Cancer Cluster On Eastern Shore?

By Steve Alexander Reporter

Researchers come to Fairhope to try to find out Cancer Cluster On Eastern Shore?

Published: Mon, June 09, 2008 - 10:12 pm Last Updated: Mon, July 28, 2008 - 10:43 pm

Steve Alexander

Two scientists from the University of Arizona were in Fairhope Monday trying to answer a question of life and death proportions:
Are there abnormally high rates of rare cancers and neurological diseases in the Eastern Shore area?
Their visit was arranged by a group of concerned citizens seeking answers.
Lesley Pacey is especially interested.
Her eight year old daughter Sarah was diagnosed with leukemia four years ago.
She's in remission now, but at time of the diagnosis, Sarah's mother said she learned something else disturbing.
Lesley Pacey said, "Sarah was in a play group with two other children. One had neuroblastoma as a baby and another child in the play group had developed leukemia a year prior to Sarah. And these were all Fairhope-area kids."
Pacey said she started keeping a database and found other people in the area with leukemia, rare cancers and other uncommon diseases.
Her work attracted the attention of researchers from the University of Arizona who have been been investigating suspected cancer clusters around the country associated with children.
The researchers came to Fairhope this week.
Mark Witten is one of the researchers.
He's a professor with the university's college of medicine.
Witten said, "There's a high incidence of cancer, and A-L-S (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis,) Lou Gehrig's disease, in the Fairhope area, so we're going to investigate as to whether this might be due to environmental causes."
How did they investigate?
They took core samples from trees.
Paul Sheppard is in tree ring research at the University of Arizona.
He said, "We have a record from the pith to the bark of tree life and all the years its been growing. We test each one of those rings chemically for elements like heavy metals."
The researchers said they believe they may have found a source of contamination at four western sites they've tested.
Witten said, "They all seem to have a high level of environmental tungsten, which is an element and its used a lot in manufacturing."
It may be months before we know if the tree core samples on the Eastern Shore show high levels of tungsten or other metals.
Leslie Pacey is starting a non-profit group trying to raise $10,000 to analyze the samples.