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Plaintiffs Await Cancer Study

By KEVIN P. CRAVER
kcraver@nwherald.com

A study concluding that brain cancer rates in the McCullom Lake area are statistically above average might be released as early as next week.

The study commissioned from a Columbia University epidemiologist by plaintiffs in a number of lawsuits has been ready since May. But the Illinois State Cancer Registry has not yet signed off on the study because it discovered several errors in the state’s data.

The registry discovered the errors in its data in the process of examining the report of Richard Neugebauer, Illinois Department of Public Health spokeswoman Melaney Arnold said.

The cancer registry, which is part of the IDPH, sent corrected cancer data July 1.

Neugebauer’s agreement with the cancer registry states that he cannot release his study without a state review.

The IDPH ensures, among other things, that confidentiality agreements are honored and that the study does not insinuate that the state supports its conclusions.

"[Neugebauer is] just going to do some recalculating, and barring any further questions, we’ll be good to go," Arnold said.

Arnold said that a number of cancer cases were assigned to the wrong census block, which is the smallest unit of measurement used by the U.S. Census Bureau to tabulate data. But plaintiffs’ attorney Aaron Freiwald said the corrected data did not affect Neugebauer’s conclusions.

Freiwald represents 31 plaintiffs who allege that pollution from Ringwood manufacturers Rohm and Haas and Modine Manufacturing caused a cluster of brain and pituitary cancers in McCullom Lake and the Lakeland Park subdivision in McHenry.

"The bottom line is that the data from the cancer registry confirms our previous analysis that there is a statistically significant increase of brain cancer in the area of exposure," Freiwald said.

Three McCullom Lake next-door neighbors diagnosed with brain cancer filed the first lawsuits in April 2006, accusing the companies of fouling air and groundwater with vinyl chloride and other carcinogens. The first trial against Rohm and Haas begins Sept. 20 – Modine settled out of court in 2008.

Neugebauer concluded in a 2008 report that brain cancer levels were abnormally high, based on the number of brain cancer plaintiffs at the time. His update will be the first time that state cancer data is analyzed specific to the McCullom Lake area.

The McHenry County Department of Health concluded in a May 2006 analysis that brain cancer rates in McCullom Lake’s ZIP code were not above average. However, the village’s 1,100 residents only make up 2 percent of it. The IDPH subsequently pronounced that countywide brain cancer rates were normal, but did not examine McCullom Lake.

The judge hearing the first lawsuit ruled in May that the county and state analyses, as well as a review by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were inadmissible in court because they were "irrelevant to the issues."

Northwest Herald investigations since 2007 have concluded that the county health department’s work is scientifically flawed and biased in favor of the defendant companies. Department officials did not try to get state cancer data specific to McCullom Lake as Neugebauer did.

The state cancer registry annually is recognized as among the best by the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries.

On the Net

You can read and watch the Northwest Herald’s ongoing coverage of the McCullom Lake brain cancer cluster at NWHerald.com/mccullomlake.

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