Environmentalist please read?
I need pointed in the right direction:
I come from a rural high school (I’m 26 now). The school only had around 500-600 student total. Two people in my grade have been dx’d with cancer, one died. One a year older than me died of brain cancer. There have been 4 counts of a rare blood disease in class mates’ children which is supposed to only affect 50:1,000,000 children. This disease is not genetic or contagious. Two girls’ children have been born with severe health problems since birth, the list goes on. It is a farming community and it seems like all people affected lived within a few miles of each other. I’ve been doing some research but i’m no scientist and I needed pointed in the right direction for help. What can I do? I need information but I don’t know where to even begin. Could this all just be coincidence?
It is possible that this is a statistical anomaly. Cancer can be caused by non-natural causes (industrial chemicals/wastes, carcinogens, bacteria/viruses from the environment, etc), but I’d inquire to medical professionals who are very familiar with the type of the blood disease that you are referring to, if that disease/condition can be caused by non-natural causes like the instances that I mentioned earlier.
I would also look to see if there are any industries in the vicinity where their emissions (gaseous emissions into the air, liquids into the water) are carcinogenic, or the type of industry they do involve carcinogenic or hazardous chemicals/wastes. Improper handling and disposal could cause residuals to leach out and over time, exposure could cause illnesses with LONG latent effects. I would also ask people who are much older and have lived in your town for a long time if there have been any industries in town or nearby that closed up, perhaps the property has not been cleaned up and the chemicals/wastes from the property has passed the property line and people got exposed. Also ask these people if there have been lots of deaths of people from the town from cancers and other exotic conditions. To have just a few people from *one high-school class* and not many others seems more like an anomaly.
However, if exposure is truely the case (which is the thing we have not discerned yet), maybe people in your class were exposed to something that nobody else in town was exposed to. Which in that case, how well did you know those people and did you spend lots of time with them or at the places they were exclusivly at?
You could also view the death certificates of your fellow townsmen and see how/why they died. You could also contact the EPA and CDC and alert them to this strange phenomenon. They would likely do many of the same things that I suggested and maybe they know some other things that I don’t.
I wouldn’t watch “Erin Brokovitch” a few times and consider yourself ready to go head-to-head with anybody. Doing this type of legwork could take months to find, sort through, and seek paterns. And THEN, you’d have to find a lynch pin to truely prove how and why people got sick and died. But for what it’s worth, good luck!
American Justice 197 Part 2
