Healthy Drinking Water and Healthy Homes The Healthy Homes, Healthy Communities, and Healthy Drinking Water Initiatives or Programs The Healthy Homes Program / Healthy Home Initiates “Environmental hazards in the home potentially harm millions of children each year. The Healthy Homes Program addresses multiple childhood diseases, exposures, and injuries that may originate in the home.… Read more
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Northeast Pennsylvania Polycythemia Vera (PV) Investigation Background In 2004, using state cancer registry records, the Pennsylvania Department of Health (PADOH) found a PV cluster in northeast Pennsylvania. PV is part of a disease group called myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN), which is a group… Read more
www.tnonline.com/2012/sep/21/blood-disease-no-answer Friday, September 21, 2012 By DONALD R. SERFASS dserfass@tnonline.com A government agency provided a status update Thursday on research into a rare blood disease found in our area. But the update left locals frustrated. Joe Murphy, Hometown, voiced exasperation due to the slow pace of progress. Murphy represents the Citizens Advisory Committee and said… Read more
www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-tamaqua-cancer-cluster-20120430,0,6418002.story By Andrew McGill, Of The Morning Call 11:26 p.m. EDT, April 30, 2012 After a long year, Pennsylvania’s coal country still knows only three things for sure. People are getting cancer in the region, rare cancer. They’re dying. And no one can say why. In a Centers for Disease Control investigation that has already… Read more
http://www.tnonline.com/2011/aug/19/rare-blood-disease-mix Friday, August 19, 2011 By DONALD R. SERFASS dserfass@tnonline.com Is it possible that some folks diagnosed with a blood disease involving a build-up of iron might actually be suffering from a rarer blood disease found in unusual clusters in Carbon, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties? The condition of iron build up in the blood is… Read more
http://standardspeaker.com/news/researchers-hone-cancer-studies-1.1190694#axzz1VTpgZtzW By SAM GALSKI (Staff Writer) Published: August 19, 2011 Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health are inviting residents from parts of Luzerne, Schuylkill and Carbon counties who have been diagnosed with polycythemia vera or related blood disorders to participate in confidential interviews that will be conducted today at Hazleton… Read more
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,… Read more
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… Read more
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? 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… Read more
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.… Read more
