Leukemia cases prompt state strategy planning

Thursday, Jan. 18, 2001 | 11:12 a.m.

Gov. Kenny Guinn will meet with federal, state and local officials next week to plan a strategy on the growing cases of childhood leukemia in Northern Nevada.

The move came after the discovery of a suspected 11th case of cancer in Fallon, 60 miles east of Reno. Nevada health officials are investigating the illness of a 2-year-old girl, diagnosed in a California hospital late last year.

Churchill Community Hospital officials reported the case last week and told state officials that the 2-year-old had lived in Fallon for most of her life.

State epidemiologist Dr. Randall Todd has not confirmed the latest incidence of acute lymphocytic leukemia, the most common kind of the childhood cancer. There have been nine confirmed cases of the disease in Fallon diagnosed in the past three years.

Also not confirmed is the case of a 19-year-old Pennsylvania woman who developed leukemia in 1999 after living with her father in Fallon from 1992 to 1995.

Based on national averages, health officials would expect one case of the childhood cancer to surface every five years among Fallon's 7,850 children, Todd said.

The state's investigation has not uncovered a common factor. The only link among the children is that they lived in Fallon.

The state Health Division has asked the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta to help in its investigation.

Guinn plans to meet with officials in Fallon on Jan. 25 on a fact-finding trip.

Assemblywoman Marcia de Braga, D-Fallon, is scheduling hearings next month on the outbreak to ensure state health officials have enough funds and expertise to investigate potential environmental triggers for the cases.

The state is examining household activities including insecticide spraying and the use of mothballs and fingernail polish remover.

But health officials warn that the cause of many cancer cases, especially when there is an outbreak such as Fallon's, is difficult to deterimine. What initiated the Fallon childhood leukemias may never be known, Todd said.