New air rules to curb pollution from gas wells
http://standardspeaker.com/news/new-air-rules-to-curb-pollution-from-gas-wells-1.1181579#axzz1TUpEddKL
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: July 29, 2011
In an effort to curb smog and airborne chemicals linked to oil and gas production, federal environmental regulators moved Thursday to place new controls on air pollution caused by the drilling, processing and transmission of the fuels.
The proposed rules released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would for the first time require “green completions” at nearly all hydraulically fractured oil and gas wells in the country – a way of capturing and sending to market gas that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere.
The new requirements would also stem pollution from some compressors, valves, dehydrators and processing plants, as well as the storage tanks that hold the hydrocarbon liquids associated with “wet” forms of gas.
The rules aim to curb smog-causing chemicals called volatile organic compounds (VOCs), as well as air toxics, such as benzene, that are known or suspected to cause cancer. Although the rules do not directly target the leakage of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, the proposals to limit the VOCs and air toxics will also reduce the amount of methane escaping into the atmosphere by about 26 percent, the agency said.
The EPA characterized the rules as “extremely cost-effective” and estimated the requirements will save the industry nearly $30 million a year above the $754 million annually it will cost to meet the requirements. The agency said the rules will mandate practices already used voluntarily by some companies and required by some states.
“Reducing these emissions will help cut toxic pollution that can increase cancer risks and smog that can cause asthma attacks and premature death – all while giving these operators additional product to bring to market,” said Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation.
Environmental groups who sued the EPA to update its standards by a court-ordered deadline Thursday welcomed the proposals.
Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director of New Mexico-based WildEarth Guardians, said the “woefully outdated” current rules allowed the buildup of ground-level ozone in rural, heavily drilled parts of Wyoming so the smog there rivaled that in Los Angeles.
The proposed rules offer benefits to the industry and the environment, he said.
“The solution to clearing the air more often than not means keeping more product in the pipeline,” he said.
Rules mandating green completions may prove difficult at first for operators in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale, where pipeline infrastructure is still catching up to the pace at which new gas wells are drilled.
“Certainly it’s easier to capture methane when a gas field is a little more mature because the pipeline infrastructure is in place that allows you to capture it,” said former Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection secretary John Hanger.
He said the proposed rules “can help maximize the environmental benefits that using more natural gas in our society offers.”
In its response to the proposed rules, the Pennsylvania-based industry group the Marcellus Shale Coalition pointed to three short-term state air monitoring studies near Marcellus wells that did not find any compounds in concentrations “that would likely trigger air-related health issues.”
“This sweeping set of potentially unworkable regulations represents an overreach that could, ironically, undercut the production of American natural gas, an abundant energy resource that is critical to strengthening our nation’s air quality,” coalition president Kathryn Klaber said.
The EPA will have a public comment period on the proposed rules and three public hearings in the Dallas, Texas; Denver, Colo. and Pittsburgh areas, for which details have not yet been announced.
The agency is under a court order to take final action on the rules by Feb. 28, 2012.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Cancer patients’ urine suspected in Wissahickon iodine-131 levels
http://articles.philly.com/2011-07-21/news/29798099_1_drinking-water-radioactive-iodine-water-department
July 21, 2011|By Sandy Bauers, Inquirer Staff Writer
Three weeks after an earthquake and tsunami severely damaged Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, Lisa Daniels opened an e-mail with test results of river water samples from Southeastern Pennsylvania.
It was just after lunch April 1. Nationwide, officials were testing rain, rivers, milk, and other substances to learn if radioactivity from the stricken plant was present.
They’d seen it after Chernobyl, and now it was showing up nationwide, including in rainwater from a deluge in central Pennsylvania.
Daniels, a water division chief at the state Department of Environmental Protection, wasn’t worried. Enough time had passed that the radiation would have decayed or been carried away.
But when she looked at the sample from the Wissahickon Creek near Green Lane, just upstream from a city drinking water intake, she froze.
None of the other river samples in the batch showed iodine-131. But this one did.
By 6 p.m. that day, that drinking water intake would be getting extra treatment, and officials would be embarking on a detective mission that has generated interest nationwide.
Since then, officials have found more iodine-131 in the Wissahickon, and at several sewage treatment plants along the creek.
They’ve also realized that worrisome levels of iodine-131 had been detected long before the Fukushima accident in several Philadelphia drinking water samples taken as part of an obscure monitoring program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Within that limited data set of 59 locations across the country, Philadelphia’s levels were the highest in the previous decade, the Water Department discovered.
So Fukushima couldn’t be the cause after all.
The source they now suspect was a surprise. Iodine-131 is used to treat thyroid cancer, and they suspect it’s coming from patients excreting excess radioactivity in their urine, which then winds up in rivers, and ultimately in Philadelphia’s drinking water intakes.
- Iodine-131 is not good for you. When radioactive iodine gets into the body, it concentrates in the thyroid gland. Low doses can impair the gland’s activity, according to the EPA. Long-term exposure to high amounts can cause cancer.
Officials from the Water Department, the EPA, and the DEP emphasize that the levels detected are tiny and don’t constitute a public health threat. Philadelphia’s drinking water meets standards for radioactivity and remains safe, they say. Read more
Polycythemia Vera and Social Security Disability
http://www.socialsecurity-disability.org/disabling-conditions/polycythemia-vera-and-social-security-disability
Polycythemia Vera (with erythrocytosis, splenomegaly, and leukocytosis or thrombocytosis) – Condition and Symptoms
Polycythemia vera is a type of blood disorder which causes the bone marrow to overproduce red blood cells. The condition sometimes also causes the body to produce too many platelets and white blood cells. These disorders cause the blood to thicken, which leads to a number of adverse conditions.
Most victims of polycythemia vera are sixty years old and older, though the condition can affect people at any age. Some connection to toxic chemicals is suspected but not adequately proven.
Many people with polycythemia vera fail to show any symptoms, and may never discover they have the condition unless it shows on blood testing. Many of the common symptoms are mild enough that they go unnoticed as well. Common symptoms include:
• Itchiness after being exposed to warm water.
• Gouty arthritis.
• Peptic ulcers.
• Sudden burning and pain in feet and hands.
• Bluish or reddish skin coloration.
• Headaches.
• Trouble concentrating.
• Fatigue.
Because polycythemia causes the blood to thicken, it can cause blood clots. Generally, these clots respond well to aspirin if they are noticed. Unfortunately, many people with polycythemia don’t notice any symptoms until they have a stroke, heart attack, or other serious condition caused by the blood clotting.
The blood thickening caused by polycythemia causes the blood flow to slow down. In some cases, the blood takes twice as long to circulate through the body than it would in a healthy body. People with polycythemia vera are at significant risk for such serious and debilitating health conditions as:
• Myelofibrosis
• Budd-Chiari syndrome
• Deep venous thrombosis
• Heart attack
• Stroke
• Pulmonary embolism
There is no cure known for polycythemia vera and it is a chronic (long term, continual) condition by definition. To date, all treatments for the condition are focused on treating the symptoms and lessening the complications caused by the thickening of the blood. Common treatments include:
• Aspirin therapy. Low dose aspirin has been shown to reduce complications.
• Bloodletting. Removing some of the body’s blood
• Chemotherapy.
• Interferon injections.
• Bone marrow transplant.
Other treatments are being tested, and some show some promise of better addressing the symptoms of polycythemia vera.
Filing for Social Security Disability with a Polycythemia Vera (with erythrocytosis, splenomegaly, and leukocytosis or thrombocytosis) Diagnosis
General information about filing for Social Security disability benefits with blood disorders can be found in Section 7.00 of the Social Security Administration’s Listing of Impairments Manual, more commonly called the Blue Book. Polycythemia Vera (with erythrocytosis, splenomegaly, and leukocytosis or thrombocytosis) is covered in Section 7.09.
Generally speaking, polycythemia vera cases are evaluated based on the body systems which are affected. This is commonly in the sections regarding heart disorders (Section 4.00), though adjudicators may take into account any of several other possible organs and body systems affected.
When applying for Social Security disability benefits, you will want to have as much corroborating medical documentation as possible. You will need the results of all lab tests which were used to confirm that you have polycythemia vera. You will also want to make sure that all blood transfusions are thoroughly documented and that you keep track of how many blood transfusions you have had. Any medical tests or documentation regarding the various organs which are affected by your disabling condition should also be included in your claim.
Your Polycythemia Vera (with erythrocytosis, splenomegaly, and leukocytosis or thrombocytosis) Disability Case
Because they are adjudicated on the standards pertaining to the body organs and systems which are affected by the thickening of your blood rather than on the blood itself, many claims take a number of disabling conditions into account. Often, even if you don’t meet any one listing for disability, the combination of effects on several body systems is enough for you to qualify for disability benefits.
Claiming Social Security disability benefits can be a confusing process. The SSA holds a very narrow definition of what counts as disability. In order to qualify for benefits, you need to show that the sum of your conditions is serious enough that you can’t perform any kind of meaningful work.
One thing many polycythemia vera claimants have going for them is their age. The older you are, the less the SSA expects you to be able to adjust to new and different types of employment opportunities. Older claimants still have to prove that they are incapable of performing work for which they could reasonably be trained, of course, but the SSA sets the bar lower in terms of how much re-training they expect claimants to be able to go through.
Most Social Security disability claimants benefit from the help of a Social Security disability lawyer. Your disability attorney can make all the difference between a denial and an approval. Best of all, it’s free to have an experienced Social Security lawyer evaluate your disability claim and discuss it with you.
Doubt on cancer cluster legislation
http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/pennsylvania/mc-pa-cancer-cluster-legislation-20110710,0,6315339.story
By Andrew McGill, Of The Morning Call
9:57 p.m. EDT, July 10, 2011
Some fear measure, which would create ‘first-responder’ task force, may not be genuine effort to protect public health in Carbon, Schuylkill, Luzerne counties.
Merle Wertman has been kept waiting a long time.
Eight years ago, doctors diagnosed him with polycythemia vera, a rare cancer that thickens the blood to a sludge only bloodletting can relieve. His neighbors in Tamaqua had just started to speak up, to declare something was wrong in the coal region, something that made people sick.
Eight years, millions of dollars in grants and countless studies later, investigators still don’t know why Wertman fell ill or why so many of his neighbors in this rural region share the same disease.
So every time the 66-year-old sits at a public meeting, checks his hemoglobin count or makes the twice-monthly trip to Coaldale for treatment, he can’t help but wonder: Are we being ignored?
“This is going on for eight years, and we’re getting no headway with it,” he said. “There’s no answer.”
Concerned by reports of cancer clusters in his own district near Wilkes-Barre, state Sen. John Yudichak, D-Luzerne, proposed a bill last week for a statewide cancer cluster task force that would investigate cases like the coal region’s.
Pitched as a union between the Department of Health and the Department of Environmental Protection, the team would be the state’s first responders, evaluating the situation and calling in the feds if necessary.
His measure drew applause from residents in Pittston, who say runoff from a local mine has sickened dozens. But those who have been here before — namely weary members of the coal region’s Community Action Committee, the guardians of the area’s only federally-confirmed cancer cluster — have learned to be skeptical.
“My fear is that this is not a genuine effort to protect public health,” said Henry Cole, an environmental scientist from Upper Marlboro, Md. and the committee’s hired expert. “My fear is that it will be used to funnel public discontent into a system that can be controlled without any real protection.”
Yudichak’s bill would require the Department of Health to develop guidelines for investigating cancer clusters. It would bring together a team of experts in epidemiology, toxicology, pollution control and other specialties to look into complaints and write a report.
Anyone could submit a petition to call in the response team. The Department of Health would consider the site’s local pollution sources, significant health threats or the lack of good data.
“Any way that you can make the bureaucracy of state or federal government work more efficiently is a good thing,” Yudichak said. “Particularly when you’re talking about an emotional issue like this.”
The senator wrote the bill amid complaints from residents in Pittston, who said they had to go to local television stations before anyone would look into the high rate of cancer in some neighborhoods. The Environmental Protection Agency hasn’t found evidence of a cluster and said it won’t investigate further, residents say.
He’s lauded by his Luzerne County supporters, who say the bill would set into statute a clear path to addressing their concerns.
The subjects of the coal region’s cancer cluster study aren’t so sure. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been investigating the cluster, which spans Carbon, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties, for nearly five years, making those who live in the area all too aware of the government’s limitations.
Joe Murphy, president of the Community Action Committee remembers 2004, when representatives from the Department of Health told him a cancer problem “didn’t exist.” DEP is hardly more popular. At a meeting in Tamaqua in June, residents heaved a collective sigh of exasperation when a DEP spokesman said tests to determine a cause haven’t found anything conclusive.
Neither state agency has the experts necessary to effectively investigate cancer clusters, Murphy said. For example, he said, much of the groundwork in the Tamaqua investigation has been outsourced to universities and professional contractors.
It’s also unclear how Yudichak’s team would be financed. The current bill doesn’t appropriate funds, and the senator admits both departments may have to use existing equipment and personnel.
That’s what Cole, a veteran and skeptic of government investigations , calls a recipe for neglect. He’s doubtful Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration would push the envelope on environmental issues, particularly when industry could stand to lose.
“They function in accordance with the policy of the executive branch of government, which is to promote energy development — with environmental protection taking the back seat in the bus,” he said. “This bill would do little to change that.”
Despite his distrust, Wertman is willing to give Yudichak’s bill a chance. Anything is better than being ignored, the polycythemia vera patient said. And hope does spring eternal.
“The more people you get involved, the better,” he said. “I’m not in love with DEP, don’t get me wrong, but maybe there’d be someone that could turn things around.”
andrew.mcgill@mcall.com
610-820-6533
Coal region still far from finding cause for mysterious cancer
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/allentown/mc-tamaqua-cancer-cluster-20110618,0,2997474.story
By Andrew McGill, OF THE MORNING CALL
10:35 p.m. EDT, June 18, 2011
Researchers studying a cancer cluster say they’re still mastering the basics in an investigation that’s stretched five years.
Five years have passed since federal researchers first came to Pennsylvania’s coal region seeking the origins of a mysterious disease.
And while numerous government agencies, hospitals, doctors and universities have joined the hunt, a cause remains elusive, those gathered in Tamaqua for an update of the studies found out Wednesday.
“PV” is as well-known as anthracite in the Pennsylvania coal region, where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the rare form of cancer has taken unusually strong root. Estimated to affect one in 100,000 Americans — though researchers aren’t firm on that number — polycythemia vera has been known to hit four families on a single street in Tamaqua.
The victims have little in common, researchers say. They don’t have the same jobs, the same ancestry, the same lifestyle. The only things they share are age — the disease strikes few under 60 — and an attachment to the three-county region of Carbon, Luzerne and Schuylkill counties, home to one of the CDC’s few confirmed cancer clusters.
And to hear scientists speak at a community meeting Wednesday, proving anything further could be slow going.
At the Tamaqua Community Center, researchers said they’re still struggling with the basics of the investigation: finding people with PV, winnowing out the false positives and narrowing down possible environmental causes.
In a University of Pittsburgh study seeking to confirm legitimate cases of the blood cancer, only 27 patients out of the 164 queried agreed to participate. The numbers also are low for a sister study at Drexel University in Philadelphia, which has gotten 26 positive responses out of 117.
To date, researchers have diagnosed 372 cases.
But many of the names provided to researchers by the Pennsylvania Cancer Registry are out of date, either because of death or a change in address. Reporting irregularities mean researchers still aren’t sure how prevalent the cancer is in the general population.
“The primary data collection is very tedious,” said Carol Ann Gross-Davis, a researcher at Drexel. “But things are still progressing. Since Wednesday, we got two more cases. That’s how we have to count them.”
Progress has been similarly slow for state Department of Environmental Protection field workers, who have collected water, soil and sediment samples from homes of PV patients, nearby power plants and area water sources. They’ve found little, with water tests showing scattered elevations of lead and nitrates and a few homes showing moderate spikes in radon.
The one place they haven’t looked? The air. That’ll be left to private contractor Peter Jaran, who’s reproducing some of DEP’s tests and extending the search into the atmosphere, heavy with the grit of several nearby power plants.
But the $8 million in federal funding for the investigation includes a deadline, and several projects are coming due. Gross-Davis said her study, which seeks to find demographic data among PV patients, was supposed to end in September, far too early.
She’ll apply for an extension. But in an investigation that has grown many limbs — funding is split among a dozen separate projects and 10 organizations — coordinating efforts with other researchers has gummed the gears in finding PV’s cause.
At the same time, funding for the Community Action Committee, the investigation’s main public relations link to the coal region community, has nearly run out. Organizer Joe Murphy said the government has denied his request for $50,000 to keep the program going for another year, leaving him scrambling to find donors.
The group runs a PV support organization and distributes information on the progress of the studies.
The need for communication couldn’t have been clearer Wednesday. Residents, who have grown far too familiar with phrases like “allele burden” and “causal factors,” threw out suggestions: Have you looked at heredity? How about coal ash?
Frustration mounted.
Amid their questions, officials began hedging that they may never find the smoking gun that leads to PV.
That keeps Dr. Henry Cole awake at night. A paid adviser to the Community Action Committee, he’s seen the government muddle around and throw its hands up at the end of an investigation before. He doesn’t want the same fate for Tamaqua.
“There’s a distinction between not finding evidence and saying there’s no problem,” he said. “That’s been done all over this country.”
andrew.mcgill@mcall.com
610-820-6533
Drilling areas cause for concern
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Drilling_areas_cause_for_concern_06-17-2011.html
Posted: June 18, 2011
Health matters Pa. wants to create registry to track illnesses in fracking communities
HARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Corbett’s top health adviser said Friday that he wants to make Pennsylvania the first state to create a registry to track illnesses in communities near heavy drilling in the Marcellus Shale natural gas formation to determine what kind of impact, if any, the activity has on public health.
Health Secretary Eli Avila told Corbett’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission that creating such a registry is the timeliest and most important step the Department of Health could take, and that his agency is not aware of anything like it in other drilling states.
“We’re really at the frontiers of this and we can make a speedy example for all the other states,” Avila told the commission at its fourth meeting.
Collecting information on drilling-related health complaints, investigating them, centralizing the information in one database and then comparing illnesses in drilling communities with non-drilling communities could help refute or verify claims that drilling has an impact on public health, he said. The aggregation of data and information also would allow the Department of Health to make its findings public, in contrast to the privacy that surrounds its investigation into individual health complaints and the findings that may result.
The Marcellus Shale formation, considered the nation’s largest-known natural gas reservoir, lies primarily beneath Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio. Pennsylvania is the center of activity, with more than 3,000 wells drilled in the past three years and thousands more planned in the coming years as thick shale emerges as an affordable, plentiful and profitable source of natural gas.
The rapid growth of deep shale drilling and its involvement of high-volume hydraulic fracturing, chemicals and often-toxic wastewater are spurring concerns in Pennsylvania about poisoned air and water.
“As drilling increases, I anticipate, at least in the short term, a proportionate increase in concerns and complaints which the department must be prepared to address,” he said.
In the past year or so, the Department of Health has received several dozen or so health complaints, he said.
One woman, Crystal Stroud of Granville Summit in northern Pennsylvania, told an anti-drilling rally in the Capitol this month that she is hearing from others in Bradford County about bizarre and sudden health problems that they blame on contaminated water from the area’s heavy drilling.
Stroud herself blames her barium poisoning on well water polluted by drilling near her home, and accused state agencies of turning a blind eye.
“I am extremely confused as to why our Health Department is not interested in these issues and no one from (the) Pennsylvania Health Department has contacted us, and why are they not investigating this?” Stroud, 29, told the crowd on June 7.
“Every week I receive a phone call from someone different in my county that has unexplained rashes, high blood pressure, heart palpitations, high barium levels, a child with blisters all over his face from his mother bathing him in the water, and even a woman whose spleen burst in an unexplained way, all with contaminated water,” she said.
A spokesman for Corbett has said both the departments of Health and Environmental Protection have active investigations into Stroud’s claims, and the company that drilled the well, Dallas-based Chief Oil & Gas LLC, has denied responsibility for Stroud’s health problems.
On Friday, Avila said his agency has found no links between drilling and the illnesses and diseases presented to it so far, but he added that a wider study is necessary to determine whether there are any associations, and a health registry could accomplish that.
Such health registries are common, and in the past have been created to monitor and study data related to cancer and rare diseases, health department officials said. To set up a drilling-related registry and fully investigate drilling-related health complaints would require another $2 million a year for the department and possibly require the help of the state’s schools of public health, Avila said.
Shale drilling requires blending huge volumes of water with chemical additives and injecting it under high pressure into the ground to help shatter the thick rock — a process called hydraulic fracturing. Some of that water returns to the surface, in addition to the gas, as brine potentially tainted with metals like barium and strontium and trace radioactivity by the drilling companies.
Experts discuss likely sources of the rare blood illnesses in the three-county area
http://www.tnonline.com/2011/jun/16/it-radon-fly-ash-or-something-else
Thursday, June 16, 2011
By DONALD R. SERFASS dserfass@tnonline.com
Is it radon, fly ash or something else?
DONALD R. SERFASS/TIMES NEWS Dr. Jeanine Buchanich, University of Pittsburgh, stresses the importance of participating in studies aimed at targeting the cause of a rare blood disease. Buchanich was one of several speakers at a public forum held Wednesday at the Tamaqua Community Center. Also shown are Tom Murphy, Hometown, health and environmental advocate, and Dr. Henry Cole, Maryland.
Is radon the culprit in an unusually high number of cases of a rare blood illness in Schuylkill, Carbon and Luzerne counties? Or is it fly ash? Or maybe something else?
Those possibilities are being examined, along with a variety of other scenarios as part of $8.8M in research and investigations.
At Wednesday’s public meeting, sponsored by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and the Tri-County Polycythemia Vera (PV) Community Advisory Committee, an expert said significantly high levels of radon have been seen in studies here.
Robert K. Lewis, manager, hazardous sites cleanup, Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH), told 50 in attendance at the Tamaqua Community Center that one environmental analysis of air quality has turned up an area of concern.
“We sampled radon in homes. Fifty percent of homes were 4 picocuries or higher,” noted Lewis, who explained that 48 different locations were tested. One area tested was where a high incidence of PV cases has been identified.
“We were requested to sample along Ben Titus Road,” said Lewis.
In terms of water analysis, Lewis said testing was done on “a combination of well water and commercial water supplies such as the Tamaqua Water Authority.”
Lewis said results indicate that Tamaqua residential drinking water appears to have no problem with contaminants. However, “we didn’t (test for) radon in water,” he added. That is one area that would need to be looked at, said Lewis.
Lewis indicated that drinking water testing turned up only two lead results and two nitrate.
“The department doesn’t feel that drinking water is a problem here, but we should go back and look for radon.”
One expert said the entire effort is multipronged.
“You have an interdisciplinary group of scientists working on these studies,” said Dr. Henry Cole of Maryland, who has been working with Tom Murphy, Hometown, a founder of the CAC group.
The meeting featured updates by the Pa. Department of Environmental Protection, the agency sampling drinking water, dust and soil at the homes of study participants.
In addition, workers are testing water and sediment at the McAdoo Superfund site and cogeneration plants in the area.
A team from Drexel University is trying to identify risk factors for the disease, while researchers at the University of Pittsburgh are studying the frequency of PV cases.
Research updates target PV incidence
The session provided a broad range of updates from a variety of sources:
Ÿ Elizabeth Irvin-Barnwell of the ATSDR said a total of 1,150 persons were screened for the JAK2 mutation, found in those who develop PV. In addition, 3,500 DNA samples were analyzed for the mutation.
“We can link each person’s test with demographic factors … it’s a groundbreaking study,” said Irvin-Barnwell.
Ÿ Dr. Lora Siegmann Werner of the ATSDR outlined initiatives in health education, such as developing literature to address “What does it mean if you have PV?” A comprehensive list of physicians has been completed because there is great need to get information to doctors, she said. She also lauded work by the CAC support group and Michelle Greshner.
Ÿ Dr. Jeanine Buchanich, University of Pittsburgh said, “We’re working with the Department of Health to do an expansion of the original study.” She said 372 cases are included in the study, all from the Pennsylvania Cancer Registry. She said as many folks as possible should take part.
“We’re hoping CAC members will convey how important it is to participate in the study. The success of the study depends on getting people to participate.”
Ÿ Dr. Carol Ann Gross-Davis of Drexel University reported on a case control study of 147 people.
“Of the cases, we have 24 consented who have PV. We had 10 percent who declined to participate, which is their right,” she said, adding, “We’re doing it through the Geisinger system, coordinating through the University of Pittsburgh.”
Ÿ Dr. Jim Logue, Pennsylvania DOH principal investigator for the myeloproliferative neoplasm program, said he’s been involved in cancer analyses since 2004. He announced success with a partnership.
“We secured two contracts with the University of Pittsburgh.”
Ÿ David Marchetto, the department’s program manager, said progress is being made.
“The pieces are coming together,” he said. “We’re working with state, federal and local partners.” Marchetto also said, “Misclassification of the disease is a concern to us. There are cases reported to the cancer registry that aren’t PV, not only here but in southwestern and central Pa. as well.”
Similarly, sometimes PV cases do not get reported, he stated.
It was noted that Dr. Peter Jaran, environmental engineer from New Jersey, will look at groundwater and potential sources of contamination.
Local residents had several questions for the experts.
Irene Genther, a Nesquehoning resident and former educator with extensive background in the sciences, asked for clarification as to whether susceptibility to PV can be attributed to heredity. Irvin-Barnwell said heredity itself isn’t seen as a factor. Still, family history and ethnicity are areas being examined.
Genther advised attendees that contaminants such as fly ash dust and radon aren’t found only in the ground, but are airborne.
Some said a solution isn’t coming fast enough.
“It’s been eight years and we still don’t have an answer,” said PV patient Merle Wertman, Tamaqua. Wertman was on hand with wife Linda. The two have been staying on top of developments with the disease. Wertman was diagnosed in 2003. He has no family history of cancer.
Dr. Cole had words of praise for Murphy, a community volunteer who devotes himself to the role of environmental and health activist.
“Joe has put so much into this,” said Cole. “He’s been the guiding light. He put his whole heart and soul into this.”
Those in attendance gave Murphy a round of applause for his role in coordinating activities of the CAC.
What is Polycythemia vera?
http://www.tnonline.com/2011/jun/16/what-polycythemia-vera
Thursday, June 16, 2011
By DONALD R. SERFASS dserfass@tnonline.com
Polycythemia vera (PV) is a blood disease in which the bone marrow makes too many red blood cells, causing the thickening of blood.
PV usually takes years to develop. Most people are diagnosed with PV later in life, most often around age 60 or older.
People with PV might experience headaches, tiredness and shortness of breath. They are also at risk of getting blood clots, which can lead to heart attacks and strokes.
At this time, there is no cure for PV, but treatment can control symptoms and avoid heart problems. Some people with PV do not need treatment but should see their doctor regularly to stay as healthy as possible and to catch problems early, according to information provided by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).
In 2008, the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) and the ATSDR confirmed more PV cases than expected in parts of Schuylkill, Carbon and Luzerne counties.
Much scrutiny is being done to find a potential smoking gun, or factors that would potentially lead to the disease.
The DOH and the ATSDR are tracking patterns of PV and working with research partners in looking for trends and risk factors. In addition, the Centers for Disease Control is working to improve reporting systems for PV.
“This is an environmentally stressed area,” said Dr. Henry Cole of Maryland, noting the prevalence of local power plants, Superfund sites and an abundance of fly ash being dumped in Schuylkill, Carbon and Luzerne counties.
An apparent cancer cluster was first observed along Ben Titus Road, which is situated next to the Big Gorilla coal combustion waste dump of the Northeastern Power Co. The area is also home to the Superfund site McAdoo Associates. Other industrial waste sites are found in the area as well.
While the state agencies are now helping to pinpoint possible causes, critics point out that all of the industrial waste sites were created under the oversight of the former state Department of Environmental Resources, now the Department of Environmental Protection
Experts share information on cancer cluster in Tamaqua area
http://republicanherald.com/news/experts-share-information-on-cancer-cluster-in-tamaqua-area-1.1162746
By MIA LIGHT (Staff Writermlight@standardspeaker.com)
Published: June 16, 2011
TAMAQUA – Research continues into the high incidence of a rare cancer called polycythemia vera in Schuylkill, Carbon and Luzerne counties near Tamaqua and McAdoo.
A panel of public health officials met Wednesday at the Tamaqua Community Center to provide a public update on the ongoing research.
Tamaqua-area resident Joseph Murphy, chairman of the Community Action Committee, which was established to keep residents of the tri-county area connected to the government agencies conducting the research, said the meeting was called by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, or ATSDR, to review findings and chart future research.
Robert Lewis of the state Department of Environmental Protection said DEP has been collecting samples of drinking water, soil and air at homes in the Hazleton-McAdoo-Tamaqua area as well as nearby co-generation facilities and mine pools. Among the findings were high radon levels in 20 out of 40 homes tested; high levels of lead in two wells and high nitrates in two wells. Residents of the sampled homes were notified of the findings and the results were also provided to ATSDR, which will use the data in its effort to find the reason for high rates of polycythemia vera in the area.
Researchers are working to combine the environmental information with data resulting from a JAK2 genetic marker blood test conducted in the community last year. The JAK2 marker is found in most people who have been diagnosed with or are at risk for developing polycythemia vera.
Researchers are also working to double-check blood test findings, confirm each diagnosis and ensure the state cancer registry is updated with accurate data.
“All the research projects that were started in 2009 and 2010 are now under way,” Murphy said. “Finally, the researchers are out in the community interacting with the citizens.”
Polycythemia vera is an excess of red blood cells that can lead to heart attacks, strokes, headaches and other symptoms and is treated by withdrawing blood periodically.
In 2005, the state Department of Health found a higher incidence of polycythemia vera in Schuylkill and Luzerne counties than in the rest of the state. Next, state officials asked the federal agency to help investigate whether the people actually had polycythemia vera and to look for other cases in those counties and in Carbon County.
In August 2008, the federal agency made a public report saying 33 cases of polycythemia vera had been confirmed by detecting a gene mutation in the patients.
According to environmental consultant Henry S. Cole, who serves as coordinator and adviser to the Community Action Committee, communication between residents and the agencies is the most important issue at this point in the research.
“We’ve got interdisciplinary groups of scientists working on this, so it is very important to have communication between all agencies,” Cole said. “We have to have that back-and-fourth so that every piece of information, every finding is accurate and current and included in the final reports.”
That crucial role of communication played by the Community Action Committee could be in jeopardy, however, if a continuing funding source is not found.
The Community Action Committee was formed and funded with a portion of a $5.5 million research grant secured through then-U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter. The local committee received $99,000 with which to operate for two years. Its responsibilities include organizing a panel of scientific experts to gather data and advise citizens, hold monthly meetings to update the community, and produce and distribute information on polycythemia vera to citizens and local medical officials.
The action committee’s two-year funding allocation ends in September. But, Murphy said, the need to stay organized and keep the public informed on the ongoing research, the findings and new information on the cause of the local cancer risk remains high.
Murphy said he applied to the ATSDR for a $50,000 grant to fund the Community Action Committee for two more years, but the request was denied.
In the absence of federal funding, Murphy said his next step is to create a nonprofit organization to support the local arm of the polycythemia vera investigation.
“We have got to keep the community aspect of this alive,” Murphy said.
Updates on the ongoing investigations are available online at www.atsdr.cdc.gov/sites/polycythemia_vera.
Public health officials taking part in Wednesday’s meeting included Lora Werner and Stephen Derwent of the ATSDR; David Marchetto and James Logue, epidemiological research associates with the state Department of Health; Carol Ann Gross-Davis, research leader with Drexell University; and Jeanine Buchanich of the University of Pittsburgh.
Geisinger Health System and the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine are also participating in the research.
Researchers will discuss polycythemia vera progress
http://standardspeaker.com/news/researchers-will-discuss-polycythemia-vera-progress-1.1161276
Published: June 14, 2011
Researchers on Wednesday will discuss progress on studies begun after they detected a blood-cancer cluster in the region.
The meeting at 6 p.m. in the Tamaqua Community Center, 223 Center St., will bring together researchers from two universities, two state agencies and the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry who are studying polycythemia vera.
Polycythemia vera or PV is an excess of red blood cells that can lead to heart attacks, strokes, headaches and other symptoms and is treated by withdrawing blood periodically.
In 2005, the state Department of Health found a higher incidence of PV cases in Schuylkill and Luzerne counties than in the rest of the state. Next, state officials asked the federal agency to help investigate whether the people actually had PV and to look for other cases in those counties and in Carbon County.
In August 2008, the federal agency made a public report saying 33 cases of PV had been confirmed by detecting a gene mutation in the patients. Some areas studied had higher incidences of PV than the rest of the three-county region, and one of the clusters was statistically significant, the federal agency said.
In May 2010, doctors Kenneth Orloff and Bruce Tierney of the federal agency reported that 1,170 other residents of the three counties had been tested.
Of those, 19 had the gene mutation. Five of them had been diagnosed with PV previously, but the 14 new cases represented an incidence of 1.2 percent out of the total group tested.
Although PV patients frequently have the gene mutation, known as JAK 2, the disease is not hereditary, nor is its cause known.
At Geisinger Health System, researchers are studying how often people with the mutation get the disease and how prevalent the JAK 2 mutation is in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Researchers at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City are examining genetic differences between PV patients in Northeastern Pennsylvania and elsewhere. They also are studying the relationship of cells to certain chemicals while looking for links between chemicals and PV.
Employees of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection are sampling drinking water, dust and soil at the homes of study participants. Also, the department’s workers are testing water and sediment from the McAdoo Superfund Site and cogeneration plants in the area.
Drexel University’s team is looking for risk factors for PV and related diseases in the region.
At the University of Pittsburgh, researchers are studying the number of PV cases in a four-county area and reviewing reports of PV and related diseases.