Guinn meets with Fallon officials over cluster

Angie Wagner

Friday, Jan. 26, 2001 | 10 a.m.

Hotline

Nevada Health Division Administrator Yvonne Sylva announced that a community information hotline has been established for all public inquiries into the 11 cases of childhood leukemia in Fallon, a rural town 60 miles east of Reno.

The hotline was announced Thursday after Gov. Kenny Guinn met with health officials, representatives from the Navy and local and county officials behind closed doors. The Navy operates an aviation training base in Fallon.

Since 1997, 11 children ages 2 to 19 years have been diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia, a blood disease that is the most common form of childhood leukemia. Eight of the children were diagnosed last year. The two latest cases were confirmed this week.

The hotline number will operate daily from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The number is (888) 608-4623.

FALLON -- Gov. Kenny Guinn traveled to this small farming and military community Thursday to ask questions about an investigation into a childhood leukemia cluster and to reassure a town worried about its youngest residents.

"The unknown is the most frustrating," Guinn said after the closed meeting with health officials, representatives from the Navy and local and county officials.

Since 1997, 11 children from Fallon or just outside city limits in Churchill County, have been diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia, a blood disease and the most common form of childhood leukemia. Eight of the children were diagnosed last year.

About 8,300 people live here, 60 miles east of Reno, and about 26,000 people live in the county. Normally the rate of such cases would be about three in every 100,000 people.

The Nevada State Health Division has been investigating, but officials haven't found any link except that all the children live or have lived in the rural community.

The governor organized Thursday's meeting in the town's Convention Center so every agency involved would know the progress of the investigation.

The state Health Division has asked for help from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Cancer Institute and other epidemiologists.

"The most important thing for us to do is to let everybody know we're working together," Guinn said. "I think it was time for us all to come together."

State epidemiologist Dr. Randall Todd and state health officer Dr. Mary Guinan cautioned that they are not looking for a cause of childhood leukemia, but a common link among the children.

"We are looking for something in the community that may have contributed to that," Guinan said.