Significant Cancer Clusters in Florida

raid

raid

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I have been working for the past four years on using statistical methods to identify cancer clusters, and my work with a research team that I put together has resulted in an article that was published last month in Pediatric Blood and Cancer.

It is my first publication in a medical journal. I wanted to see whether living in Escambia County (Florida) was safe for my family. You have seen my family in the photos I upload here over the years. It was rather surprising that the location of the significant cancer clusters was not here in Escambia County but in other areas of Florida.

Anyways, I find this exciting even though it is not on photography.
 
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Congrats...I find this subject quite interesting...trying to sort out coincidence from verifiable fact must be a real challenge.

Glad to hear that your county is safe!
 
Thanks, Guys. I have many publications, but they are in the area of quality control, whereas this project is about me and my family and others living in Florida.
 
This is an abstract of the article.

Childhood cancer remains the leading cause of disease-related mortality for children. Whereas, improvement in care has dramatically increased survival, the risk factors remain to be fully understood. The increasing incidence of childhood cancer in Florida may be associated with possible cancer clusters. We aimed, in this study, to identify and confirm possible childhood cancer clusters and their subtypes in the state of Florida.

Methods:
We conducted purely spatial and space–time analyzes to assess any evidence of childhood malignancy clusters in the state of Florida using SaTScanTM. Data
from the Florida Association of Pediatric Tumor Programs (FAPTP) for
the period 2000–2007 were used in this analysis.




Results: In the purely spatial analysis, the relative risks (RR) of overall childhood
cancer persisted after controlling for confounding factors in south
Florida (SF) (RR=1.36, P¼0.001) and northeastern Florida (NEF)
(RR=1.30, P=0.01). Likewise, in the space–time analysis, there was a statistically significant increase in cancer rates in SF
(RR=1.52, P=0.001) between 2006 and 2007. The purely spatial analysis of the cancer subtypes indicated a statistically significant increase in the rate of leukemia and brain/CNS cancers in both SF and NEF, P<0.05. The space–time analysis indicated a statisticallysignificant sizable increase in brain/CNS tumors (RR=2.25,P=0.02) for 2006–2007.


Conclusions: There is evidence of spatial and space–time childhood cancer clustering in SF and NEF. This evidence is suggestive of the presence of possible predisposing factors in these cluster regions. Therefore, further study is needed to
investigate these potential risk factors.
Ref: Pediatr Blood Cancer
 
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Good stuff, (not the cancer clusters)
It must be a good feeling having that published. It would really validate all that hard work, great job.
 
Thanks. Just yesterday I had one of the counties' health department contact me for assistance. It feels good not to sit and wait for "others" to do the job for us.
 
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Raid, congratulations on seeing your work published. That's no small achievement.

On the other hand, a certain amount of skepticism about this (or any other study) is a healthy attitude to take as you weigh its significance. I'm not trying to rain on raid's parade - and his article may have abundant language around this point - but it's worth keeping in mind that ascribing cause to cancer clusters is a daunting task, and the existence of a cluster by itself is a long way from being able to determine if there is a cause, and what it is.
 
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Raid, I think you made a very good work and having it published must have been a satsifaction, and more important must be good to know you and family live in a safe area!
robert
 
Raid, they just found a cluster and a bad one in Kettleman, CA. This area is used for agro business and is heavily populated by farm workers. About twenty years ago not to far from this area was the famous Kesterman site that was a low area of marsh land that received its water from farm runoff from the San Joaquin Valley. There were all kinds of bird, fish, and reptile birth abnormalities. You wonder if there is a connection.

Congrats....

Carter
 
Raid, as a cancer survivor and a reasonably cynical person, I wonder if people who identify cancer clusters are ever subject to pushback from The Powers That Be in those localities. Can't be something the Chamber of Commerce or the realtor's association wants to advertise.
 
Congrats Raid. Mapping like this is important work and has a long history - mapping like this solved Cholera epidemics in England, if I'm not mistaken.
 
I was contacted again today by the health department. They call the article "groundbreaking". They will have multiple meetings of county health officials in which they will discuss the findings.

google the words acreage west palm beach cancer cluster

The parents of the kids with brain tumors don't yet know of my article.
 
wgerrard said:
Raid, as a cancer survivor and a reasonably cynical person, I wonder if people who identify cancer clusters are ever subject to pushback from The Powers That Be in those localities. Can't be something the Chamber of Commerce or the realtor's association wants to advertise.
Click to expand...

I worked for the past 4 years without being funded. I am 100% independent, but I know exactly what you mean. The article is out and there is no way to remove it. The editor is to be thanked.
 
raid said:
I worked for the past 4 years without being funded. I am 100% independent, but I know exactly what you mean. The article is out and there is no way to remove it. The editor is to be thanked.
Click to expand...

Then the recognition is even more deserved. You've done a significant public service.
 
Hi Raid, congratulations on the publication, and I'm glad your family is not in the cluster area. What do you think may be causes of the Acreage cluster? Environmental causes like Radon? or other things?

I read and monitored the Calif. autism clusters last year, very interesting. I hope you get can get some exposure on NPR and PBS. That would be great. Good luck.
 
cfritze said:
Raid, congratulations on seeing your work published. That's no small achievement.

On the other hand, a certain amount of skepticism about this (or any other study) is a healthy attitude to take as you weigh its significance. I'm not trying to rain on raid's parade - and his article may have abundant language around this point - but it's worth keeping in mind that ascribing cause to cancer clusters is a daunting task, and the existence of a cluster by itself is a long way from being able to determine if there is a cause, and what it is.
Click to expand...

The EPA and the FDOH announced last week that the cancer cluster close to West Palm Beach has been affirmed after doing many water and soil samples in addition to screening homes for radioactive gas. The amount of Radium was twice as the allowed level by the EPA.

My article found more clusters than this one.
 
ampguy said:
Hi Raid, congratulations on the publication, and I'm glad your family is not in the cluster area. What do you think may be causes of the Acreage cluster? Environmental causes like Radon? or other things?

I read and monitored the Calif. autism clusters last year, very interesting. I hope you get can get some exposure on NPR and PBS. That would be great. Good luck.
Click to expand...

The larger cluster is south of the Acreage, but the media has not found this out yet. Without seeming immodest, I can say that I am a very good statistician with good instinct on how to explain the analysis.

I have also completed [not written up for publication yet]the work for cancer clusters in Florida for Adolescent and Young Adults (AYA), which is the 15-39 year old group. There are also significant cancer clusters present.


It may have to do with the aquifers underground.
 
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filmfan said:
This is interesting, for I am currently taking a statistics and research methods course for my degree.
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Then you will soon know how difficult it is to PROVE something. You are not old enough but there were over 30 years of studies on the link between smoking and lung cancer which was finally deemed proven in 1963-1964. Everyone knew the risk, but to have statistical proof with good scientifically administered studies is a different story.
 
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