Headlines
Cancer Cluster in Area?
04/30/2006
BY KEVIN P. CRAVER
You have a one-in-three chance of developing some sort of cancer in your lifetime.
If you don't, the odds are high that you will know someone who does.
But the odds plummet when it comes to brain cancer – only seven people per 100,000 will develop it, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And fewer than one in 10 of those cases will be a rare class of brain cancer called oligodendroglioma.
The attorney representing two McCullom Lake next-door neighbors who contracted it, and a third neighbor who died from another form of brain cancer, said he was not a mathematician, but that such odds must have a lot of zeroes behind them.
"In a population the size of McCullom Lake village, for there to be three malignant brain cancers, all arriving in a six-month period, ... statistically, it's off the charts," said attorney Aaron Freiwald, who is suing five manufacturing companies that he accuses of polluting groundwater with toxic, chlorinated solvents.
And Freiwald said he tentatively was tracking four more brain cancer cases that he learned of at a Thursday night community forum.
Freiwald filed suit Tuesday in a Philadelphia federal court on behalf of Bryan Freund and Kurt Weisenberger, who were diagnosed with the cancer in December 2004 and January 2005, as well as a class-action lawsuit on behalf of current and former residents. He filed a lawsuit Friday morning on behalf of the survivors of a third neighbor, Franklin Branham, who died in June 2004 of glioblastoma, another brain cancer. Weisenberger now lives in Wonder Lake.
The companies named in the lawsuit, connected to manufacturing plants located 1 mile north of town, are Rohm and Haas Chemicals LLC, Morton International, Huntsman, Huntsman Polyurethanes, and Modine Manufacturing Co.
Oligodendroglioma typically represents 5 percent to 10 percent of primary brain tumors, said Dr. James Ruffer, head of radiation oncology and cancer committee chairman at Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington.
"In a year at Good Shepherd, I see maybe one," Ruffer said.
McHenry County reported 167 brain and nerve cancer cases from 1994 to 2003, according to the state cancer registry, compared with 7,629 statewide. Brain and nerve cancer cases comprised 1.3 percent of the cases in the registry between 1986 and 2002.
Freiwald said his findings could reveal a cancer cluster, a term used to describe a greater-than-average number of cancer cases by group, geography or time. But CDC experts and others warned that it was way too early to jump to conclusions. All but a few of the 1,000 or so cancer cluster reports received in a year almost immediately are discredited, according to the government's National Cancer Institute, and 75 percent of them are dismissed at the beginning of the investigation.
Clusters tend to be difficult to prove because so many cancers exist with so many triggers, from environment to genetics to health habits and other risk factors, CDC epidemiologist Beverly Kingsley said. And even when a cluster is confirmed, it is rarer still that it is tied to any single factor.
"Most of the time, it's worked out very quickly that they don't appear to be true clusters," Kingsley said. "Likely, chance can play a role, but so many other factors exist that make [tracking] so difficult."
Kingsley said that much still was unknown about what triggers brain cancers, a sentiment that Dr. Ruffer echoed.
Regardless, Freiwald said, he is suing on behalf of two very sick residents, a third who died, and others who could come on board the civil lawsuit as he confirms their cases through medical records.
"Whether there is a cluster or not – I understand why there's interest, I think there is a cluster, and I don't think this is a coincidence – that only goes to whether you can look at the location and the cancers and derive some significance from that alone," Freiwald said. "If someone were to say, 'Gee, I don't think that's a cluster,' that doesn't mean the case doesn't have merit."
Regardless, neighbors in the small town are concerned. Edwin Begley Jr. and his wife, Angela, both 25, live only three-tenths of a mile from the three homes with their 4-year-old son and 5-month-old daughter. They know because Edwin, a stitching machine operator for Brown Printing, drove it in his 2001 Chevrolet Cavalier.
"I never thought anything like this could happen," Begley said. "Especially in an area where I live."
TYPES OF CANCER FOUND IN PLAINTIFFS:
Oligodendrogliomas
An oligodendroglioma tumor is a slow-growing brain tumor that usually occurs in young adults. These tumors are frequently located within the frontal, temporal or parietal lobes and cause seizures in a high percentage of patients.
Source: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, California
Glioblastoma
Glioblastoma multiforme is the most aggressive form of the primary brain tumors known collectively as gliomas. The prognosis is very poor. Mean survival length after diagnosis is eight to ten months with less than 10% survival after two years.
Source: Harvard Medical School