We can't live healthy on a sick planet

Of course, it had happen to children in undeniable amounts of suffering before the national media paid attention, but it has.

A cancer cluster has been identified in the small farm town near Clyde, Ohio. Thirty-five children have been diagnosed with brain cancers, leukemias, lymphomas, and other forms of cancer there since 1996- all within a 12 mile radius. Eight children have been diagnosed since 2002-2006.

See the facts and article yourself:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40855275/ns/health-cancer/?gt1=43001

This sounds eerily familiar to me. Claremont, NH physicians petitioned the legislature in the early millennium to research the air quality and the incidence of cancer in the city after suspecting cancer clusters in certain areas of towns. The Doctor's theorized it was due to air pollution from recycling facilities and a garbage disposal plant located along the border of Charlestown and Claremont.

The study was done. Carcinogens were found in the air.

But no cluster was identified.

But the study was not done within a radius of ground zero, or what I like to call "Clarenoble." It was done in Claremont, which lies to it's north.

Immediately South is Charlestown, NH, which was not included in the study.

A mile south is my property where I've grown my entire life. I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2006 at the age of 23. To survive I requiring a bone marrow transplant.

Three-fourths of a mile south on River Rd is the former home of Carol Snelling. She was 53 years old when she was diagnosed with Leukemia in 2007. She passed away while undergoing her bone marrow transplant.

Also  in 2007, 21 year old Ashley Jordan thought she was finally headed to college from her parents home in Charlestown 1.5 miles south of the plants. She had to postpone her plans when she was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma, a disease that hits only 8000 people yearly, but somehow managed to attack to young woman within a half mile of each other. She also had a resistant form of the disease that required her to undergone bone marrow transplantation.

I'd like this to be the last person on this list, but we haven't gotten to Andy, my son's first grade best friend. HE was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, a leukemia rare in children, after leg pain forced him to see a doctor. He was immediately hospitalized and underwent bone marrow transplant at the age of 6. He lives less than a mile south of Clarenoble and less than a mile from me.

I think we have a cancer cluster here too folks. But who are the illusive researchers that have dug under every work and sampled every specimen to come up empty handed? And how do I get them here?

Our states' epidemiologist has shown little interest.

I know if this was a random killer, a person, that had attacked a middle aged woman, two young woman, and a child over the course of four years within a mile of each other the state police, possibly the FBI would be involved.

There would be outcries. There would be letters to the editor, picketing, and fear. The national news would catch on and headlines would scream about a peaceful NH farm town under siege by a phantom killer whose motives are unknown and who has no pattern of selecting his victims.

I now look at children growing up here. I look at my niece, my son, and neighbors and guess which one will be next. I think, "well, he had a viral reaction the same time I did before I was diagnosed with cancer." or "she had mono with subsequent chronic fatigue" and on and on and on about who may get hit next.

But I can't get anyone to do anything.

I have not included other cancers diagnosed during this time frame within a 12 mile radius, but it includes others who have required transplants or lost their breasts or portions of their intestines before age 30. These people include Darcy Gauttier, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor in her early 20s while living 1.5 miles south of the possible culprit.

Luckily, She has since recovered and gone on to become a mom, but how many others will suffer and die or never be able to bear children or never realize their true potential because their lives were snuffed out prematurely by cancer?

I've heard our area compared to Ohio before in another context. It was during a study of acid rain that showed toxins from facilities in NY and NJ tended to follow air patterns that allowed the air pollution to accumulate dropping acid rain in both NH and OH.

This acid rain was the possible cause of similarly mutated frogs found in both states. These frogs would grow two heads or six legs or one eye.

Hmmm, acid air? Air pollution? Could that be harmful?

It is all ready proven that some pesticides, like DDT, cause cancers. Atrazine, which has been banned from France and in the European Union in 2006, is still widely used in the US today even though it is a known carcinogen with xenoestrogens so strong it can change the sex of frogs. 

 I think a separate similar study should be done in our area and then cross-references with the research from this Ohio town to find similarities.  If similar clusters are identified and like qualities determined we will be closer to determine the cause of the diseases, the point of origination, and wouldn't it be beatiful to finally know what has caused these cancers?