Elevated Cancer Level Found In NE PA.

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10/25/2007 11:47:48 EST Elevated Cancer Level Found in Pa.
By MICHAEL RUBINKAM
Associated Press Writer

HAZLETON, Pa. - The federal government found an elevated number of
cases of a rare blood cancer in northeastern Pennsylvania but
uncovered no link to any possible cause in the environment.
The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry became
involved after residents expressed concern about polycythemia (pah-lee-
sy-THEE'-mee-ah) vera, or PCV, a cancer that results in the
overproduction of red blood cells and can lead to heart attack or
stroke.

"We did not find any environmental links to the PV cases we
interviewed," Vince Seaman, the lead researcher, said Thursday in an e-
mail. "That doesn't mean that there weren't any - we just didn't see
anything with the information we collected."

The agency reported on its findings Wednesday night at a heated
community meeting at which residents of this low-income coal region
accused the government of minimizing the threat posed by numerous
environmental hazards, including a former toxic waste dump and waste
coal-fired power plants.

"This is an outrage," said Dr. Peter Baddick, a local internist who
was among the first to sound the alarm about PCV. "You downplayed
it."

Government epidemiologists defended themselves, saying the study
wasn't meant to be definitive.

"There's no conspiracy to hide the information," said Steve Dearwent,
chief of health investigations for the Agency for Toxic Substances.

"There's an elevation here," he said. "We're committed to looking
further at these groupings of cases."

Seaman said in the e-mail that the increased rate "suggests that some
external factor is/was involved."

But until researchers figure out the cause of PCV, he wrote, "there is
no specific place to start looking - it could be anything. In addition
to chemical and radiation exposure, well-documented initiators for
cancer include stress, poor nutrition, and post-viral syndromes."

Some patients diagnosed with PCV live near a site in northern
Schuylkill County, about 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia, where a
recycler called McAdoo Associates accepted hundreds of thousands of
gallons of paint sludge, waste oils, used solvents, PCBs, cyanide,
pesticides and many other known or suspected carcinogens.

Environmental officials shut down the site in 1979, and it was later
placed on the federal Superfund list and cleaned up.

Residents fear that chemicals leached into the region's water supplies
and polluted private wells and public reservoirs. State and federal
environmental officials have said for years that McAdoo Associates
does not pose a health threat.

The Agency for Toxic Substances became involved after 97 cases of PCV
in Schuylkill, Carbon and Luzerne counties were reported to the state
cancer registry between 2001 and 2005. Based on its population, the
region should have reported about 25 cases.

The agency's task was to confirm the cases that appeared on the
registry and to search out cases the registry might have missed.
Scientists also tried to find commonalities among PCV patients,
including their proximity to toxic waste sites.

"We didn't find any commonalities among the cases with respect to
their water source, residential history, occupational history,"
Dearwent said.

The agency confirmed 38 cases of PCV, with elevations in certain ZIP
codes of Schuylkill and Luzerne counties.

Epidemiologists cautioned that the study was limited due to a number
of factors. Chief among them was that epidemiologists could only study
38 of the 97 patients whose PCV cases were reported to the state
registry; the rest were either dead or they refused to participate.

Investigators also were limited by the fact that the cause of PCV is
unknown. The government estimates that it occurs in one in every
100,000 people, although some scientists believe it is even more rare.
The disease, which is treatable, is more prevalent in older people and
men.