Eastern Shore disease cluster?
Scientists will study Fairhope area this summer because of an apparently high number of rare cancers and neurological ailments
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
By BEN RAINES
Staff Reporter
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.

The scientists were quick to say that their involvement does not mean there is a definite problem on the Eastern Shore. So far, they said, there is just a map compiled by concerned residents that has too many dots representing sick people on it.

"You think, 'Wow! Look at all those dots.' But then, once you run the numbers you may realize it is not significant," said Michael Shambaugh-Miller, a medical geographer at the University of Nebraska who specializes in identifying abnormal clusters of disease.

"We may get in there and find it just looks bad, but there isn't a problem. Or, we may get in and find out it's another Love Canal."

The scientists are not looking at the incidence of more common diseases, such as cancer of the skin, breast or prostate. Instead they are focusing on the crippling diseases multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and cancers of the brain, blood, bone and certain organs.

"These numbers are jumping out," Shambaugh-Miller said of the area around Fairhope. "We're seeing concentrations of those kinds of neuromuscular diseases that are on par with what we see in the world's hot spot, Guatemala."

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.

"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.




Word of mouth

Because the data was collected largely by word of mouth, the researchers say it may not be a true representation of illnesses in the area. While the number found near Fairhope appears abnormally high, they said there may be many people Pacey doesn't know about elsewhere in Baldwin County, or even within the Fairhope area.

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.

Nonprofit group

Pacey and Fairhope City Council member Debbie Quinn are setting up a nonprofit group, Eastern Shore Community Health Partners, to raise money for research, including the tree coring effort and a broad community survey looking for more illnesses. Quinn said she became involved because she heard so many people wondering if there was a problem in her hometown.

"I'm also a nurse by profession, and my husband is a doctor, so this piqued my professional curiosity," Quinn said.

Pacey said she wanted the nonprofit group set up because she didn't believe that state officials had given her concerns enough attention.

"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."

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