| Subj: | Fallon Cancer article |
| Date: | 2/6/01 10:55:05 PM Pacific Standard Time |
Hi Kent,, here's an article from over the weekend on the Fallon NV cancer
situation. Keep up the great work.
It's an AP article I found at the Nevada Appeal
newspaper.
Town Baffled By Rash Of Childhood Cancer
Feb 4, 2001 - 02:57 PM
Town Baffled by Rash of Childhood Cancer
By Angie Wagner
Associated Press Writer
FALLON, Nev. (AP) - A blur of sagebrush, along what's called the loneliest
road in America, leads to this small farming and military town that boasts
of its simpler way of life. A barber is giving $9 haircuts and there's talk
of the annual Hearts O' Gold Cantaloupe Festival.
But soon, the talk turns to the children. To 11 kids, all stricken with
leukemia that some fear might have something to do with living in the
self-proclaimed "Oasis of Nevada."
For 5-year-old Dustin Gross, it started like the flu. Then came the bruises,
and his lips turned translucent.
"You can see it in his eyes," Dustin's father says. "When they really start
turning dark."
Acute lymphocytic leukemia is the most common childhood cancer, but still
rare. Just 2,000 new cases are diagnosed annually in the entire United
States.
What puzzles people is that 11 of those cases since 1997 have been in and
around Fallon, a town of 8,300. Eight cases were diagnosed last
year.
This is a cluster, the state health department says. A chance occurrence,
perhaps? Or something else that may never be known.
The uncertainty has forced the state to ask for help from national experts.
While they look for answers, the residents worry.
---
Mayor Ken Tedford Jr. has lived in Fallon, 60 miles east of Reno, his whole
life. His granddaddy was mayor, and his uncle too.
"We're just kind of a small town," the mayor says. "People worry about each
other a lot."
At the downtown Ideal Barber Shop, which doubles as a motorcycle parts shop,
former police officer Lyndell Smiley mentions the water as he talks of the
kids.
"Nothing wrong with the water, Smiley," barber Joe Rando
responds.
Water is a common topic in Fallon: It has arsenic levels 10 times the
federal standard, and the city has been ordered to clean it up. Arsenic is
a
naturally occurring chemical that in high concentrations is poisonous. It's
sometimes used as an insecticide or to kill weeds, but has never been linked
to leukemia.
A byproduct of the area's soil, the arsenic has been around so long that
many doubt it would be making people sick now.
Besides, the children drank from different sources - city water, well water
and bottled water.
The arsenic is so accepted that residents don't seem to mind. "Some more
arsenic water?" a waiter at Angelica's Steakhouse asks a customer. A square
dance club calls itself the Arsenic Swingers.
"It's a known fact that the water's not the best around here, but I don't
know," Mike Story, 50, says at Jerry's Restaurant.
"God knows, he knows the problem."
---
Tammi Beardsley has gone over it repeatedly in her mind.
"You relive those days. What did I feed him? Where did we go? That's what
you do when you're a mom and you're desperate."
Her 5-year-old son, Zac, was No. 9, diagnosed in November. He is too sick
this day to have visitors or go outside. Too much risk for
infection.
Zac was born in Canada, but spends summers and part of each winter in
Fallon. He never drank tap water, only bottled.
Of course, Zac's cancer might have nothing to do with what he drank or how
he lived. Cancer results from mutant genes. But what causes the mutations?
The seeds of Zac's disease could have been there since birth, written into
his genetic blueprint.
The survival rate of this type of childhood leukemia is 80 percent. None
of
the children here has died.
From 1961 to 1982, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
investigated 108 cancer clusters in 29 states and five foreign countries.
No
clear cause was found. Since the mid-1980s, no CDC staff have been dedicated
full-time to investigating cancer clusters.
"At this point, we're not finding things that are strikingly in common,"
state epidemiologist Dr. Randall Todd says. "We're beginning to look for
other sources of information. What has changed in this
community?"
Health officials are looking for a link among the children, who were
toddlers to age 19 when diagnosed. Each family was asked about their habits
and medical history. The only common characteristic: All the children live
or have lived in this area.
Is something spreading though the community? Or is it a statistical anomaly
- just a coincidence, like flipping a coin 11 times and having it come up
heads each time.
Often the cause of clusters can't be found because science can not yet
identify what triggers them, says Dr. Michael Thun, head of epidemiology
at
the American Cancer Society.
"It is extremely rare in a community to pin down a cause or to exclude
chance with confidence," Thun says.
The state has asked for help from the CDC, the National Cancer Institute
and
outside epidemiologists. Legislative hearings and town meetings are planned.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is sending top staffers from the Senate Environment
and Public Works Committee to investigate.
There's concern about nuclear weapons testing near Fallon in the 1950s.
Epidemiologists say ionizing radiation is a risk factor to leukemia, but
tests for radioactive substances in the water proved negative.
Some residents blame jet fuel dumped by military aircraft at the nearby
Naval Air Station. Or agricultural chemicals. Or something from industrial
plants. Or, of course, the water.
The American Cancer Society doctor says there have been studies of this
cancer and its relation to pesticides and chemical exposures to parents,
but
nothing is conclusive.
The Navy says it has no reason to believe the base is doing anything to lead
to the illnesses.
Some residents don't want to hear any more about it.
"I think it's a bunch o' bull," says Madeline Rando, co-owner of the Ideal
Barber Shop. "I think it's just a freak thing."
But restaurant workers say they've noticed more customers asking for bottled
water. Some parents have brought in water jugs for their children's school
classrooms so they can avoid city water.
---
Dustin shows a picture of himself with no hair. "Leukemia," he says.
A softball tournament to raise money for Dustin's medical bills has become
the annual "Dustin Gross Fun Day."
For now, a community waits. Waits to see if epidemiologists can find a link
among the children. Waits to see if any more children will become sick. And
waits for its young victims to heal.
Floyd Sands and his daughter moved away from Fallon, but were drawn into
this mystery when she was diagnosed with the leukemia in 1999. She was 19
then, and learned of her condition on her son's first birthday.
"It's worse than looking for a needle in a haystack," the father says from
his home in Mehoopany, Pa. "First you have to find the
haystack."
---
On the Net:
National Cancer Institute: cancernet.nci.nih.gov/
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences:
www.niehs.nih.gov/
Nevada State Health Division: www.state.nv.us/health/
American Cancer Society: www.cancer.org/
AP-ES-02-04-01 1458EST