Forty two communities struggle with disease clusters

[truedelphi]

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2011/03/42-disease-clusters-13-states-toxics-environment/1?csp=34


"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 Naural 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."<snip>

Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, proposed legislation in January to fund research that would determine whether a connection exists between clusters of cancer, birth defects and other diseases and environmental contaminants.<snip>

On Tuesday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has scheduled an oversight hearing on the issue.

Among many communities with specific diseases targeting the population is Wellington Ohio.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) in Wellington, Ohio, where residents are three-times more likely to develop MS than in the rest of the country, a disease whose causes are unknown but are thought to involve a combination of genetic and environmental causes.
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The entire article is well worth the read.

Again, it can be found at:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2011/03/42-disease-clusters-13-states-toxics-environment/1?csp=34

[mucifer]

1. Thanks for posting this. As a pediatric home nurse I

have noticed certain patterns in Chicago and when I worked in the San Fransisco area.

[truedelphi]

2. If you wanna pass on what you observed,

I would not mind getting a PM from you about it.

I spend a great deal of time in both those places.

[mucifer]

3. It's nothing scientific but I have seen certain neighborhoods

in Chicago where we get many of our patients who are children with genetic defects and cancer. I can't be sure it's not coincidence or having to do with our referral sources.

[mopinko]

4. my hometown is an ms hot spot.

my sister has it, and her mother in law had it. i have autoimmune abnormalities that are not understood, and i have a kid with chron's. there are some genetic factors likely at work, but....
it was an industrial little town that spawned the first ever monkey wrencher- the fox. we all swam in the river where everything from soap factories and tanneries to foundries dumped their untreated waste. the fox, the story goes, weaseled his way into the chicago corporate office of the president of a steel company (u.s. steel, i think), and dumped several gallons of their effluent on the guys white carpet. he also used to cement up effluent pipes in the night.

i wonder how many of these clusters are old industrial towns. i see that illinois (where i live) is not among the states in this study. and camp lejuene? no polluter worse than the pentagon.

[hedgehog]

5. An anecdote is only an anecdote, but I lost one cousin to throat cancer

at 58, and his brother is battling myeloma now. They both grew up In Youngstown, Ohio.

[SheilaT]

6. The thing is, a lot of people grew up in

Youngstown, Ohio, or any other city we care to name. And lots of people get whatever disease we want to name. I don't think there's any particular connection between throat cancer and myeloma. I'm certainly not denying some environmental trigger, and as you acknowledge, and anecdote is only an anecdote.

Cancer, in general, is a disease of aging -- if you live long enough, you're likely to get some kind of cancer.

I'm currently reading The Emperor of All Maladies, about cancer, and it's fascinating.

[truedelphi]

8. I will check out the book. And in this day and age, there is no longer any

Requirement that a person lives in this neighborhood or that one to come down with cancer and/or an auto immune disease.

The Powers that Be now invite you to purchase the toxic substances that promote cancer.

Lysol, Febreeze, Glade or other Air Fresheners - these products are advertised continually. For one thing, every time someone buys one of these items, they are helping Industrial America off load toxins that used to be put in special containers and sent to a Super Fund site, for a huge charge to the Polluter in question. Now a days we buy these things and spray them all over our house, letting benzene, formaldehyde, alkyls etc disturb our bodies' delicate balance.

Notice you will never ever hear them say they are safe enough to use around the children. When they did that in New York state, Elliot Spitzer took Monsanto to court and got them fined 50 K for false advertising.

But the ads are now created to "visually suggest" that the products are totally safe. Cartoon butterflies fly around the aerosol substances, the woman hoists the Febreeze can near the childrren's heads and gives it a hefty spritz over their breathing environemnt, etc.

Over the years, it will be harder for any one to ever prove that a certain disease came from the factory down the road. After all, the products that factory emits are also emitted by products many in the neighborhood swear by. (And ammonia is added to many of these things, just like was done with cigarettes - so that the products become addictive.)

[truedelphi]

7. A first hand experienced situation is not an anecdote.

If someone tells you that they know someone who knows someone who knows someone who has an affliction, that is one thing.

But if a family member or someone you know personally has an affliction, that is a scientific observation. Put enough of those observations together and submit them to the proper researcher(s) and you may be helping to discover something important.

However over the last eighteen years or so, as anti pesticide activists started making headway, the Big Industrial Powers that Be have spawned the ridiculous notion that first hand observed situations fall outside of anything meaningful relating to science.

False.

[MorningGlow]

9. Serious thyroid issues in my area

Western NY. And, far more concentrated, a high rate of brain cancer in 33 children in a neighborhood close to Kodak Park in Rochester--there was a lawsuit. But a court found no merit. :eyes:

[truedelphi]

10. What industry is implicated?

Chemicals for the Kodak Camera/Film Corporation?

Or other industries?

[MorningGlow]

11. Sorry--yes

"Kodak Park" was always 100 percent Kodak--till recently, that is. Its fall from grace has forced the company to offer buildings in the Park to other businesses.