Panel says no more environmental testing recommended in Fallon

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Nevada
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Panel says no more environmental testing recommended in Fallon
Frank X. Mullen Jr.
2/23/2004 10:56 pm

FALLON -- An expert panel involved in extensive studies of a childhood
leukemia cluster in this rural town said Monday that no new
environmental testing is recommended, but health officials should
continue to monitor the town for new cases.

Critics of the government's investigation -- including family members of
cancer patients -- said the probe was doomed by poor planning, political
interference and the suppression of important information that could
have identified the cause of the cancer cluster.

"We still haven't seen anything like a competent investigation," said
Floyd Sands, whose daughter Stephanie died of leukemia in September
2001. "So far, no one has had the skill or the will to really look for
answers."

The panel's report came a year after federal and state scientists said
an 18-month probe into the cancer epidemic that sickened 16 Fallon
children and killed three of them was inconclusive. The Fallon studies
have been the most intensive ever conducted into a cancer cluster,
officials said, and the massive amount of data compiled should help
future researchers investigate cancer clusters.

"All of us would love to be able to identify childhood leukemia," said
Thomas Sinks of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which
headed the probe. "We simply can't afford to be disappointed everytime
we fail."

The studies turned up no link to high levels of naturally occurring
arsenic in Fallon's municipal water, a pipeline carrying jet fuel to the
Fallon Naval Air Station, local pesticide spraying, high tungsten
levels, an underground nuclear test conducted 30 miles away about 40
years ago or other possible causes. The testing found high levels of the
metal tungsten in residents' water and their urine, but researchers
couldn't connect the metal to leukemia.

Experts said the chances of the cluster being random were one in 232
million.

Critics of the probe said Monday that the government's investigation was
inconclusive by design and covered up important links to possible
environmental culprits.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2004/02/23/64683.php

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