Leukemia study due in February

Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2002 | 9:45 a.m.

A study searching for environmental links to childhood leukemias in Fallon will be ready in early February, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials told Nevada health authorities on Tuesday.

The CDC, based in Atlanta, with state and other federal agencies spent the past year analyzing hundreds of biologic and environmental samples collected for evidence of chemical or infectious agents that could have caused 16 childhood leukemias, three of them fatal.

The state has been tracking the 16 leukemia cases since 1997 in the military and farming town of Fallon, about 60 miles east of Reno.

The assessment had been scheduled to be released this fall, but a national report on human exposure to environmental chemicals will not be ready until January, CDC experts said. It will report on exposures from 100 chemicals to U.S. residents.

"It is our goal and our responsibility to provide the community with the most up-to-date and relevant information so that results can be interpreted accurately," Dr. Carol Rubin of the CDC said on Tuesday.

Dr. Randall Todd, Nevada's epidemiologist, agreed.

"By waiting for the expanded data from the second national report, CDC will be able to place Churchill County results into a more understandable context," he said.

The experts will be able to better interpret Fallon's test results in February, Todd said.