We are concerned residents just like you. I think about it every day, says one resident, who didnt want to give her name lest she be pilloried for believing in the cluster. The department responded by sending forms that she was encouraged to share with anyone she encountered in the area who had cancer, asking about the specifics of their diagnoses, their ages and their addresses. _udn = "none"; In one sense, I would not go through what theyre going through every day of their lives, wondering if [regular testing for cancer] is going to come back positive, she says. The Acreage Cancer Study 2011 A judge on Friday heard from a Pratt & Whitney spokesperson who admitted that some of the radioactive material was disposed of in a nearby landfill but said it was inside a steel drum. Home - The Acreage Cancer Cluster Also citing the gag order, Pratt & Whitney declined to answer questions for this article, stating only that Pratt & Whitneys position is documented in its court filings related to the Acreage.. It is West of Palm Bch Gdns, North of Royal Palm Beach. 's://ssl':'://www')+'.google-analytics.com'+'/siteopt.js?v=1&utmxkey='+k+'&utmx='+(x?x:'')+'&utmxx='+(xx?xx:'')+'&utmxtime='+new Date().valueOf()+(h? New Acreage 'cancer cluster' lawsuit filed - WPTV That problem was much in evidence last week at an emotion-packed community meeting at Seminole Ridge High School, where a standing-room-only crowd of about 1,000 residents heard from a panel of state and county experts. If you would like to print this map, you can use the print option off your web browser. With its engines for fighter planes such as the F-22 Raptor, Pratt & Whitneys products power air forces in twenty-two countries. 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. 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 the residential neighborhood Acreage, located in western Palm Beach County. ' Her husband refuses to leave, though, because they are three years from paying off their mortgage and, if they sold the house, would lose so much money that they couldnt afford to buy another. (Sharon Lerner). The Centers for Disease I began to be concerned about the area where I lived, said Dunsford, who moved to The Acreage from Broward County. It takes everything in me some days not to fall apart. That night, she found herself wondering whether health officials would ever find out what had caused her daughters cancer or whether they would even try. One is the local mining company Palm Beach Aggregates, which has mined limestone for road construction for more than two decades using a dredging process that contributed naturally occurring radiation to the local water system. Ditto the drinking water, which came from a well. We know youre fearful of what these results mean, said Sharon Watkins, an environmental epidemiologist with the Florida Department of Health. Throughout his opening statement, Gallagher emphasized thatthe allegations Hatfield is making dont make sense. If anything happened to them, she said, I could not live with myself. _gaq.push(['gwo._trackPageview', '/2354831680/test']); Pratt & Whitney had licenses to use at least a dozen radioactive substances, the average death rate from cancer among the companys employees had shot up from 13 per 100,000 workers to 122, This Week in Extremism: Far Right Extremism in 2023 and the January 6th Insurrection, Faulty Information About Immigrants Can Lead to Family Separation and Denied Asylum Claims, Hanfords Leaky Nuke Tanks and Sick Workers, A Never-Ending Saga. The information reflected on this map has been voluntarily provided by persons from The Acreage. Much of the information released by the Health Department during this period was open to interpretation. A canal system was constructed to make The Acreage habitable. 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This article was reported in partnership with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute, now known as Type Investigations, with support from the Gertrude Blumenthal Kasbekar Fund. 8, 2022 at 3:06 PM PDT Palm Beach County families are finally getting After a while, we realized it was going off when our water was regenerating from our well, says Samarripa, who worried over the fact that Hannahs bedroom was closest to the well. She knew and somehow understood and was OK with it, Kaye McCann said recently. If you have any questions, please send an email to: WE ARE NO LONGER COLLECTING THIS DATA - IF YOU HAVE A BRAIN CANCER CASE TO REPORT PLEASE CONTACT THE PALM BEACH COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH (561) 514-5300. PCBs were also found in fish [PDF] that swam in ponds on the companys grounds, at more than 7,000 times the safe level set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for human consumption. The presence of technologically enhanced concentrations of NORM products (TE-NORMS) in water systems can be associated with the metal processing industry, particularly airplane engine and turbine manufacturing; however, high concentrations of these radionuclides in an environment are more readily associated with mining operations, including the type of shell rock mining conducted by the Aggregates. WebThank you for visiting The Acreage Cancer Study website. They may have to work in places surrounded by concrete and congested traffic, but they dont want to live there. In court filings, Pratt & Whitney denied having any contaminations beyond properly stored chemical compounds.. Perhaps because her tumor was only partially removed by the surgery, or perhaps because she now has fluid in her skull, she still suffers from severe headaches, vomiting and peripheral eye damage. Less than twenty miles inland of West Palm Beach, the Acreage functions as that citys country cousin. DRAFTembARgoeD Congress clusters. Disease Clusters Jonathan S. Harris, Matthew D. Shaffer & Arthur. State workers this week are taking soil samples in the Acreage, digging soil, digging for answers to what's causing the pediatric cancer cluster. Kaye McCann says she doesnt miss Florida only Jenna, who is still buried there. They asked experts to conduct hundreds of soil and medical tests. })(); We expect to have peace at home, and if we have 30,000 to 50,000 people that cant sleep at night, this is a problem.. Unequivocally laying the blame on one often requires showing that no other was involved. 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. 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. Thats why I am pushing for tests. Pratt & Whitney designs and manufactures engines for airplanes, rockets and even the space shuttle. 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. A federal jury rejected claims Tuesday that Pratt & Whitney was responsible for a cancer cluster in The Acreage more than a decade ago. When it comes to cancer, were more on the prevention side, she told me when I met with her in Palm Beach this past April. Those radionuclides that have been detected in the Acreage at above natural background rates but may be termed naturally occurring include Uranium-234, Uranium-235 Uranium-236, and elevated levels of the decay products of Thorium, particularly Lead-214 and Bismuth-214 and Actinium-228. utmx_section("Legacy Footer"), WE ARE NO LONGER COLLECTING THIS DATA - IF YOU HAVE A BRAIN CANCER CASE TO REPORT PLEASE CONTACT THE PALM BEACH COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, SIGN THE PETITION: Clyde Cancer Cluster claims 6th victim, New Approach to Treating Young Brain Cancer Patients. By May 2009, Jennifer Dunsford had developed a database documenting dozens of cancers in children and adults throughout the neighborhood. 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.

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