the acreage cancer cluster
Meanwhile, Pratt & Whitney enjoys close ties with regulators. Someone threw a rock at her house, breaking her glass porch light. I figured it was a weird coincidence, says Dunsford, a sharp-witted mother of three with glasses and shoulder-length brown hair. Seminole Ridge High is a big school, and its ample, stucco-walled auditorium can hold hundreds of people, as it does for the pep rallies before Hawks games. But many were outraged when state health officials said that instead of environmental tests to hunt for the cancer cause, they would mount an awareness campaign instead. He left out the fact that he was an engineer for Pratt & Whitney. While the frustrated participants resigned in protest, another member of the group, who had expressed doubts about environmental factors in the cluster, later received a nice surprise: a letter from the Florida Department of Health commending his efforts and offering help in finding funding for his projects. When Jenna was near death, she told her mother she wanted to take her caps to the hospital so the other kids could use them after she was gone. Earlier this month, the Florida Health Department confirmed that a Some residents of The Acreage have filed a class action lawsuit against Pratt & Whitney. Soon, Dunsford discovered that three other youngsters in the sprawling rural community in the western reaches of Palm Beach County had recently received similarly grim news. She enjoys her family, her job and her small town. I look at the kids when they are sleeping, and I have to stop for a minute and take a breath, said Stephanie Peskowitz, 34, a nurse. But he also has a special outlook on life that his mother treasures and thinks may have resulted from his trauma. McCann knows that even if the puzzle of the Acreage cluster is finally solved, it wouldnt bring Jenna back. The answer is yes. As retired engineer Robert Abernethy reminisced at a 2004 reunion of Pratt employees who had worked on the J58 engine, In late 1957, Pratt & Whitney had two top-secret black engine projects that were to use poison fuels! So reactions in the community were decidedly mixed when, in November 2010, with the battery of state and local studies having rendered their results, the Acreage investigation was officially closed. (function() { As is the case of most cancer-clusters throughout the United States, no cause was ever found. In addition to TE-NORM, radionuclides have been detected in the Acreage that are not naturally occurring. Please note that we have not updated this map in months. The families are also filing individual lawsuits for damages. Homeowners such as Stephanie and Ira Peskowitz, a law enforcement officer, are wondering how long they can wait. But it could be something in the ground, pesticides, we dont know. I understand the fear and frustration. After years of litigation, their attorney, Jan Schlictmann, was left temporarily bankrupt, homeless and personally devastated. Palm Beach County families are finally getting their time in court after years of concerns over a spike in cancer cases in and around The Acreage. Though nothing stood out as the obvious cause, they felt such findings should have prompted further testing. Your Photos. That declaration came as a relief to some Acreage residents, since it confirmed what many had long suspected. 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; In court filings, Pratt & Whitney has denied the use of poison fuel, calling charges that it contaminated the Acreage completely speculative. But while the companys attorneys dismissed their opponents theories, Pratt & Whitney hasnt offered much explanation of its operations: it resisted requests to do water and soil testing on its property and declined to answer several of the opposing lawyers questions on the grounds that they related to classified matters of national security. A federal jury rejected claims Tuesday that Pratt & Whitney was responsible for a cancer cluster in The Acreage more than a decade ago. What was around me? In its eagerness to close on the deal, Palm Beach Aggregates minimized the hazards posed by its pits and allowed the radiation problem to escalate, according to the plaintiffs lawyers in the Acreage case. A cancer While Jessica, now 20, is attending college, Tracy has been spearheading the creation of the Garden of Hope, a place in the Acreage where people can go to honor their loved ones who have had cancer. I felt like people were looking at me saying, Shes the evil one who wants to ruin everything. On another, two of her children, then toddlers, were shot with a paintball gun while they played in her backyard. WebThis month the county's Health Department confirmed that The Acreage is home to a cancer cluster, defined as an area with rates of brain tumors and brain cancers higher In fact, by current standards, conclusively blaming a chemical culprit for a cancer cluster is so difficult that only three of 428 cluster investigations conducted in the United States since 1990 have established a link between pollution and illness. WebThe Acreage is an unincorporated Palm Beach community which has experienced significant growth in its 25 years to around 39,000 people. Thissite has been developed to help share information about a confirmed cancer cluster in The Acreage with those who live in or around The Acreage (which includes Loxahatchee, Unincorporated West Palm, and parts ofRoyal Palm Beach) in Florida. The case in Toms River, New Jersey, documented in Dan Fagins Pulitzer Prizewinning book Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation, took place over ten years and was similar to the Woburn case in both its underwhelming financial payoff and the monumental public and private effort that led to it. Get the latest updates in news, food, music and culture, and receive special offers direct to your inbox. And Joey Baratta, who moved to the Acreage with his mother and stepfather in 2004, when he was 15, spent much of his time there riding his ATV and working on his parents land, which abutted one of the areas many canals. Still, the crowd was standing-room-only on this night. Hatfield countered that medical experts her West Palm Beach firm hired will refute those claims. Nearly 10 years after it was filed, Acreage cancer cluster lawsuit headed to trial this month The plaintiffs allege Pratt & Whitney dumped chemicals that caused brain So Hatfield and Scarola took their test results to the media. 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; While much of the trial will focus on the trauma the families experienced and complex scientific information about the sources, causes and dangers of radiation, the jury wont be asked to determine if the parents should be compensated for their childrens illnesses and deaths. Located 15 miles northwest of West Palm Beach, The Acreage is an area of dirt roads, riding trails and some 35,000 residents, many who moved here to get away from big city ills. Log in, 2010 Schechter, Shaffer & Harris, LLP, All Rights Reserved, Rori Feldman is the attorney responsible for the content of this website. Please specify what type of assistance you need so we can better assist you. In June of 2009, a local reporter got hold of one of the forms Dunsford was sending around and wrote a story about her efforts. In November 2012, the company announced plans to add 230 jobs at its Florida campus over the next eight years and to invest $63 million in its facilities there. The smallest plots are more than an acre, and many are larger, so houses are a good distance from one another. By May 2009, Jennifer Dunsford had developed a database documenting dozens of cancers in children and adults throughout the neighborhood. A doctor will testify that he found evidence of radioactive material in the tissue of a teen who died. The Samarripas left the Acreage in 2010. WebStudying cancer clusters allows scientists to identify areas of increased cancer risk, as well as to try to figure out what is causing the increase in risk. Instead, the Palm Beach County Health Department told Hatfield to direct further contacts to its lawyer. ', Much of the mudslinging took place online. Then, two years later, another study was published concluding that cancer rates among the companys workers were not elevated. Contact her at jmusgrave@pbpost.com. But, he said, state agencies found no evidence either the water or the soil was contaminated. If you would like to print this map, you can use the print option off your web browser. That amount of dirt wouldnt be enough to provide fill for one house in the 60-square-mile community. Unseal statement by State Attorney Dave Aronberg's ex-wife in Glenn Straub case, newspapers ask judge, Boynton synagogue fights Florida's abortion limits in religious freedom suit, Ruling opens door to Corey Jones' family suing Palm Beach Gardens over rights violation in his death, Families argue Pratt & Whitney caused cancer cluster in South Florida. One, composed primarily of families of the children stricken with cancer, focused on the fact that the research had identified several contaminants above FDEP cleanup levels, including radium-226, benzene and a variety of other commonly occurring carcinogens. The most likely cause the only cause is the transportation of Pratt Whitney materials to The Acreage, she said during opening statements. Even though her children are healthy, she said her life was forever changed by that announcement four years ago. If tests prove that residents are at risk to cancers, then I would recommend that residents protect their families.. Alonso argues that tracking down environmental causes of cancer is not her agencys forte. On February 1, 2010 the Florida Department of Health declared the Acreage a "Pediatric Cancer Cluster". Though health officials confirmed a cluster of pediatric brain cancers, the lawsuit alleges that adults have been affected too: "According to self-reported data from the community, the 2008-2010 incidence of brain tumors for the entire Acreage population is above 30. It helped start the P2 Coalition of Palm Beach County (P2 is short for pollution prevention) in 1994, along with the Palm Beach County Health Department, other local businesses and the Jupiter Chamber of Commerce. Yesterday, the law firm of Searcy, Denney, Scarola, Barnhart, and Shipley held a news conference about lawsuits related to a cluster of pediatric brain cancer in But if we do it to ourselves in the name of national security, in preparation for war, that seems to be sort of OK., Pratt & Whitney has not only identified itself with the countrys security but has enhanced its public image by embracing the fight against cancer and the cause of protecting the environment. According to a 1985 Department of Environmental Regulation update, the company had soil on its property that contained PCBs chemicals that have been linked to brain cancer at more than 200 times the maximum level now allowed even in fenced-off, nonresidential areas. In court filings, Pratt & Whitney denied having any contaminations beyond properly stored chemical compounds.. From 1997-2007, the highest number of cases that should be expected in any three year period based on both state and county comparisons is 5.1. If Al Qaeda sent a team of sleeper cells to poison our groundwater and release toxic materials into the air, people would go nuts. Kaye McCann says she doesnt miss Florida only Jenna, who is still buried there. In Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, historian David Rosner describes how plastics and chemical manufacturers avoided regulation in part by making their own economic interests seem synonymous with those of the country. Still, she fervently hopes that someone can find whatever it is thats made kids sick, stop it, and help clean it up. She is now exploring the possibility of moving Jennas grave near their home in Georgia. Tracy Newfield, who had been vocal in asking for an investigation, started receiving prank calls about the cluster and had her mailbox knocked over several times. If you would like your information added to this map, please email us at info@theacreagecancerstudy.com and provide us with your address, sex, age, and diagnosis. Half a year later, on a mild evening in early 2010, state officials called a town meeting at the local high school to tell the community what the investigation had found. A judge heard testimony Friday about a forensic investigation that's shedding light on radioactive materials found on the campus of Pratt & Whitney and The Acreage community. Sadly, she said, the investigation by the state agencies wasnt thorough. Tell us if its safe to drink the water, shouted one man in the audience. He was introduced to us as an engineer, Newfield says. But the details of the process arent public. P2 began as a friendly collaboration based on the good working relationship between the regulatory community and industry, as one internal document put it. Since there is no evidence that contaminated groundwater traveled a distance of 6 to 14 miles to the Acreage from Pratts 7,000-acre compound off the Beeline Highway, Hatfield and her legal team will argue that it was carried there by trucks. _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-230305-2']); So they were shocked to hear the health officials explain that the community was definitely experiencing a cluster of pediatric brain tumors, as well as elevated rates of all cancers at all ages. The Centers for Disease The Samarripas moved to Alabama, where Hannah, now 20 and in college, is flourishing, according to her mother. (function() { It found elevated levels of cancer in children in The Acreage and designated the area as a pediatric brain cancer cluster. Based on the calculations in the report from the Florida Department of Health, a girls chance of getting a brain tumor in the Acreage was five and a half times what it was in the rest of Florida. And that scary figure didnt include the four additional Acreage children who were diagnosed with brain tumors the following year, 2008. Unequivocally laying the blame on one often requires showing that no other was involved. Though it was unclear whether probing for answers would ever solve the cancer mystery, there was no question that all the attention to the risks of living in the Acreage had carried a steep financial cost. Pratt & Whitney Named in First Lawsuit Filed Over The Acreage Cancer Cluster Some residents of The Acreage have filed a class action lawsuit against Pratt & Whitney. 8, 2022 at 3:06 PM PDT Palm Beach County families are finally getting Playing outside was prohibited. Because the Acreage is unincorporated, the city doesnt provide services even water. Like most other suspected clusters, that one had failed upon investigation to clear the statistical bar. We really need leadership out of Tallahassee, a person designated by the governor to take charge an action plan. But for the Peskowitz family, and thousands of others in this western Palm Beach County community, the joy of living miles away from the urban clutter and noise has been supplanted by something louder and more insistent fear. Palm Beach Aggregates did not respond to a request for comment for this article, and in court documents has vehemently denied causing any environmental harm. Kaye McCann, also in the auditorium, was more pessimistic. This article will provide you with some guidelines on how you can obtain high-quality maps. Today, Pratt & Whitney has more than $10 billion in defense contracts, and United Technologies is the sixth-biggest Pentagon contractor. And being part of the defense industry carries weight not just in the court of public opinion, but also in a court of law. Cancer cluster frightens Palm Beach County, Cancer cluster frightens Palm Beach County community, Widening manhunt for Texas gunman who killed five neighbors slowed by zero leads, Golden Beach police sergeant in stable condition after shooting during chase of car-theft suspects, Skies clear in South Florida as residents clean up from 130-mph tornado in Palm Beach County, Mike Shannon, who spent 50 years in the St. Louis Cardinals broadcast booth after winning 2 World Series, dies at 83. Experimental science tries to understand the relationship between x chemical and y outcome in a controlled setting, says Madeleine Scammell, an assistant professor of environmental health at the Boston University School of Public Health. Your Photos. The verdict said that the aerospace giant did not release pollution or transport radioactive materials into the community from its facility located along Beeline Highway in western Palm Beach County. Within a few months, some of the participants felt they were being pressured to stop pursuing questions about water contamination. When Becky heard from her pastor that another child in their congregation had been diagnosed with a brain tumor, she reached out to the boys parents, arranging to meet them in the waiting room of Miami Childrens Hospital. fl.us/southeast/acreage/www.pbcgov. However, though the study did not find an association with workplace exposures, it did confirm the elevated brain-cancer rate at the North Haven plant. "We're confident that in subsequent cases, we'll be able to establish that the radioactive materials that Pratt & Whitney mishandled on its property, as the jury found, were, in fact, transported to the Acreage.". Youd need a massive amount of materials, hundreds of thousands of tons of soil, to contaminate a community of roughly 12,000 homes, Gallagher said. But documents from the 1960s through the 90s show that Pratt & Whitney had licenses to use at least a dozen radioactive substances [PDF], including radium D and E, thoriated nickel and cesium-137, in Florida. Loxahatchee (Acreage) Cancer Cluster where the rate of brain tumors in children is alarmingly high, making raising a young family (or any family) in that area life threatening 3. Prior to the cancer cluster, homes in The Acreage consistently sold at about 92% of the value of Jupiter Farms homes. We would also like those who are in need of medical assistance to let us know. The Hollings researchers identified a protein called transforming acidic coiled-coil containing protein var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; Erin Brockovich, who inspired the eponymous film about her fight against polluted water in California, had taken on some of the affected families as clients. Even the politicians in attendance were unhappy. Further, Gallagher said, a University of Florida doctor who specializes in neuro-oncology will testify that the type of brain cancer Acreage children suffered couldnt have been caused by low-level exposure that would have happened through contaminated soil. There are so many unknowns, and unknowns create hysteria and fear, she said. At Miami Childrens Hospital, where their son was treated, the Dunsfords met the family of another brain cancer patient who lived just a mile away. A mixture of chemicals that can cross the blood-brain barrier and cause cancer in mice, jet fuel was found at the Pratt & Whitney facility in Florida. This month the countys Health Department confirmed that The Acreage is home to a cancer cluster, defined as an area with rates of brain tumors and brain cancers higher than normal. Five couples who lived in the area and whose children developed brain tumors are serving as plaintiffs in a class-action suit that seeks damages for local residents whose property value plummeted after the cancer cluster was publicized. If anything happened to them, she said, I could not live with myself. We are keeping track of this information because if an environmental hazard (a causal agent) is found in the Acreage, it is very possible it could cause multiple illnesses - not just brain tumors and brain cancer. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines a cancer cluster as a greater-than-expected number of cancer cases that occurs within a group of people in a geographic area over a period of time. Yet because elevated numbers of any disease can occur by chance, and because cancer is relatively rare and its incredibly difficult to determine if rare events occur by chance the vast majority of investigations into suspected clusters dont confirm them. Though the parcel was on the part of the companys property nearest the Acreage, this never came up during the cluster investigation. At some point you have to say, My credit is not worth it; were going,' said Stephanie Peskowitz, a founder of Voices of the Palm Beach Cancer Cluster, a citizens group. A similar back-and-forth ensued when Pratt & Whitney hired epidemiologists to investigate a possible cancer cluster in its North Haven, Connecticut, jet-engine plant, where an unusual number of workers had died from an especially lethal form of brain cancer called glioblastoma the same kind that Joey Baratta and Debora Craig, another Acreage plaintiff, had. The deal, which helped land two county commissioners in prison for fraud (a consultant advising the agency, it turned out, was being paid by the mining company), stipulated that Palm Beach Aggregates couldnt be held legally responsible for any contamination of water in the used pits. When Hannah got sick in 2007, her mother had no idea that, just a few blocks away in the Acreage their lush South Florida community other children had also suffered through the same awful symptoms. (It did come up in the litigation, but the companys lawyers dismissed it as a red herring.). West Palm Beach attorney Jack Scarola took the lead on this case for the Acreage residents. Abruzzo said he knows some of his constituents have left the area, and just walked away from their property and their mortgage. They dont walk, they run in the opposite direction of these kinds of things, says Clapp. The suit over whether several companies had caused a cluster of leukemia cases in children in Woburn, Massachusetts, chronicled in the book (and later movie) A Civil Action, was incredibly lengthy, costly and labor-intensive, and the plaintiffs walked away with relatively small settlements. Though Becky Samarripa chose not to get involved in any litigation, the radiation theory makes sense to her. I was Sharon Lerner is a reporting fellow with Type Investigations covering environmental issues for The Intercept. The company trumpeted the results of a ten-year investigation that found no statistically significant elevations in the overall cancer rates among the workforce throughout the state. Cynthia Santiago was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2009 at the age of 13 while living in a South Florida community known as the Acreage. Charlie Crist and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-FL, have urged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to get involved. It takes everything in me some days not to fall apart. Many parents of the children with cancer were angry and frustrated, but other residents felt relief. One of Toms Rivers legacies is that public-health agencies are quite uninterested in pursuing these investigations, which are very expensive, very difficult to resolve conclusively, make a lot of people angry, and make life difficult for politicians, Fagin told me. Consider Abernethys 2004 description of his work on the J58 engine: We built a huge swimming pool with a tall tower to centrifuge the poison out of the exhaust. (When recently deposed by attorneys in the Acreage case, Abernethy said he had trouble recalling any poison fuel.). Trucking manifests and other documents will show that contaminated soil, most of which was shipped out on rail cars to hazardous disposal sitesin Michigan and South Carolina, was handled properly, he said. However, five years later, her youngest son was diagnosed with brain cancer. Definitively proving the cause of a cluster is so difficult because we live amid so many carcinogens. '&utmxhash='+escape(h.substr(1)):'')+'" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">')})(); state. Last week the states Department of Environmental Protection began sampling ground water and well water from several Acreage homes. McCann ultimately found it too painful to be around the group of Acreage parents pursuing the cause of their childrens cancer, because most of their children survived. _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); Becky Samarripa felt the hostility, too. Since then, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has overseen the cleanup of the area, a process that has involved the removal of many tens of thousands of tons of contaminated soil and thousands of gallons of fuel from the groundwater. planets orbital period 165 years, community chang monologue,
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