Published in the Ocean County Observer
By DON BENNETT
Staff Writer
TOMS RIVER -- Nothing was found in seven Ocean County College buildings to cause cancer, and the number of staff members who got any of the 100 varieties of the disease since 1979 was only about half what would have been expected in a population of 4,000 people, a panel of experts reported yesterday.
The study by state and private experts was done after three OCC faculty members who worked in the Instructional Building contracted different cancers earlier this year.
Was there something in the building that caused the senior staff members to get sick?
Not according to experts from the state Public Employee Occupational Safety and Health program.
"We found nothing unusual," said Steven Pomerantz, a PEOSH research scientist. No carcinogens or airborne asbestos were found in the survey that started in the Instructional Building and spread to six others. There was some moisture-related mold, flaws in asbestos abatement bookkeeping, and the need for an improved employee-safety program, but nothing that would cause cancer.
"There were no unusual cancers, no unusual incidences of cancer, no carcinogens," said Dr. Eddy A. Bresnitz, an epidemiologist with the state Department of Health and Senior Services.
Dr. Judith Klotz, a cancer epidemiologist with the state Department of Health, said there would be a "lot of unusual cancers of the same type," if something in the buildings was making faculty members sick.
"We saw no aggregations of unusual cancers," she said.
What the comparison of 4,049 employees who worked at the college from 1979 to 2000 revealed was 189 people who got 200 cancers.
In a typical group of 4,000 New Jersey residents over the same 23-year period, she said, 350 cancers normally would be reported.
The cancer rate at the college might be lower than that for the rest of the state, or the number of younger college employees might have tilted the numbers, she said.
Perhaps retirees who later got cancer moved out of state, and were not included in the state's data base, she speculated.
Whatever the cause, Klotz said the number and distribution of cancer among OCC staff members "are consistent with a healthy working population."
Were the numbers skewed by New Jersey's high cancer rate, asked Professor Richard Strada, whose diagnosis of non-Hodgkins lymphoma was one of the cases that triggered the investigation.
Klotz said they were not.
"I am very well assured that everything is quite normal here at the college. For that we are thankful," said former Sen. William T. Hiering, the president of the college Board of Trustees.
"It turned out very well," he said.
"We take this issue very seriously," added Jon Larson, OCC president, promising to follow up on staff requests for more probing made at yesterday's meeting where the investigation results were made public.
Eight thousand students are about to start classes at the college next week, a near record number.
The requests for further probing made yesterday include:
Surveying the incidence of cancer among the staff at the Instructional Building separately, since many of those who work in offices or classrooms on the west side of the building have developed cancer.
Investigating whether tainted groundwater from the old Dover Township landfill at Church and Bay avenues, northwest of the college, will have an impact at the campus.
Sampling the soil and building runoff for chemical contamination.
Humanities Professor William S. Lavundi asked for the added study of the Instructional Building, concerned about employees on the west side of the building getting cancer.
"There is no reason to think it would be any more unusual than anything else we looked at," Klotz said, but Larson said Lavundi's request will be honored.
Dr. Parvez Dara, who chairs the Cancer Committee at Community Medical Center, said only 3 percent of cancers are caused by chemicals, compared to 30 percent that are caused by tobacco.
Dara said cancer-treatment techniques are making great strides, and the "future looks very, very bright."
Judith Schick-Lenk of the math department, recovering from colon cancer, agreed with that, pulling out a bottle she said was providing her a chemotherapy treatment while she took part in the discussion.
Mary Ann Richards was one of three teachers at a Toms River high school who got breast cancer about the same time. She now works in the college Office of School Relations.
"I credit my survival to that mammography," she said, urging early detection efforts for all forms of cancer.
"Early detection saves lives," said Frank P. Mascia of the American Cancer Society's Jersey Shore Region.
Published in the Ocean County Observer 08/29/02
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