Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
TOMS RIVER Researchers are in the final phase of a massive study that seeks to explain why the incidence of certain cancers in Dover Township is higher than elsewhere, a state health department official said.
But it will not be until June 2001 that the results of the study will be released to the public, said James S. Blumenstock, assistant commissioner of the state Department of Health and Senior Services.
"We're in a little bit of a dry period," Blumenstock told the audience at the monthly meeting Monday of the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster. In December, researchers released interim results of the epidemiological study, which included interviews with 40 families of children diagnosed with brain or central nervous system cancer or leukemia while living in Dover from 1979 to 1996.
Scientists also interviewed 159 control-group families whose children did not contract the disease.
The interim report focused on information like occupation, family history and lifestyles. Blumenstock said researchers are now looking at residential exposure to different sources of water, mothers' and fathers' occupational history and exposure to chemicals in the work place, differences in exposure to any airborne contaminants, and residential proximity to hazardous waste sites.
The study has been delayed because the health department's partners at the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry need more time to complete complex computer models of Dover's water system through the years.
"We're just basically looking at the source of the water in different sections of the community," Blumenstock said.
He said researchers are trying to determine if there are significant differences in the drinking-water source of families of children with cancer as compared to families whose children did not develop the disease.
Blumenstock said it will not be possible to determine how much contaminated water any one person ingested because such detailed records, from decades ago, are not available.
"The information is not available," said Thomas Mignone, an environmental health scientist for the federal agency. "We cannot do dose reconstruction."
Instead, scientists will be able to tell if particular households received more drinking water from Holly Park wells, or from the parkway well field, for example, Blumenstock said.
He said that over the next few months, researchers will give a series of "mini-presentations" at citizens committee meetings, explaining scientists' methodology, techniques and rationale in completing the study.
"We want to tell you why we're doing it, and how we're doing it," he said.
Published: April 12, 2000
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