Eastern Shore disease cluster?
The Eastern Shore – which includes the burgeoning Baldwin County communities of Spanish Fort, Daphne, Montrose, Fairhope, Marlow, Fish River, Barnwell and Point Clear - in recent years has experienced high rates of rare cancers, including brain and neurological cancers, leukemias and lymphomas, as well as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Scientists will study Fairhope area this summer because of an apparently high number of rare cancers and neurological ailments. A team of scientists from Nebraska and Arizona plan to visit this summer to investigate what appears to be an unusually high number of rare cancers and neurological diseases showing up in Eastern Shore residents.
Shambaugh-Miller said scientists are coming to believe that the onset of some neurological diseases, as well as the relatively rare cancers seen on the Eastern Shore, may be triggered by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Particularly unique, he said, is the relatively high number of MS cases seen in southwest Alabama. Scientists will study Fairhope area this summer because of an apparently high number of rare cancers and neurological ailments. A team of scientists from Nebraska and Arizona plan to visit this summer to investigate what appears to be an unusually high number of rare cancers and neurological diseases showing up in Eastern Shore residents.
"That's about 800 miles south of the MS line," Shambaugh-Miller said, explaining that MS typically occurs much farther north, in colder climates. "Any MS south of that line is extremely rare. It is very rare in subtropical areas. ... When I look at Fairhope and see a lot of MS, that triggered my involvement. You shouldn't have that number of MS cases in that area."
Since the research scientists announced their intention to come to the area, the state has followed up on an investigation started several years ago. The state effort involves interviewing the families of those afflicted.
State officials did not return calls seeking comment.
Rare conditions
The researchers are basing their initial concerns on a dozen years' worth of disease data collected by Lesley Pacey and Anna Calhoun, two Eastern Shore mothers whose families were touched by rare conditions. Calhoun has since moved with her family to Nebraska.
Pacey's daughter was afflicted with leukemia at age 4, while the child's great-grandmother suffers from ALS. Pacey said she began trying to keep track of the illnesses when two other children in her daughter's play group also developed rare, life-threatening conditions, including leukemia and neuroblastoma. Like many of those afflicted, both Pacey's daughter and her great-grandmother have lived on the Eastern Shore their entire lives.
According to federal statistics, Baldwin County as a whole has a cancer rate slightly below the national average. Federal records are available only on a county-by-county basis, so it is not possible to compare disease rates among towns.
"Why is it just this little strip along this particular coast? Why doesn't it extend further inland?" wondered Shambaugh-Miller, who noted that the incidence of cancers seems to ease off both to the north of Fairhope and to the east.
Mark Witten and a group of researchers from the University of Arizona will be analyzing trees in Fairhope as part of the cancer study. So far, an initial investigation found elevated levels of chromium, zinc, and mercury in the leaves of some trees in the town, Witten said. A more thorough study will analyze core samples from living trees.
"The beauty of our tree coring is we can actually go back in time and try to develop an environmental history of an afflicted area," Witten said.
Witten then uses pollution data from the trees to set up exposure experiments for mice in his laboratory. He has used the technique in Nevada, Connecticut, Kansas, California and New York, particularly in places believed to have abnormally high leukemia rates. In most of those cases, abnormally high levels of tungsten have been discovered in the tree core samples, Witten said.
Fairhope, in decades past, has been home to various industries and a lot of farming. The region's abundant rain and permeable aquifers raise questions about the groundwater most people in Baldwin County drink, said the scientists. They were also curious about Mobile County's long run as one of the most polluting counties in the nation. Mobile no longer ranks among the top 10 most-polluting counties nationally, as many industries have shut down since the mid-1990s.
"I just think you shouldn't have three kids with cancer in your child's play group," Pacey said, about her daughter's playmates. "Then in her first-grade class there was another kid with cancer. Then I go to Jazzercise and there are two moms with kids who have cancer. We have people in the family with ALS, and people at church with ALS. It just doesn't seem right."
We do not know from where our environmental issues stem. But we do know that our neighboring Mobile County in 2000 ranked eighth in the nation for total toxic releases into the air, especially neurotoxins and developmental toxicants that cause birth defects and cancers, according to EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory (TRI). Also, Mobile County in 2001 was ranked the worst county in the nation in the release of air pollutants linked to birth defects, according to TRI.
The Eastern Shore is listed as the 8th largest disease cluster in the United States. With all of the strange neurological diseases, rare cancers, blood diseses and so forth in our area it just makes me wonder is there any truth to be found in all of this? I know for me personally I do not remember, growing up, knowing or being aware of this many people who have been or are currently effected by so many rare diseases. I could list at least 10 people off the top of my head, myself included, who is dealing with a "unexplainable" condition that has no rhyme or reason to it.
So I ask is this truth or just speculation???
Most of the information above was taken from www.EasternCommunityHealthPartners.com
