Reid schedules hearings on Fallon leukemia

Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2001 | 11:14 a.m.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to bring congressional hearings to Fallon in April to look into 11 cases of childhood leukemia confirmed in the Northern Nevada community.

"I am determined to exhaust every resource available to get to the bottom of this tragedy," Reid said.

Meanwhile, federal and state health officials working on the investigation hope to bring in experts on toxic substances to try to pinpoint an environmental link that might have triggered the cluster.

Officials have identified 11 cases of acute lymphocytic leukemia in children ages 2 to 19 in Fallon, all diagnosed between 1996 and 1999, but have not found a common link among them.

In a town that size, one or two cases of leukemia, which destroys bone marrow, would be expected in a five-year period, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Reid will schedule hearings in Fallon to hear the progress of state and federal experts and determine whether further federal resources are warranted, said David Cherry, Reid's spokesman on the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee.

The hearings could result in bringing in the Environmental Protection Agency or other federal investigators to help seek the cause of the disease, Cherry said.

A hearing schedule for the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee has not been set yet, Cherry said, estimating the process could last two to five days.

Reid sent committee staff members to state legislative hearings held last week in Carson City. The congressional committee hearing in Fallon will allow the families of ill children, concerned citizens and officials to hear the latest progress from the experts, he said.

Congressional hearings are rare in Nevada, the last one occurring in 1999. There has never been a congressional hearing in Fallon, according to the state Legislative Counsel Bureau.

Nevada Health Division officials met with federal and independent scientists on Thursday in Carson City to map out an action plan for further tests.

Once a written plan, reviewed by federal and independent scientists, is in place, further testing of the victims and the environment will be conducted, state epidemiologist Randall Todd said on Friday.

Experts have agreed that the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry under the Centers for Disease Control should be brought into the investigation, Todd said. The CDC has already reviewed records of the Fallon cases.

The agency is capable of tracing potential pathways from the environment to the human victims, Todd said.

"It's all out there on the table," Todd said. "If it is something in the environment, we still have to find that thing."

Assemblywoman Marcia de Braga, D-Fallon, ended a three-day legislative hearing Wednesday and said she will recommend tissue and blood testing of the children, along with soil and air tests in the Fallon area.

De Braga chairs the Assembly Natural Resources, Agriculture and Mining Committee, which gathered testimony from scientists, doctors, local, state and federal officials and the mother of one of the victims.

The Assembly panel will complete its formal recommendations this week to investigate the childhood leukemias, de Braga said.

Although experts often presented conflicting testimony over the rare cluster of acute lymphocytic leukemia, de Braga said the small Navy and farming town deserves an answer if scientists can find one.

While the cause of the leukemia is unknown, suspected triggers include exposure to radiation, electromagnetic fields or volatile organic compounds such as benzene, solvents and fossil fuels. Arsenic has not been linked to childhood leukemia, although Fallon's water supply contains 10 times the federal limit for arsenic.

Brenda Gross, mother of Dustin, 5, one of the leukemia victims, told legislators she wanted "absolutely everything" investigated.

Witnesses before de Braga's committee discussed several theories that could affect the relatively small population of Fallon, 60 miles east of Reno, speculating on jet fuel leaks at Naval Air Station Fallon, pesticide spraying or something in the water.

Water was one of the prime suspects, Todd said. However, not all of the children or their families drank the arsenic-tainted supplies.

One witness said that finding the cause of the leukemia in Fallon would not be easy.

"I believe something happened," federal Environmental Protection Agency toxicologist Bruce Macler said.

It could be a single event, such as a tanker truck spilling a solvent or fossil fuels near Fallon, or it could be a natural disaster such as a flood with waters carrying bacteria or viruses at higher-than-normal levels that might trigger the leukemias, Macler said.