Subscribe to the RSS feed.Leukemia in Longview: What’s the story?
By: CHP | Posted on: September 8th, 2008 | Share:
Categories: Air and Water Quality • Disparities • Economic Issues • Policies and Laws • Public Health • Rural Health
City of Longview
Some of us have been talking about the recent cases of leukemia and aplastic anemia among children in Longview, Washington, and what the important element of the story really is.
How do you think it should be framed?
As reported by the Oregonian, two girls in Longview, WA, ages 8 and 9, have different forms of leukemia, while another 9-year-old girl has aplastic anemia, which robs bone marrow’s ability to make blood cells. County health officials have found seven cases over 10 years, which is statistically beyond the normal distribution for these conditions in a given area.
In Cowlitz and Columbia counties, statistics predicted as many as six aplastic anemia cases from 1997 through 2006, while doctors found seven. Statistics predicted at most 189 leukemia cases in the area, and doctors found 193.
According to the article, some residents blame the chemical benzene, which over time can cause aplastic anemia and acute myeloid leukemia. Several people point to the Emerald Kalama Chemical plant, one of Washington’s biggest hazardous waste producers. Last year, Emerald released 3.7 tons of benzene into the air.
Emerald Kalama was previously known as the Food Ingredients & Industrial Specialties Division from Noveon, and previously had been a part of BF Goodrich Specialty Chemical, and Lubrizol. The company has several brand names, including Goodrite Resin-D, Hilton Davis colorants, Foam Blast, and Hypox Specialty Epoxy Resins; and the various brands of carbon black dispersions for inks, coatings and other specialty applications.
However, in a two-state study focusing on Emerald Kalama, investigators found no link among emissions, wind patterns and where aplastic anemia patients lived. The plant “didn’t seem like it would be a likely source” of the diseases, said Juliet VanEenwyk, Washington’s epidemiologist for non-infectious conditions.
Dr. Alan Melnick, Cowlitz County health officer, said “we can either spend our resources trying to find cause and effect, or we can spend our resources trying to find sources of pollution and clean them up.” Yet health officials also urged people to limit smoking and driving, which emit benzene, and to comment on proposed permits for industrial plants.
They also asked for volunteers to help Cowlitz County set priorities through a “community environmental health assessment.”
Interested participants can call 360-501-1218.
So what’s the story here? Is the important element that health officials are asking for your input in putting together a “community environmental health assessment?”
Is it a rare case of the news media focusing on environmental causes of cancer – rare because those causes are often linked to some specific business or industry?
Is it another example of the vulnerable and defenseless getting shafted by the industrial machine which produces the conveniences that we all take for granted? Emerald Kalama helps make computers, televisions, printer cartridges, and some of the processed food we eat, such as soups, breads and beverages.
Are people getting cancer as payment for the cheap and plentiful food that we conveniently enjoy as a society?
Is Emerald Kalama being pitted as a scapegoat for something else?
Or is the story about something bigger?
—
Postscript:
The “community environmental health assessment” that Cowlitz is asking for assistance with is an example of an emerging field called community-based participatory research (CBPR). According to the Rand Review, thios process involves “partnerships between researchers and the communities affected by health problems, with the ultimate goal of effecting policy change and making tangible improvements in people’s lives.”
Read more about it here:
http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/spring2007/perspect.html
Next entry: 
Previous entry: 
Back to main
