AP story examines local polycythemia vera epidemic but overlooks some likely culprits

The Associated Press has done an in-depth story previewing the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry study on high rates of polycythemia vera in Schuylkill, Carbon and Luzerne counties, which is to be released to the public tomorrow at 7 p.m. at Best Western Genetti Inn and Suites in Hazleton.

The piece by Allentown, Pa.-based AP reporter Michael Rubinkam has been picked up by news outlets across Pennsylvania and the nation, including the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, the Houma (La.) Courier, and the Miami Herald. Using Dr. Pete Baddick, a native of the Hometown area, and Hometown resident Joe Murphy as his primary informants, Rubinkam focuses on the high rate of polycythemia vera in the Hometown area and the possible link to the McAdoo Associates Superfund site, which sits just uphill from Ben Titus Road, where there are numerous cases of polycthemia vera, and from the local public drinking water reservoir. It also mentions that other possible factors behind the local area's high rate of illnesses (which it acknowledges include other cancers, multiple sclerosis and lupus) are coal mining, other Superfund sites, and abandoned strip mines being filled with coal combustion waste.

But I was disappointed by the story's tight focus on polycythemia vera in the Hometown area -- especially since at a meeting in Pottsville attended by the ATSDR researchers last October, Dr. Gene Weinberg of the Pennsylvania Department of Health presented data showing that there are other Schuylkill County communities besides Hometown with dramatically elevated rates of the malignancy, including Frackville, Mahanoy City and Tremont. Those communities are more than 10 miles west of Hometown, which would appear to rule out a connection to the McAdoo site. In fact, I questioned Baddick's and Murphy's single-minded focus on the McAdoo site at that meeting. As I wrote:

While acknowledging the severe contamination at McAdoo Associates, I noted that given the elevated rates of p. vera throughout the entire region, it doesn't seem likely that the Still Creek Reservoir is the primary source of the p. vera problem. After all, people from Frackville, Mahanoy City and Tremont are not drinking from that reservoir. I did note, however, that one of the characteristics shared by those towns along with the Ben Titus Road area and other communities with elevated p. vera rates is the presence nearby of waste coal-fired power plants. I asked the ATSDR officials to keep an open mind about all possible toxic culprits, which they said they were planning to do.

I was disappointed that Rubinkam's story failed to even mention the waste coal-burning plants as a possible factor behind the region's high rate of polycythemia vera -- and that there is such a plant located right next to the McAdoo site. After all, these facilities release an enormous amount of toxic pollution as well as radiation, which studies have associated with polycythemia vera. In addition, the plants are located throughout the anthracite coal region covered by the ATSDR study and are concentrated in Schuylkill County, which has more than any other county in the nation. And finally, a statistical analysis I conducted with the help of Dr. Samuel Lesko at the Northeast Regional Cancer Institute found an association between unusually high rates of polycythemia vera in populous Pa. counties and the presence nearby of waste-coal burners. Clearly, these facilities should not be altogether ignored as we try to figure out what's hurting the people of the coal region.

Something else Rubinkam did not mention in his story is that Baddick and Murphy have a motive to focus on the McAdoo Associates site: They were deeply involved in an effort by the Locks Law firm of Philadelphia to bring suit for civil damages against the site's responsible parties. However, the firm concluded last year following a year and a half of work that it did not have a legal basis for proceeding with a civil action due to a lack of evidence that poisons dumped at the site have migrated to nearby wells or the reservoir. Murphy has told me that he regards the ATSDR's study as a piece of discovery that could lead to the suit's reopening.

And if what the ATSDR unveils tomorrow shows a clear link between the site and the area's high rate of polycythemia vera, more power to him. But I would hope that the effort to link the site and the epidemic does not blind us to other possible culprits behind the area's high rate of environmental illness.