Subject: Newspaper Articles.
Toms River cited as cancer hot spot
By The Associated Press, in the Ocean Co. Observer
March 11, 1996
An apparent cancer hot zone in Ocean County has piqued the state health department and
federal Environmental Protection Agency's concern, a published report said.
State health department statistics show the overall rate of childhood brain and central nervous
system cancer in Toms River is three times higher than expected, The Star-Ledger of Newark
reported in yesterday's editions.
"It could be an occupational exposure in the parents. It could be environmental, viral,
electromagnetic fields, pesticides. We don't know. But there's something going on out there,"
Steve Jones, an investigator for the EPA's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry,
told the newspaper.
EPA officials tell The Star-Ledger they plan to do their own study.
"We want to do a survey and find out directly from people there what we've got in terms of
cancer cases," Jones said.
Between 1979 and 1991, 230 Ocean County children were diagnosed with cancer -- 15 more
cases, or 7 percent higher, than projected from statewide averages, health department statistics
show. Of those, 54 had brain or central nervous system cancer, or 15 more than the 39 cases
that would have been normal.
When the scope was narrowed to just the Toms River section of Dover Township, the numbers
were more alarming.
Researchers expected to find fewer than two cases in a population that size, about 11,000
childrer, under age 20. instead they found eight children with one of those cancers.
There were three children under age 5 with brain or central nervous system cancer when it
would have been unusual to find even one case in a population twice the size of Toms River's
900 preschoolers.
Michael Berry, a research scientist with the state health department's Environmental Health
Scrvice, wrote in an Aug. 31 1995 letter to Jones obtained by The Star-Ledger that Toms River's
childhood leukemia rate was 80 percent higher than expected and the overall cancer rate was 49
percent higher. But the actual number of cases was close enough to normal that statisticians
ruled they could not be significant.
The reason for the cluster eludes experts, who admit the cause may never be known.
The Ciba-Geigy Corp. plant in Toms River was the initial suspect of community groups. The dye
manufacturing plant on Route 37 was placed on the federal Superfund list in 1982. EPA
documents show several cancer-causing chemicals were found on the site, the newspaper
reported.
But the area also has been contaminated by gasoline-station spills, illegal dumping and runoffof
pesticides from farming and lawn care .
Ciba-Geigy was aware of the reported increase, but was certain it was not the cause, spokesman
Michael Cech told the newspaper. The company has spent more than $100 million cleaning up
the site including capturing polluted water from offsite wells and purifying it.
Despite concern on the state and federal level, county health officials have been unresponsive.
"Certainly we are concerned about all the disease in Ocean County. But(Berry's) letter is talking
about three cases of children (in Toms River preschoolers with brain cancer. That's not that
many cases," county health officer Herbert Roeschke told the newspaper.
The cluster was first detected last summer by a nurse at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
The unidentified woman was so alarmed, she called the EPA.
"She told us it seemed like all her patients were from Ocean County", Jones said. He then
contacted the state health department for a break out of Ocean County cancer data by age and
town.
The numbers convinced Jones there was an unusual rise in childhood cancer. He is seeking
his agency's approval to do preliminary study to see if the New Jersey health department's
figures are complete.
From there, if the EPA agrees there is an anomaly in childhodd cancer rates, they would then
do an epidemiological study to see if there are any common exposures to carcinogens, he said.