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Too Soon for an All-Clear

NORTHWEST HERALD EDITORIAL

When a lawsuit alleges that toxins from businesses leaked into groundwater and next-door neighbors contract rare forms of cancer, people get nervous.

That’s what has happened in a McCullom Lake for three men who lived in the same neighborhood for years.

They developed rare forms of brain cancer. Two were diagnosed within a month of each other. Another died six months earlier.

Ten other people also had brain cancer, and they worked for one of the companies being sued, Rohm and Haas. The former employees already had federal lawsuits pending against the company.

The new lawsuit was filed April 25 in Philadelphia, headquarters of Rohm and Haas Chemical, and four other companies. It wasn’t until May 22 that McHenry County Health Department officials met publicly to discuss this.

The result of Monday’s meeting was a conclusion: Don’t worry. No one is in danger.

Public health administrator Patrick McNulty said, "We don’t have an unusual number of brain cancers."

The county epidemiologist said statistical evidence in the ZIP code that includes McCullom Lake did not show a higher rate of cancer than elsewhere. The environmental-health director said aquifers with the toxins and the residences don’t match.

The conclusion? No bump in the cancer rate. Toxins in the groundwater are going the other way.

Don’t worry.

But the health department used figures from the year before the three cancer cases were reported. Furthermore, McCullom Lake makes up a small portion of the ZIP code. And where was the testing when the chemicals began leaking in the early 1960s? Cleanup didn't begin until 1991.

Aaron Freiwald, attorney for the cancer victims, told Northwest Herald reporter Nate Legue after the meeting that "it strikes me that the board of health wants to promote a false sense of security."

The health department is a storehouse of information about environmental factors in McHenry County. It has statistical reports. It has maps of groundwater. It has information about cancers and their causes.

But the health department does not have the expertise to issue what amounts to an all-clear.

People know better. And when the health department makes such pronouncements, its credibility suffers.

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