FALLON, Nev. (AP) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded $224,000 to an Arkansas research institute to study a leukemia cluster found among the town's children.
The Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute will use the funding to evaluate whether certain factors, including genetics, the environment and diet, may have played a role in the cancer cluster.
The University of Nevada, Reno, will provide administrative support for the study.
Sixteen Fallon children have been diagnosed with leukemia since 2000. The cause of the cluster is unknown despite exhaustive studies, including one by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Researchers with the Little Rock-based institute plan to build on the results of the CDC study, which identified several contaminants in the Fallon area, including arsenic, antimony, cobalt, tungsten and uranium, said Jill James, a professor with the institute's pediatrics department who will head the study.
"We remain hopeful that this research will provide us with vital information to understand the leukemia cases in Fallon," said Alexis Strauss, director of the EPA's water division for the agency's Pacific Southwest office.
The CDC concluded there was no single exposure that caused the leukemia in the town's children, she said.
"What we're saying is that it may not be a single metal, but maybe cumulatively, the exposure reached a threshold that precipitated the leukemia," James said.
Researchers will take blood samples from families in which a child was afflicted by the disease and from families in which no child had leukemia.
The study, which is expected to begin by the end of the summer, will also focus on the mothers of the children who had the disease.
"When a cancer occurs that early in a child's life, it's likely that there was a maternal exposure, that there was damage when the mother was pregnant," James said.
Senator Harry Reid, D-Nev., helped secure the funding for the study.
"It is critically important to harness the expertise of outside specialists to investigate the cluster, and the retention of Dr. James is an important step in this effort," Reid said. "The families deserve no less than the most skilled of eyes to find clues to the cause of the cluster."
