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.

No common ground found on cancer ‘cluster’

http://citizensvoice.com/news/no-common-ground-found-on-cancer-cluster-1.1152060#axzz1NN3RonoJ

By Andrew Staub (Staff Writer)
Published: May 25, 2011

PITTSTON – To prove the existence of a cancer cluster near the Butler Mine Tunnel, residents arrived at a city school on Tuesday armed with anecdotal evidence – exhibits like a bald head hidden under a ball cap, scars from medical treatments and stories of friends and family who succumbed to cancer.

To discount the existence of a cancer cluster near the Butler Mine Tunnel, scientists from the state Department of Health and officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency arrived to the school with empirical evidence – 17 year’s worth of data, literature and detailed presentations.

The two sides, meeting in the Martin L. Mattei Middle School’s cafeteria, never quite reached a common ground. Instead, residents lobbed questions – and frustrated grumbles – toward officials from the EPA and Department of Health when told the 60 or more cases of cancer that have accumulated on Mill and Carroll streets do not qualify as a cancer cluster.

Such an assertion, residents said, is hard to believe considering the Butler Mine Tunnel looms beneath portions of the city. The tunnel, designed as a drainage outlet for a maze of abandoned mines, served as an illegal dumping ground for oil waste in the late 1970s and twice spewed its sludge into the Susquehanna River.

“Who shot Kennedy?” said Chuck Meninchini, a Carroll Street resident diagnosed with lymphoma in February.

While allusions to a cover-up at worst and a lack of answers at best filtered through the room, the EPA’s remedial project manager for the Butler Mine Tunnel Superfund Site, Mitch Cron, tried to assure residents the mine tunnel posed no present danger to them.

“The public is not exposed to contamination from the Butler Mine Tunnel Superfund Site,” Cron said, uttering a line he would repeat several times throughout the night.

The EPA has found oil and grease residue near a borehole at the Hi-Way Auto Services Station, the business that allowed the waste to be dumped into the ground from 1977-79, Cron said. And though one hazardous chemical was detected in amounts above drinking water standards, Cron said that the mine water is not used for drinking and that the water running through the tunnel now is “generally very clean.”

Dr. Stephen Ostroff, director of the state’s bureau of epidemiology, presented data that showed Pittston’s cancer rate outpaces the state average by 11 percent, with an excess of lung, colon and thyroid cancer diagnoses from 1992 to 2008.

Still, Ostroff couldn’t confirm the presence of a cancer cluster, defined by the EPA as an “occurrence of a greater than expected number of cases of a particular disease within a group of people, a geographic area or a period of time.”

City residents suffered from a wide range of cancers, while cancer clusters generally involve a large number of one type of cancer or a rare cancer, Ostroff said. The types of cancers found in excess in Pittston, Ostroff said, usually are not caused by exposure to chemicals.

“That’s the bottom line,” he said.

Most residents disagreed with Ostroff.

Some questioned why the Department of Health examined the entire 18640 zip code instead of limiting its examination of Pittston to just Mill and Carroll streets, where most residents say they’ve noticed inflated numbers of cancers. A small sample size, Ostroff said, would not provide sufficient data.

Others discounted the data from the state cancer registry, and one resident even suggested to “delete” it. Another man walked out when Cron said the EPA had no plans to test soil samples from homes on Mill and Carroll streets.

Edward Appel lives on Mill Street and came to the school with his wife, Helen. She sat in a wheelchair beside Edward, who described his wife’s past battle with breast cancer, then brain tumors. He believes the mine tunnel must be connected to Helen’s trip through “hell.”

“It’s easy to say nothing’s happening – by the people that don’t have the cancer,” Edward Appel said.

Another Mill Street resident, George Boone, collected some of the pamphlets at the open house. A heavy white bandage wrapped around his left arm told the story of the kidney dialysis he endures three times a week, while his shirt hid the scar left when surgeons removed his right kidney about 11 years ago at the outset of his battle with kidney cancer.

Boone’s friend, Phyllis Hadley, said cancer claimed in-laws and her husband. Then she rattled off surnames of several city families who have lost someone to cancer.

“You know what,” Hadley said, “if you stopped to think … ” “… You’ll count forever,” Boone said, finishing her thought.

The anecdotal evidence hasn’t changed the mind of the EPA or the Department of Health, both of which stood by past research and observations.

Area elected officials such as state Sen. John Yudichak and U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, though, left residents with a vow to continue the search for clarity about Pittston’s high rate of cancer. Barletta would like to see additional testing to find out if there’s a root cause, said his spokesman, Shawn Kelly.

“Even if it’s not the Butler Mine Tunnel, we want to make sure it’s not something,” Kelly said. “The people here deserve answers.”

astaub@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2052

PA Department of Health Announces Blood Disorder Study in Southwestern Pennsylvania

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/department-of-health-announces-blood-disorder-study-in-southwestern-pennsylvania-97667524.html

Department of Health Announces Blood Disorder Study in Southwestern Pennsylvania

Residents with Polycythemia Vera in Bedford, Blair, Cambria and Somerset Counties Encouraged to Participate

HARRISBURG, Pa., July 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Pennsylvania Department of Health today announced a new, federally-funded study on the blood disorder Polycythemia vera, or PV, in Bedford, Blair, Cambria and Somerset counties.

Residents of these counties who were diagnosed with PV between 2001 and 2008 are eligible to participate in the study and will be compensated.

PV is a blood disorder that causes bone marrow to produce too many red blood cells, resulting in what is commonly referred to as “thick blood.”  People with PV can sometimes be at increased risk for blood clots, heart attack or stroke. However, there are other disorders that also result in an excess of red blood cells. The other disorders are referred to as secondary polycythemia. It may be difficult to distinguish PV from the other disorders.

The purpose of the new study is to evaluate the information the department receives from the Pennsylvania Cancer Registry on people who have been diagnosed with PV. Persons asked to take part in the study are those with PV reported to the state cancer registry as well as those identified by local physician offices.

A 2008 study of PV in Carbon, Luzerne and Schuylkill counties in northeast Pennsylvania found a greater number of PV cases than would ordinarily be expected in the three-county area. However, the investigation also showed that some of the cases reported to the state cancer registry as PV were inaccurate, and some cases of PV had never been reported at all. This problem made it difficult to accurately determine the prevalence of PV in the area. It is important to know whether similar PV diagnosis problems exist in other parts of the state.

The four-county area in the southwestern part of the state was chosen because it shares many similar features with the tri-county area of northeast Pennsylvania; not because there appears to be an excess of PV. The similarities include population size, geography and environment.

To help diagnose PV, patients who agree to participate will be interviewed about their health, medical history and environmental exposures. They will also have a blood sample collected to look for the presence of a genetic marker known as JAK2 in their blood cells. More than 90 percent of patients confirmed with PV have the JAK2 genetic marker in their blood cells. Results of the JAK2 test will be available to the patient and their doctor, but will otherwise be kept confidential.

The Department of Health is working with the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health to carry out the study. All PV patients in the four-county area who are listed in the state cancer registry and those identified through area physicians will be contacted by the University of Pittsburgh and asked to take part in the study. A nurse representative from the University of Pittsburgh will visit the participant’s home to administer the survey and collect a blood sample. Knowing the JAK2 marker is present may help a doctor to more carefully monitor a patient’s blood counts.

For more information on PV or the 2008 study of the northeast Pennsylvania tri-county area, visit http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/sites/polycythemia_vera/index.html.

To learn about the University of Pittsburgh’s upcoming study on PV or to find out about participating in the study, please contact Dr. Paula A. Balogh, FNP, of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health at 412-623-5901 or e-mail pvstudy@pitt.edu.

Media contact: Holli Senior, 717-787-1783

SOURCE Pennsylvania Department of Health