anna Dillingham

NDCA Board Secretary

The Executive and Organizational Development Committee: is responsible for providing strategic and tactical advice, for reviewing and evaluating the performance, salary and compensation of executives, to advise, develop and grow strategic alliances with like-minded organizations, to develop and build bridges between NDCA, governmental agencies, impacted Communities and others who share our vision of prevention of disease and empowerment of communities. The Executive Committee is responsible for developing and cultivating strategic partnerships with elected officials, their staff and governmental agencies.

The Alliance/Direct Response Committee: is responsible for building our alliance, creating partnerships with non-government organizations, and community groups and members. This committee is responsible for documenting known clusters and community concerns. It also seeks to empower community advocates to aid themselves by developing and providing access to a variety of training materials and resources, such as fact sheets, videos, online tools and videos. Depending on the availability of funding, this committee will build on our “Each One Teach One” mentorship program, offer leadership training, and organize an annual disease cluster conference. We are committed to using cutting edge technology to reach out to all people young and old who are affected by or concerned about disease clusters.

The Science and Policy Committee: is responsible for advising the Board of Directors on methods, processes, and protocols by which NDCA may best serve impacted communities, by reviewing and advising on scientific methods, processes and protocols which may be suggested by governmental agencies, allied organizations, impacted communities or others. The Science and Policy Committee is responsible for the development and deployment of forward-looking, science-based initiatives by which to best serve impacted communities and by which to achieve the vision and goals of NDCA.  This committee supports legislative efforts aimed at protecting communities from environmental threats such as “Strengthening Protections for Children and Communities from Disease Clusters Act,” also know as “Trevor’s Law,” introduced by Senators Boxer and Crapo earlier this year.

Fund Development Committee: is responsible for identifying and reaching out to foundations, organizations, charitable institutions, groups or individuals who share our vision and goals, who are interested in partnering with us in our work, and who are willing to award grants, stipends, honoraria or funding by which NDCA may establish itself as a functioning, self-sustaining national organization.

NDCA founding member Floyd Sands, age 56, passed away May 29, 2009 after battling brain cancer. Floyd Sands has been a powerful voice about the need for intervention in the Fallon, Nevada childhood leukemia cluster and the need for a better nationwide response to cancer clusters and the children’s health crisis.
Fallon suffered a leukemia cluster so dramatic the odds of it being due to chance alone were calculated to be 1 in 232 million by state and University of California epidemiologists. Floyd was President of Families In Search of Truth (FIST).

Here is Floyd in his own words, about Fallon and his daughter Stephanie:

STEPHANIE’S STORY
My daughter Stephanie Suzanne Sands was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocyte Leukemia- T cell in mid-July 1999. I would later learn that Stephanie’s was the 2nd case diagnosed as attributable to the Fallon, Nevada childhood leukemia cluster.

Stephanie Sands in 2008, shortly before diagnosis

Stephanie Sands in 2008, just before diagnosis

In early June 2001 I again found myself traveling to the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center at Philadelphia to spend the day with Steph; she had undergone an UCB stem cell transplant there on 23 MAY 2001. Although the transplant had gone very well with engraftment beginning soon after the procedure, Steph remained hospitalized. During my drive to Philadelphia I struggled to find the words that I had to speak to Stephanie that morning that young Adam Jernee of Fallon who also battled ALL T-cell, had died the previous day in a hospital in Southern California. Stephanie and I spent perhaps our first hour together that morning in idle chitchat and with Steph good naturedly complaining about hospital food and that sort of thing. She complained bitterly of how badly she missed her son. She could tell that something was bothering me and I could not delay the inevitable any longer. There are no good words by which to deliver bad news and as gently as I could I told Steph of Adam’s passing. Stephanie turned away in silence and remained sullen and detached for what seemed like an eternity. After a while Steph turned back to me and asked me how old Adam was; I told her that Adam was 9 years old. Steph’s eyes filled with tears and slowly those tears were replaced with anger.

STEPHANIE’S PLEA
“Daddy, they’re just little kids. They didn’t do anything wrong……Why won’t those bastards help us?”.

Adam Jernee, died April 2001. Richard Jernee with a photograph of his son Adam.

THE FALLON, NEVADA CHILDHOOD LEUKEMIA CLUSTER
By her own words Stephanie planted the seeds of my activism that June day; her death lit a fire within me.

The Fallon, Nevada childhood leukemia cluster is the most aggressive attack of cancer in medical history worldwide, in terms of time/spatial clustering. The official investigation into the Fallon leukemia cluster recognizes 17 cases of childhood leukemia. In Truth, there are no less than 25 children who have been cut down by Fallon leukemia over the course of several years; no less that 5 of our young warriors have died. The Fallon, Nevada childhood leukemia cluster was identified and exposed, not by the Nevada Cancer Registry or by the Nevada State Health Division, but by the parents of Fallon children undergoing treatment for leukemia at Oakland, CA Children’s Hospital when they literally ran into each other there. Richard Jernee would later tell me that after encountering several other Fallon parents there in Oakland that “What the hell?” Became the word-of-the-day among Fallon parents who found themselves thrown together several hundred miles from home.

The Fallon, Nevada childhood leukemia cluster soon hit the Public consciousness and the glare of national media attention forced CDC- the Centers for Disease Control to launch it’s first cancer cluster study in more than 20 years. CDC and the Nevada State Health Division publicly predicted that their work would fail and several years later gloated in their failure as they closed their Fallon investigation. As with all of CDCs previous cancer cluster investigations, their Fallon study was doomed to be Inconclusive by Design from the very outset. I know of no other individuals, agencies or businesses which claim to achieve success through failure, yet this is CDC’s stock in trade.

CDC’s Fallon childhood leukemia cluster study is it’s 109th consecutive failure at cancer cluster study. If CDC were a horse, it would have been put down decades ago.
Stephanie Suzanne Sands died in my arms on 1 SEP 2001 at the age of 21.

She left behind an adoring 3 year old son, Ewan Mikel Sands, and a heartbroken family.

DO SOMETHING, DO ANYTHING

In the months following Stephanie’s death I continued to receive many reports and rumors of rare cancers striking my friends and former neighbors living in Fallon, Nevada. For months I heard stories of young Fallon boys diagnosed with a rare testicular cancer; other stories came to me of Fallon children diagnosed with brain cancer. The media accounts of yet more Fallon children being diagnosed with leukemia continued.

In AUG2002 along with another Fallon leukemia family I appeared on the Phil Donahue Show live on MSNBC. A representative of the Nevada State Health Division appeared via satellite; he had refused MSNBC’s request to appear in person and at no cost to the State of Nevada. Privately this Nevada State Health Division mouthpiece had confided to Donahue’s senior producer that he could not face the Fallon families in public. On air the then Nevada State Epidemiologist, when pressed to explain why it had taken him and the Nevada State Health Division well over two years to begin an examination of the cases of the Fallon childhood leukemia children, mumbled and stammered “Well……well we had to make sure that our equipment and test tubes were clean.”.

In SEP2002 after consulting with friends and researchers I decided to conduct a volunteer health survey of Fallon, Nevada. In my 20’s and early 30’s I was involved in PA politics at the county and state level. Through my successes with grass roots political campaigns I was known as the “go to guy” for all things involving long shot door-to-door campaigning. It was from those successes that I gathered the audacity to tackle Fallon.

In the PR build up to the health survey the local media in Nevada dubbed my project “Stephanie’s Walk- the Fallon, Nevada volunteer health survey”. The Nevada State Health Division groused and ridiculed my project; it would not take long to discover why they reacted so.

The evening before I traveled to Fallon to do the health survey in OCT2002 my phone rang. Calling was Dee Lewis of Calvine-Florin, CA; a reporter with the Associated Press had given Dee my contact information and told her of my Fallon plans. Dee and her CRI associates would conduct their own volunteer health survey of Calvine-Florin residents the weekend before I started Stephanie’s Walk in Fallon that following Monday.

Early that first Wednesday afternoon of Stephanie’s Walk, Dee Lewis and an associate walked into the war room at my hotel in Fallon. Dee was exhausted, yet she made the effort to travel to Fallon from her home in CA to support me and my health survey. That previous weekend Dee and her CRI associates had canvassed 8,000 homes and 25,000 residents of Calvine-Florin, CA. I was in the middle of canvassing 3,000 homes and 7,600 residents in Fallon. As tired as she was Dee insisted in taking a packet and doing some ground pounding for me, she would not take “No” for an answer. Dee is like that! Several hours later, Dee and her friend returned to the war room after covering their assigned territory. Weeks later as I wrapped up the hard verification process of illnesses reported, one of Dee’s reports turned out to be the “trophy report” of all those cases reported to and verified by Stephanie’s Walk.

OTHER COMMUNITIES, SAME STORY

In 2002 Dee Lewis and community activists in Calvine-Florin, CA became alarmed at the excesses of cancers, many of them rare cancers, among their neighbors. The CA activists were rebuffed and derided by governmental agencies as they presented their concerns.

Also in 2002 Terry Nordbrock of Tucson, AZ began mentoring and supporting many parents in Sierra Vista, AZ whose children had been diagnosed with leukemia. The Arizona Department of Health used every trick in the book to keep the Sierra Vista case count below “statistically significant” levels in order to avoid conducting a cancer cluster study there. AZ DOH went so far as to hand off one of the Sierra Vista cases to the Nevada State Health Division for inclusion into the Fallon “study”.

Advocates from cluster communities meet in Sierra Vista in 2004

Cluster Advocates Conference in Sierra Vista, 2004.

In 2002 Paul Spracklen, father of a daughter fighting AML at NAVMEDCTR-San Diego bumped in to a woman there who seemed familiar to him. During a brief conversation Paul and this woman realized that they had been neighbors living in base housing while stationed at Guam. Within a short period of time Paul was in contact with a number of other former Guam neighbors whose children were fighting childhood leukemia at various locations around our country. Through personal tragedy Paul discovered and exposed the Guam childhood leukemia cluster which struck the dependent children of US Navy and US Air Force personnel serving on Guam.

In 2003 concerned parents of children diagnosed with ALL and living in Hoisington, KS contacted independent university researchers involved in Fallon, Nevada and Calvine-Florin, CA studies.

More recently the story of the struggle of Trevor Schaefer formerly of McCall, ID has come to light, and Trevor’s and his mother Charlie’s work has begun.

Most recently Michael Barry and concerned residents of Victor, NY have discovered stunning clusters of cancer and autoimmune disease among the residents of 50 homes there which sit atop a known groundwater TCE plume.

The list goes on and on and on. The stories remain the same, only the names and faces change.

These communities share one common theme; they have all been neglected and abused and ignored by Public Health.

He addressed groups nationwide, such as this Military Toxics Conference in San Antonio TX in 2005.

Terry Nordbrock and Floyd Sands. Terry’s son Linus is the child in the photo on the FACT banner.

THE BIRTH OF NDCA- THE NATIONAL DISEASE CLUSTER ALLIANCE

Many months following our respective health surveys, Dee and I once again found ourselves on the phone together sharing war stories and complaining about the sorry state of Public Health. We each had spent of lot of time commiserating with others around our country who had experiences identical to ours. Our experiences had taught us that there had to be a better way. Our experiences had taught us that failure is never success. Our experiences had taught us that Public Health has never truly tried to aid impacted communities and in fact intentionally takes advantage of those impacted and suffering communities.

It was a watershed moment as Dee and I realized “Well, why not us and why not now?”.

Over the course of the next year or so Dee and I gathered together with many people whom we had come into contact with over the years. Many of our new partners were folks whom we might otherwise have found ourselves in adversarial relationships with. We joined with people from Public Health who had the “skill and the will” to make change happen. We joined with Dick Clapp, Dan Wartenburg, Frank Bove, Paul English, Amy Kyle and others from the world of Public Health. We joined with parent and community health activists who had suffered at the hand of Public Health. We joined with Agnes Reynolds, Jill McElheney, Terry Nordbrock, Paul Spracklen and others from suffering communities. We joined with other activist and community based organizations around our country. We joined with some of the finest minds in Science. We joined with Mark Witten, PhD of the University of Arizona, Karen Montgomery, PhD of the University of Wisconsin, and others already mentioned here.

We all are from very different backgrounds and areas of expertise, yet we are all much the same in one very important way. We all have the skill and the will, the focus and the desire to reach across the table for the common good. We all have the passion and the desire to drive change.

Floyd with Charlie Smith, mother of Trevor Schaefer, at an NDCA event with keynote speaker Jocelyn Elders. Floyd and Trevor together led the NDCA Direct Response committee, and Floyd would be amazingly proud of Trevor’s tremendous advocacy for Trevor’s Law.

WHAT NDCA DOES

We reach out to, mentor and advise communities experiencing emerging disease clusters and those suffering toxic assaults. We work with impacted communities to become self-determining and self-empowered. We respond to each and every community which seeks our help.

We bridge gaps between historical adversaries and grow our alliances to benefit impacted communities.

We only accept success; failure is never an option.

We do what we do, because no one else will.

Personal Vision

It is my dream and my personal vision that I help communities facing emerging disease clusters.

It is my dream and my personal vision to contribute to those communities’ efforts to become empowered, to become self determining, to take their futures into their own hands, and to mentor those communities as they seek answers to the problems which they face.

It is my dream and my personal vision to travel to these communities and to work with them in their daily struggles.

It is my dream and my personal vision to help develop and build a new way of thinking and a new way of studying emerging disease clusters, to access and share the tools and resources necessary to build bridges between communities, governmental agencies and the Future.

It is my dream and my personal vision that no community ever endures what Fallon, Nevada and our Children endured, and lost.

–Floyd Sands 2008

Today is Such A Sad Day

Unfortunately, Floyd was diagnosed with a brain tumor later in 2008 and died on May 29, 2009. Here are tributes from some of us who loved him:

Today is Such a Sad Day

by Dee Lewis

National Disease Clusters Alliance

This page also contains Floyd’s personal vision statement and resolve to end his silence and fight for children and communities.

Fallon cancer cluster activist dies of brain cancer

by Bryant Furlow

Epi Medical News & Expose

Floyd Sands’ March Through Georgia

by Jill McElheney

MICAH’s Mission

Floyd Sands and Matthew Warneke. Photo by Robert Farmer, taken at the

Matt Warneke’s Tribute to Floyd Sands

Rest in Peace, Floyd.

If you want to help continue the work Floyd dedicated himself to, consider getting involved with NDCA. You can:

Write for the Cluster Wiki
Make a donation
Volunteer or Serve on a committee

Questions? Call 877-676-NDCA (6322) or email terry@clusteralliance.org

The proportion of children and teens in the U.S. who have a developmental disability such as autism has increased 17% since the late 1990s, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Between 1997 and 2008, the number of children with a disability rose from 8.2 million to roughly 10 million, or more than 15% of all kids between the ages of 3 and 17, the researchers found.
This upward trend has been driven largely by surges in the number of children found to have autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, although the prevalence of stuttering and learning disabilities has also increased.

By Kelly Kennedy, USA TODAY

U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait have inhaled microscopic dust particles laden with toxic metals, bacteria and fungi — a toxic stew that may explain everything from the undiagnosed Gulf War Syndrome symptoms lingering from the 1991 war against Iraq to high rates of respiratory, neurological and heart ailments encountered in the current wars, scientists say.

“From my research and that of others, I really think this may be the smoking gun,” says Navy Capt. Mark Lyles, chair of medical sciences and biotechnology at the Center for Naval Warfare Studies at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. “It fits everything — symptoms, timing, everything.”

Lyles and other researchers found that dust particles — up to 1,000 of which can sit on the head of a pin — gathered in Iraq and Kuwait contain 37 metals, including aluminum, lead, manganese, strontium and tin. The metals have been linked to neurological disorders, cancer, respiratory ailments, depression and heart disease, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Researchers believe the metals occur both naturally and as a byproduct of pollution.

Researchers in and out of the military say the particles are smaller and easier to inhale than most dust particles, and that recent droughts in the region have killed desert shrubs that helped keep down that dust. The military’s heavy vehicles have pounded the desert’s protective crust into a layer of fine silt, Lyles says. Servicemembers breathe the dust — and all it carries — deeply into their lungs.

The dust contains 147 different kinds of bacteria, as well as fungi that could spread disease, Lyles found. Since the wars began in Iraq in 2003 and in Afghanistan in 2001, the military has seen a 251% increase in the rate of neurological disorders per 10,000 active-duty servicemembers, a 47% rise in the rate of respiratory issues and a 34% increase in the rate of cardiovascular disease, according to a USA TODAY analysis of military morbidity records from 2001 to 2010. Those increases have researchers seeking possible causes.

Despite the research by Lyles and others, and the documented spikes in respiratory illnesses, Defense Department officials contend there are no health issues associated with the dust.
Researcher: Windbornedust more dangerous

Until about a decade ago, scientists believed that any pathogen living in desert dust would be killed if it made its way into the daylight.

But emerging research questions whether that is true, as well as how wind-bornedust might spread disease.

William Sprigg , a science professor at Chapman University in California and the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Arizona , works with medical researchers to try to understand how dust interacts with human cardiovascular and respiratory symptoms, as well as how dust may spread disease. He uses NASA satellites to predict dust storms and where they might travel so susceptible populations — such as people with asthma or heart problems — can be warned. He advises the New Mexico and Arizona state health departments about his predictions.

Researchers have found previously that Saharan dust storms may spread meningitis through central Africa, he says, and Americans get “valley fever” every year from a fungus that may spread through airborne dust.

Sprigg first looked at dust from Africa 10 years ago.

“I was shocked,” he says. “The current wisdom is that any bacteria or virus that might be alive, after it hits the air, it’s exposed to ultraviolet radiation and killed.”

But weather systems pick up the particles, protecting them from ultraviolet radiation with clouds, outside layers of yet more bacteria, and the sun-blocking dust itself.

“I think it can fly for hundreds of miles and not contact sunlight,” he says.

He’s also looked samples found in air above the Atlantic Ocean and found that some of the bacteria could cause ear infections and mouth lesions. And researchers have identified 213 viruses and 201 species of fungi in African dust. That dust has traveled as far as Florida, says Dale Griffin , an environmental public health microbiologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

Griffin said dust blowing through the Caribbean islands from Africa may have caused more cases of asthma in children on Caribbean islands — the asthma rate in Barbados is 17 times greater than it was in 1973.

The Environmental Protection Agency has issued guidelines for particulate matter in the past, but the organization focused on industrial pollution, rather than the possibility that naturally occurring dust could cause a problem, Sprigg says.

He said more research funding needs to go toward researching disease and dust, as well as to predicting dust storms and letting people know when they should stay inside.

“We need to encourage measurement,” he says. “We need to determine what is in it. We need to forecast it.”

“The (Defense Department) has examined the concerns raised by the studies accomplished by Capt. Lyles,” says Craig Postlewaite, who heads up the Secretary of Defense’s Force Readiness and Health Assurance Office. He said the military found the dust is “not noticeably different from samples collected in the Sahara Desert and desert regions in the U.S. and China.”

*
STORY: Harmful elements found in war-zone dust
*
MORE: U.S. lives lost in Iraq, Afghanistan

Lyles initially analyzed dust samples from Iraq and Kuwait in 2003 to help determine a way to keep the grit from rendering medical equipment useless.

“When I saw the data, I said, ‘Oh my God. This can’t be right,’” Lyles says.

Harry Fannin, a chemistry professor at Murray State University, analyzed the dust for Lyles in late 2004.

“It was a little bit unusual,” he says, citing high levels of chromium, nickel and other metals.

“You wouldn’t see metal like that in the U.S.,” he says, adding he was most concerned about the tiny size of the particles. “Any time you have respirable particles, it’s bad.”

Scientists know fine particulate matter — that smaller than 10 micrometers, or about one-fourth the size of a single grain of table salt — can cause lung and respiratory problems.

Catherine Cahill, associate professor at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska, began collecting airborne dust for the military with the Army Research Lab in Baghdad in 2008.

“I’ve done sampling since 1986, and I’ve never seen anything that bad — not even in China,” she says, referring to China’s extreme levels of pollution. The everyday fine particulate matter levels in Iraq were about three times greater than what the EPA says is healthy within a 24-hour period, she says — and those levels should not be exceeded more than once per year. “We’re blowing that standard out of the water.”

She called the abundance of aluminum and lead she found “our worst-case scenarios.” Cahill says her research mirrors the work done by Lyles.

“Most things are high is the bottom line,” she says. “I would expect chronic coughs, asthma, respiratory disease in the short term; and (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), heart problems and hypertension long-term. Mark’s theory, to me, makes perfect sense.”

Lyles’ team found almost 150 kinds of bacteria, 25% of which may cause or worsen diseases such as meningitis, cystic fibrosis, septic arthritis, gastroenteritis, staph infections, diarrhea and food poisoning.

Defense: Not so fast

The Defense Department says it hasn’t linked any illnesses among servicemembers to bacteria in the soil.

“All soil, no matter where it is found, has germs present, so this finding is not unusual,” Postlewaite says. “We have closely examined our medical surveillance data for those personnel who have deployed — some multiple times — and we have not been able to identify any increased disease that could be associated with the germs that were identified in the soil.”

But Lyles found others who saw anomalies.

Bob Miller, a pulmonologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, worked with 101st Airborne soldiers at Fort Campbell, Ky., after they complained of being short of breath and unable to run as fast as they had before they deployed.

Many had been exposed to a sulfur fire in Mosul, Iraq. They also had been exposed to burn pits — the military disposes of trash at bases in Iraq and Afghanistan by burning as much as 240 tons of it a day in open pits. All of them came through chest X-rays and CT scans with clean bills of health. The soldiers volunteered for a procedure to obtain lung cell samples, and when Miller examined the biopsies, 50 of 54 showed constrictive bronchiolitis — a rare lung disease that closes the tiniest airways.

Those biopsies also turned up dust.

“A polarizing lens shows sparkling — that’s the dust,” Miller says. “It is a concern.”

He plans to analyze that dust, as well as a brown pigment mixed with it.

“(Lyles) has pretty convincing evidence that the dust is a carrier of toxins,” Miller says. “But we need more information before we can make any sweeping generalizations.”

Veterans Affairs researcher Anthony Szema found that about 7% of veterans who had deployed to Iraq from 2004 to 2007 had asthma, compared with about 4% who did not deploy. Then he heard about the burn pits, as well as Lyles’ theories.

“Lyles gave a lecture in Denver,” Szema says. “Everyone’s jaw was falling on the floor.”

The range of respiratory disease he saw didn’t appear to be caused by one problem. And it seems to be getting worse: About 11% of soldiers returning from Iraq have respiratory problems, he says.

Ronnie Horner, chairman of the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Cincinnati, saw clusters of servicemembers with ALS— or Lou Gehrig’s Disease — after the 1991 war in Iraq.

ALS affects about 1 to 2 people per 100,000 — usually men older than 55. Half the Desert Storm veterans diagnosed with ALS were younger than 25, and 98% were younger than 55.

“We know that aluminum has been associated with ALS, as well as lead,” Horner says. “We were definitely interested in Lyles’ work.”

And early heavy-metal poisoning symptoms also look the same as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), he says. “It’s all speculation,” he says. “But it’s very intriguing, especially when there are such high levels of PTSD.”

Former Army specialist Jeremy Bowman, 33, worked as a mechanic in Baghdad in 2003. While he was still in theater, his hands began to shake as if he were nervous. Now the shaking shimmies up his arms, into his legs and sometimes into his face. He takes medication to prevent the shaking from interfering with his daily life. His legs often feel numb or tingly, his back hurts and his leg muscles feel weak.

“It all falls under ‘neurological signs and symptoms,’ but nobody knows what it is,” he says. “Everything new that comes out — burn pits, dust, depleted uranium — I think, ‘Maybe that’s it.’”

Bowman also has troubles breathing since he deployed and must use an inhaler.

Capt. J.A. “Cappy” Surrette, spokesman for the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, said Navy researchers investigated to see whether the dust in Iraq and Afghanistan is toxic. The Navy has no record of troops complaining of cognitive difficulties unrelated to traumatic brain injuries, he says.

However, he says the Naval Health Research laboratory found that trace metals in the dust showed levels of toxicity.

“There is no definitive basis to say the sand is harmful to people or animals,” he says.

However, one Navy study is examining the toxicity of sand from Afghanistan to see how it affects cell death, he says. A second is looking at whether Afghanistan dust contributes to brain trauma pathology in animals.

Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Rob Erckenbrack, 40, of West Fargo, N.D., deployed at Taqaddum, Iraq, in 2006, and guarded the perimeter at Taji, Iraq, in 2008. He began losing weight, and having respiratory problems and migraines. He also dealt with short-term memory loss but says he was not in an incident that would have caused a traumatic brain injury. In June 2010, he had a stroke.

“My doctors were surprised because I’m a healthy, active, adult,” he says. “Then another guy from my unit went through the same thing.”

Dale Griffin, an environmental public health microbiologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, also found metals and bacteria in the dust.

“We know that certain metals are toxic,” he says. “I believe there is a risk there.”

‘It’s a very complex problem’

Early in the 2003 Iraq War, a rare flu — eosinophilic pneumonia — infected 18 and killed two servicemembers in Iraq, according to a military study. Researchers theorized that the bacteria entered troops’ lungs through the dust or through bacteria picked up from the ground from tobacco in foreign cigarettes.

In 2003, Richard Stumbo worked as a civilian contractor for the Department of the Army when he became sick with a flu so bad he had to be airlifted out of Iraq.

“My doctor said he thought it was some kind of bacteria in the dust that I picked up,” Stumbo says. “My boss called me after I got home and told me a couple of the guys had died.”

It took Stumbo two months to recover.

Geoff Plumlee, a research geochemist with the U.S. Geological Survey, sifted through dust samples in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks in 2001 to determine what in that particulate matter might affect first responders. His work led to legislation meant to take care of people with respiratory problems and cancers who had breathed in the dust.

After looking at Lyles’ work, as well as military-sponsored and EPA research, Plumlee said he wants to see more.

“It’s a very complex problem,” he says. “I think all of the different studies are pointing to a need for a very detailed look.”

Richard Meehan, chief of rheumatology at National Jewish Health in Denver, assisted the Army’s Public Health Command with a particulate matter study.

National Jewish had received several cases similar to those of Miller’s at Vanderbilt, and Meehan began to think it might be more than simply the burn pits. “We wanted to know why we were seeing these rare injuries that Bob Miller was finding,” Meehan says.

He is part of a team working on a study to determine how to address the problem. “We need to see this in peer-reviewed journals,” Meehan says. “I’d like to have this done correctly upfront so we don’t end up with another Agent Orange.”

Meehan emphasized that the dust isn’t the only problem: Stress causes post-traumatic stress disorder. Explosions cause traumatic brain injuries. And burn pits shape yet another piece of the puzzle.

“I don’t want a false cause,” he says. “You miss really discovering what else is out there.”

Meanwhile, Lyles says he wants samples taken in several places to determine hot spots in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan. He wants to follow people in units to see how they fare after exposures. He wants toxicology studies and more animal studies. And he wants the military to take notice.

“This has to be confronted,” he says.

USA Today

CDC and partners reinforce World Asthma Day’s message take control of your asthma

People diagnosed with asthma in the United States grew by 4.3 million between 2001 and 2009, according to a new Vital Signs report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2009, nearly 1 in 12 Americans were diagnosed with asthma. In addition to increased diagnoses, asthma costs grew from about $53 billion in 2002 to about $56 billion in 2007, about a 6 percent increase. The explanation for the growth in asthma rates is unknown.

Asthma is a lifelong disease that causes wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness, and coughing, though people with asthma can control symptoms and prevent asthma attacks by avoiding things that can set off an asthma attacks, and correctly using prescribed medicine, like inhaled corticosteroids. The report highlights the benefits of essential asthma education and services that reduce the impact of these triggers, but most often these benefits are not covered by health insurers.

“Despite the fact that outdoor air quality has improved, we’ve reduced two common asthma triggers—secondhand smoke and smoking in general—asthma is increasing,” said Paul Garbe, D.V.M., M.P.H, chief of CDC’s Air Pollution and Respiratory Health Branch. “While we don’t know the cause of the increase, our top priority is getting people to manage their symptoms better.”

Asthma triggers are usually environmental and can be found at school, work, home, outdoors, and elsewhere and can include tobacco smoke, mold, outdoor air pollution, and infections linked to influenza, cold-like symptoms, and other viruses.

Asthma diagnoses increased among all demographic groups between 2001 and 2009, though a higher percentage of children reported having asthma than adults (9.6 percent compared to 7.7 percent in 2009), Diagnoses were especially high among boys (11.3 percent). The greatest rise in asthma rates was among black children (almost a 50 percent increase) from 2001 through 2009. Seventeen percent of non-Hispanic black children had asthma in 2009, the highest rate among racial/ethnic groups.

Annual asthma costs in the United States were $3,300 per person with asthma from 2002 to 2007 in medical expenses. About 2 in 5 uninsured and 1 in 9 insured people with asthma could not afford their prescription medication.

“Asthma is a serious, lifelong disease that unfortunately kills thousands of people each year and adds billions to our nation’s health care costs,” said CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. “We have to do a better job educating people about managing their symptoms and how to correctly use medicines to control asthma so they can live longer more productive lives while saving health care costs.”

This report coincides with World Asthma Day, an annual event sponsored by the Global Initiative for Asthma. This year’s theme is “You Can Control Your Asthma.” Reducing asthma attacks and the human and economic costs of asthma are key priorities for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the focus of a collaborative effort involving many parts of HHS. In support of this effort CDC recommends:

Improving indoor air quality for people with asthma through measures such as smoke-free air laws and policies, healthy schools and workplaces.
Teach patients how to avoid asthma triggers such as tobacco smoke, mold, pet dander, and outdoor air pollution.
Encouraging clinicians to prescribe inhaled corticosteroids for all patients with persistent asthma and to use a written asthma action plan to teach patients how manage their symptoms.
Promoting measures that prevent asthma attacks such as increasing access to corticosteroids and other prescribed medicines.
Encourage home environmental assessments and educational sessions conducted by clinicians, health educators, and other health professionals both within and outside of the clinical setting.

About Vital Signs
CDC Vital Signs is a report that appears on the first Tuesday of the month as part of the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). Vital Signs is designed to provide the latest data and information on key health indicators – cancer prevention, obesity, tobacco use, alcohol use, access to health care, HIV/AIDS, motor vehicle passenger safety, health care-associated infections, cardiovascular health, teen pregnancy, asthma, and food safety.

###

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

read press release on CDC media page

In my son the CDC found arsenic, barium, cesium, cobalt, lead, manganese, molybdenum, thallium, tungsten, uranium, DDE, Dieldrin, oxychlordane, transnonachlor, dimethyldithiophosphate, diethylthiophosphate, diethylthiophosphate, 16 kinds of PCBs, benzene, ethylbenzene, xylene and styrene.

The CDC considered the contaminants measured in the children to be “normal.”

None of these chemicals meets my idea of normal!

Blog post
by Terry Nordbrock

Cobalt-tungsten carbide powders and hard metals is a candidate
substance listed on the NOT YET RELEASED 12th Report on Carcinogens
(RoC). The National Toxicology Program (NTP) is required by law to
update their RoC every two years, but the last time they released a
report was in 2005. For more, see
<http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/?objectid=72016262-BDB7-CEBA-FA60E922B18C2540>

Tungsten had not previously been understood to be harmful to human
health but was found in high concentrations in the bodies of people
living in Fallon NV during the CDC biomonitoring study of the
childhood leukemia cluster there.

Mark Witten, PhD, a University of Arizona pediatric toxicologist, and
Paul Sheppard, PhD, a University of Arizona dendrochronologist (tree
ring scientist), had been studying JP-8 jet fuel as a possible cause
of the astonishing 16-fold increase in childhood leukemia incidence.
In Dr. Witten’s lab they had been unable to induce leukemic symptoms
by exposing mice to JP-8 jet fuel, so he turned his attention to
tungsten as an interesting hypothesis.

Mark Witten has been amazed at his success inducing leukemic symptoms
in mice exposed to tungsten, especially when co-exposed to a virus
such as respiratory synctial virus (RSV). This strategy was
suggested by the “two-hit” model for childhood leukemia causation, in
which the first exposure occurs before birth and leaves genetic
damage detectable on a Guthrie card, the blood spot samples taken
from newborns to screen for metabolic diseases. The second “hit”,
which could be an environmental contaminant or just a simple common
virus, occurs after birth and only affects those children (or mouse
pups) already carrying the genetic mutation.

Funding for these studies came from the research funding made
available by Senator Harry Reid, in which the Fallon families had
input into researcher selection.

The NTP background documents reviewed to determine whether
cobalt-tungsten is a carcinogen includes extensive reporting on the
Fallon cluster, especially the work of Drs. Sheppard and Witten.
This is an important “win” for the value of studying disease clusters
as well as the value of conducting human biomonitoring to advance our
understanding of disease causation and prevention strategies.

But before we get too excited, the stated basis for nomination into
the RoC is “Recent human cancer studies on the hard metal
manufacturing industry showing an association between exposure to
hard metals (cobalt tungsten-carbide) and lung cancer.” I find it
fascinating to watch our scientific understanding grow, but I still
wish it were faster!

Ironically, tungsten had been recently used as a safer substitute for
lead in bullets and other munitions. And, apparently, in medical
devices used to treat breast cancer…

The press has been very interested in this week’s disease cluster report and hearing. Here is a partial list of coverage:

1) Reuters
Erin Brockovich pushes for disease cluster law

Deborah Zabarenko, Anthony Boadle - Mar 29, 2011
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Erin Brockovich, a US consumer health advocate whose life story was the basis for an Academy Award-winning film, urged senators Tuesday to pass a law to document disease clusters in …

(same story also ran on CNBC.com, MSNBC.com and HuffingtonPost.com)

2) MedPage Today
Report, Hearing Focus on Disease Clusters

WASHINGTON — A new report highlights 42 locations throughout the U.S. that have alarmingly higher incidences of certain diseases, including cancer and birth defects.
The report, released by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the National Disease Clusters Alliance, surveyed 13 states in which so-called “disease clusters” had been identified by media reports and by local and state health agencies.

3) Greenwire (subscription required)
TOXICS: Uptick in disease clusters spurs calls for TSCA reform

An increase in the number of geographic areas with a spike in cancer and other diseases shows the need for greater regulation of chemicals and other toxics in the environment, according to a report released today by green and health advocacy groups.

The report on so-called disease clusters found high instances of birth defects, cancer and other illnesses in 44 communities across the 13 states it surveyed. It was sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the National Disease Clusters Alliance (NDCA).

4) E&E Daily (subscription required)
TOXICS: Erin Brockovich warns of 500-plus potential disease clusters in U.S

An increase in the number of geographic areas with a spike in cancer and other diseases shows the need for greater regulation of chemicals and other toxics in the environment, according to a report released today by green and health advocacy groups.

5) Jackson Daily News
Group Calls for More Research into Camp Lejeune Cancer Cluster

At a hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works committee Tuesday, a representative of an environmental research group urged the completion of a full investigation into a male breast cancer cluster surrounding Camp Lejeune.
A panel including well-known consumer advocate Erin Brockovich and National Research Defense Council senior scientist Gina Solomon said they had identified 42 suspected cancer clusters in 13 different states

6) KMJ-580 / FM KMJ 105.9
Scientist with the NRDC- Dr. Gina Solomon testified on Capitol Hill regarding “Disease Clusters,” including one in Kettleman City.

7) Midland Daily News
Report includes cancer cluster in local region
The Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Disease Clusters Alliance said they identified 42 disease clusters in 13 states by looking at research by federal, state or local officials and peer-reviewed studies from academics. …

8 ) USAToday
Report: 42 disease clusters in 13 U.S. states identified

At least 42 disease clusters have occurred in 13 U.S. states since 1976, according to a report Monday by environmentalists calling for further study of the cause of these health problems.

“Communities all around the country struggle with unexplained epidemics of cancers, birth defects and neurological diseases,” report co-author Gina Solomon, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in announcing the findings. “The faster we can identify such clusters, and the sooner we can figure out the causes, the better we can protect residents living in the affected communities.”

9) Arkansas THV (Gannett TV station)
13 states including Ark. have cancer clusters

(KTHV) — A new report was released today by the Natural Resource Defense Council pointing out 13 states where researchers have found disease clusters, including one in Arkansas.
The report was released as legislation is being drawn, calling for further investigation into the causes possibly pollution.

10) WEWS-TV in Cleveland

Ohio Disease Clusters Listed in New National Report

CLEVELAND – No one wants their home in an area where a higher percentage of adults and children get cancer, leukemia, multiple sclerosis and more. These areas are called disease clusters. There are five in Ohio, including one in Lorain County. Now, a senator and an environmental activist are urging new action to help people who live in disease clusters.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is co-sponsoring a new bill, and Erin Brockovich testified at a senate committee hearing Tuesday. They both want more done about quickly identifying disease clusters, and helping people in those clusters find out what made them sick.

Sen. Brown’s proposed bill would get more federal resources to five Ohio areas identified as disease clusters. He said if it passed, the bill would “provide more federal support to communities that have been afflicted by high rates of diseases like cancer and multiple sclerosis

11) WRAL (Raleigh, NC)
Chatham: Bynum cancer problem resolved years ago
Bynum, NC — Testimony presented Tuesday to the US Senate about a cluster of cancer cases in Bynum reflects a problem that was resolved years ago, Chatham County Health Director Holly Coleman said Wednesday. The Natural Resources Defense Council …

12) NBC17 (North Carolina)
‘Cancer clusters’ described in Chatham County, Camp Lejeune

Some researchers said Bynum has a high number of cancer cases. Studies date back to the mid 1980s and point to drinking water from the Haw River as the problem. Two North Carolina communities were part of testimony Tuesday in the Senate about areas around the country with high levels of cancer among residents. The testimony is aimed at passing legislation to help find links between clusters and a possible cause. Camp Lejeune in Onslow County and Bynum in Chatham County are included because they are “confirmed disease clusters,” according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

13) Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

Disease cluster researchers find four such groupings in Louisiana

Two environmental advocacy groups are releasing a report today that calls for expanded federal efforts to identify “disease clusters,” along with their causes.
The Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry defines disease clusters as “groupings of a particular disorder, or a class of disorders, that appear unusually frequently in a place.” The agency oversees research into disease clusters for the federal government.

The report, which draws from research by federal, state or local officials along with peer-reviewed academic studies, identifies what it says are 42 disease clusters in 13 states, including four in Louisiana. It was prepared by the Natural Resources Defense Council and National Disease Clusters Alliance.

14) Cleveland Plain Dealer

Senators want better investigations of ‘disease clusters,’ but may disagree on methods

The Natural Resources Defense Council cited five cluster sites in Ohio: Clyde, with a high incidence of childhood cancer; Wellington, with an unusually high rate of MS; Marysville, where eight boys or young men were diagnosed with leukemia between 1992 and 2001; Marion, where a high school on the site of a former Army depot and munitions factory was blamed for leukemia and esophageal cancer, and Middletown, where a number of people were diagnosed with a type of brain cancer since 2004.

15) Toledo Blade

Sen. Brown co-sponsors disease cluster bill

Federal legislation seeks Ohio, Mich. aid

Drawing from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, the National Resources Defense Council and the National Disease Clusters Alliance issued a report outlining known pockets, or “clusters” of cancer and multiple sclerosis in 13 states.

16) Chronicle Telegram (Ohio)

Report identifies Wellington as MS disease cluster area

Wellington has been designated as a disease cluster area for multiple sclerosis, according to a report released yesterday by the National Resources Defense Council.
A 1998 study by state and local health departments found residents of Wellington were three times more likely to develop multiple sclerosis than the rest of the country, the report said. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry found that there had been a release of chemical contaminants in the environment surrounding a former foundry, the LESCO facility, and the still operating Forest City Technologies plant.

17) Southern California Public Radio:
Erin Brockovich Testifies on Capitol Hill

A Senate panel looking at a bill on pollution and cancer heard today from environmental law activist Erin Brockovich. Erin Brockovich’s work on a cancer cluster in the California desert town of Hinkley led to a lawsuit, and later a Hollywood movie

18) News&Observer (North Carolina)

Testimony to Congress will cite cancer clusters in N.C.

WASHINGTON — Two North Carolina communities will be among the so-called “cancer clusters” highlighted today in Senate testimony on the environment.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group in Washington, has included suspected cancer clusters in the small Chatham County town of Bynum and at Camp Lejeune in its research on the potential impact of toxic chemicals on human health.

19) ENCToday (Eastern North Carolina’s Newspapers)
Group calls for more research into Camp Lejeune cancer cluster

At a hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works committee Tuesday, a representative of an environmental research group urged the completion of a full investigation into a male breast cancer cluster surrounding Camp Lejeune.
A panel including well-known consumer advocate Erin Brockovich and National Research Defense Council senior scientist Gina Solomon said they had identified 42 suspected cancer clusters in 13 different states.

20) California Watch

Disease clusters found in some Calif. communities

Environmental groups say disease clusters are on the rise and the government needs to do more about it.

In a report released Monday, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Disease Cluster Alliance highlighted 44 communities in 13 states with higher than ordinary numbers of birth defects, cancer and other illnesses.

21) Detroit News

Passage of disease cluster bill urged

2 Mich. areas identified; legislation forces officials to coordinate their data

Washington— The U.S. Senate was urged Tuesday to make it easier for federal researchers and regulators to identify disease clusters in states like Michigan.
Advocates from the Natural Resources Defense Council and other organizations rolled out information on 42 clusters in 13 states, including the Great Lakes State, places where high incidences of cancer and other diseases were linked via decades worth of research to the presence of toxins in water, soil and air

22) Daily Mail (UK)
‘Tip of the iceberg’: 42 clusters of different diseases identified in 13 U.S. states, but researchers say this is just the beginning

A worrying report claims there are 42 disease clusters across 13 states in the U.S. which include numerous types of cancer, birth defects and other chronic illnesses.
The study by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Disease Clusters Alliance drew on research by federal, state and local officials and peer reviewed academic studies.

They have warned that this is just the tip of the iceberg and that there are likely more in other states which will be revealed through further study.

23) Physorg.com
Disease clusters showing up all over the United States

(PhysOrg.com) — When most people think of the term ‘disease clusters’, the cancer cluster in Hinkley, California made famous by the movie Erin Brockovich usually comes to mind. However, the Natural Resources Defense Council reported on Monday, March 28, 2011 that there are 42 disease clusters that have been found in 13 U.S. states. These clusters are showing different types of cancers, birth defects, and various chronic illnesses.

24) Courier Journal (Delaware)
Groups ask federal help on disease clusters

A coalition of environmental and health care groups cited Delaware’s recent cancer-cluster investigations Monday among dozens of cases nationwide that they say prove a need for more federal help in solving local disease mysteries.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Disease Clusters Alliance included Delaware among 13 states that they said have clusters of cancers, birth defects or other illnesses that need more study.

25) Republican & Herald (PA)
Tamaqua Area Cancer Cases to be Part of Senate Hearing on Disease Clusters

Disease clusters that have sickened a large number of people in the area and other states will be the topic of a Senate hearing today in Washington.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hear testimony on the proposed U.S. Senate Bill 76, the “Disease Cluster Act,” aimed at confirming disease clusters and finding their causes.

Gina Solomon, senior scientist with the National Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental action group, will present a report that has confirmed 42 disease clusters in 13 states across the country since 1976, including two locally.

26) St. Louis Today
Herculaneum smelter is among 42 disease clusters, group says

An environmental group will tell a Senate panel today that it has identified 42 suspected clusters of cancer, birth defects and other illnesses in 13 states.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, working with the National Disease Clusters Alliance, wants to step up the federal response to investigating suspected clusters. The 42 clusters — either confirmed or under active investigation — are in Missouri, Texas, California, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Delaware, Louisiana, Montana, Tennessee and Arkansas

27) Arkansas News (Democrat Gazette)
Senate hearing on cancer clusters Tuesday

WASHINGTON — Congress should consider expanding the federal government’s role in identifying the source of “disease clusters” like the one found in Prairie Grove, Ark., according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“Communities all around the country struggle with unexplained epidemics of cancers, birth defects and neurological diseases,” said NRDC senior scientist Gina Solomon. “The faster we can identify such clusters, and the sooner we can figure out the causes, the better we can protect residents living in the affected communities.”

28) Sacremento Bee (McClatchy)
Congress urged to set up system to track cancer cases

WASHINGTON – Activists urged the government Tuesday to let people post and track cancer cases across communities, a public health effort that they say could lead to discoveries of new chemical-related cancer clusters throughout the United States as well as insights into disease management.

29) Fresno Bee
Three Valley sites in disease cluster report

Kettleman City and two other Valley communities are among dozens of places nationally where people have died in mysterious disease clusters, environmentalists say in a report being released today.
Nine California locations are discussed in a report being released today by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Disease Clusters Alliance.

30) Cal Coast News
Disease clusters on the rise
Areas with higher numbers of cancers, birth defects and illnesses are increasing nationwide along with demands the government needs to take action, according to a report released Monday by Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Disease Cluster Alliance.

31) Miami Herald (McClatchy Newspapers)
Congress urged to track cancer clusters better

WASHINGTON — Activists urged the government Tuesday to let people post and track cancer cases across communities, a public health effort that they say could lead to discoveries of new chemical-related cancer clusters throughout the United States as well as insights into disease management.

32) Idaho Statesman
Idaho cancer survivor Trevor Schaefer gets his say before Congress

Advocates of a bill that would allow clusters of cases to be tracked say it could help determine some causes

33) Fort Worth Star Telegram
Texas Listed Among 13 States With Disease Clusters
WASHINGTON — An environmental group will tell a Senate panel today that it has identified 42 suspected clusters of cancer, birth defects and other illnesses in 13 states, including Texas.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, working with the National Disease Clusters Alliance, wants to step up the federal response to investigating suspected clusters. The 42 clusters — either confirmed or under active investigation — are in Texas, California, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Delaware, Louisiana, Montana, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas. The groups plan to look at all 50 states.

34) Kansas City Star (also McClatchy)
Group To Tell Senate Panel About Disease Clusters
The Natural Resources Defense Council, working with the National Disease Clusters Alliance, wants to step up the federal response to investigating suspected clusters. The 42 clusters – either confirmed or under active investigation – are in Texas, …

35) Bradenton Herald ((McClatchy Newspapers)
Tallevast included in study presented to Senate panel

Three Florida cases were highlighted in a report to the Senate panel by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Though Tallevast, the tiny Manatee County community where residents have complained of unusual cancer rates near a former beryllium plant, wasn’t mentioned at the hearing by name, the fact that it is included in the study came as encouraging news to Wanda Washington, vice president of FOCUS, a community advocacy group.

36) The Bakersfield Californian
Cancer clusters in McFarland, Rosamond in report to go before Senate panel

Childhood cancer clusters discovered in the rural Kern County towns of McFarland and Rosamond some 25 years ago are among dozens of disease clusters in several states cited by environmentalists in a report released Monday.

While there’s little new information in the report produced by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Disease Clusters Alliance, one of the aims of the effort was to compile wide-ranging data from 42 disease clusters in 13 states into a single document, said Dr. Sarah Janssen, a physician and senior scientist with the NRDC and a co-author of the report.

37) Medical News Today
Erin Brockovich To Testify Regarding Ongoing Disease Clusters

Erin Brockovich continues the fight against disease clusters that tend to “mysteriously” pop up across the country and plague groups of residents with ailments that are complicated and many times unexplainable. At least 42 disease clusters have occurred in 13 U.S. states since 1976, according to a report Monday by environmentalists calling for further study of the cause of these health problems

38) ThirdAge.com
Erin Brockovich Urges U.S. Senators to Pass Disease Cluster Law

According to the National Cancer Institute, a disease cluster is an unusually high occurrence of cases of a particular disease within a group of people, geographic location or period of time. Data compiled by health advocates and environmentalists from the National Disease Clusters Alliance and the Natural Resources Defense Council showed an occurrence of 42 disease clusters in 13 states since 1976.

39) Allgov.com
42 Disease Clusters Identified in 13 States

Proposing a connection between pollution and outbreaks of serious disease in certain regions, environmentalists and health advocates have compiled data showing the existence of more than 40 disease clusters in 13 U.S. states since 1976.
Communities all around the country struggle with unexplained epidemics of cancers, birth defects and neurological diseases,” said report co-author Gina Solomon, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who teamed with others from her organization and the National Disease Clusters Alliance. “The faster we can identify such clusters, and the sooner we can figure out the causes, the better we can protect residents living in the affected communities.”

40) Gather.com
Disease Clusters Discovered in 13 States! 8 States Belong to Diabetes Belt!

Forty-two disease clusters have been discovered in 13 states across the U.S. More shocking than this discovery is the fact that 8 out of those 13 states belong to the newly discovered “Diabetes Belt” of America, which is comprised of 15 states. Is this a mere coincidence or an indication of something far more dire?

41) Fairwarning.org
Researchers Point to 42 Disease Clusters in 13 States

Two environmental groups have identified 42 “disease cluster” communities in 13 states where an unusually large number of residents have suffered cancer, birth defects and other chronic illnesses.

The groups’ report lists clusters that have occurred since 1976, when Congress passed the Toxic Substance Control Act, or TSCA, to regulate the use of toxic chemicals in industrial, commercial and consumer products. “The faster we can identify such clusters, and the sooner we can figure out the causes, the better we can protect residents living in the affected communities,” a study co-author,

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held an oversight hearing on disease clusters and environmental health. This hearing assessed the potential environmental health effects related to disease clusters. Erin Brockovich, President of Brockovich Research and Consulting was among the witnesses testifying.
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) chairs the committee.

watch the C-SPAN videorecording of the hearing 89 minutes.

U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Full Committee Hearing

Watch the video (110 minutes)

Title: “Oversight Hearing on Disease Clusters and Environmental Health”
Date: Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Time: 10:00 AM
Location: Washington, DC, Dirksen Senate Office Building

Witnesses:

Meet Trevor Schaefer

Daniel Rosenberg of NRDC wrote an excellent blog post about Trevor’s testimony.