Another leukemia case tied to Fallon

Brendan Riley

Thursday, Jan. 18, 2001 | 9:50 a.m.

CARSON CITY, Nev. - Nevada health officials have learned of an unconfirmed 11th case of childhood leukemia linked to Fallon, a farming and Navy town 60 miles east of here.

State health officials said Wednesday that they're checking into a case involving a 2 1/2 -year-old Fallon child, but still must conduct interviews with the child's family.

"There is possibly an 11th case that we are investigating," said state Health Officer Mary Guinan. "But we have not confirmed it yet."

Jack Finn, Gov. Kenny Guinn's press secretary, said Guinn learned of the latest apparent case on Wednesday and has been getting regular briefings on earlier cases.

"The governor wants to make sure this investigation remains, as it has been, the Health Division's No. 1 priority," Finn added. "With every new case, our concern grows."

"We were alarmed when there were four in less than three months," said Assemblywoman Marcia de Braga, D-Fallon. "Here we are at 11."

De Braga said she's moving ahead with plans for legislative hearings into the leukemia cases in her district. The hearings are set for Feb. 12-14, soon after the 2001 session convenes.

The latest case follows word last week that a 10th child apparently was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia, or ALL, in 1999, several years after the child's family moved from Fallon to Pennsylvania.

The family contacted Fallon's hospital and a local newspaper after reading a report on the investigation into numerous ALL diagnoses in children with Fallon connections.

Hospital and a Lahontan Valley News staffer in turn alerted the state Health Division.

The division last year began investigating several cases of ALL, the most common childhood form of the blood cancer, in children who had lived or whose parents had lived in Fallon for varying lengths of time.

A recent state computer analysis found only one link between the first seven cancer cases: that each child lived in Fallon for some period between 1996 and 1999.

Normally, the rate of such cases would be about three in every 100,000 people. About 8,300 people live in Fallon.

Health officials and Fallon residents have speculated about a wide range of potential causes, including agricultural chemicals, jet fuel dumping by planes at the nearby Fallon Naval Air Station and the high levels of arsenic in area groundwater. The city of Fallon is complying with an Environmental Protection Agency order to filter arsenic from its municipal supplies.

Some scientific studies have suggested links between arsenic and leukemia, but Health Division officials have said it's unlikely that Fallon's long-standing arsenic problem caused the sudden spike in the childhood illness.

State officials are in contact with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and outside experts could arrive in Nevada to assist with the investigation as early as next month.