Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Cancer "clusters"

Ever heard of one of those? Neither had I. Cancer clusters are when many people who live or work in the same area develop cancer over a period of time. This story scares the crap out of me. I've posted some excerpts...

At last count, some 18 La Quinta Middle School employees contracted cancer over a 15-year period. More than a dozen former students have been diagnosed.

The harsh truth is that cancer occurs often and for any number of complex reasons. Finding a specific cause, a carcinogenic smoking gun, is terribly rare.

...

“Don’t let anyone suffer the way I have.”

Those were among the last words of a 16-year-old Carlsbad boy to his stricken parents.

In the last six months, Stacey and John Quartarone have dedicated themselves to find out if Chase, who passed away last December of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, died because he was exposed to something toxic in his neighborhood.

“My mantra, my life, my goal is to be true to his request,” John told me.

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