Tuesday, December 31, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Fallon father's survey confirms cancer fears

But state health officials doubt data from parent whose daughter died of leukemia

Stephanie Sands, who died last year at age 21, was one of three young people with ties to Fallon to die of leukemia in recent years. Floyd Sands and others asked Fallon residents about cancers that affected their families in the past decade. Photo by Christine H. Wetzel.

A door-to-door survey in Fallon has confirmed what some of the Northern Nevada city's residents have suspected all along, said the man who conducted the survey: There's too much cancer there.

"Do the math and you're going to be startled," said Floyd Sands, whose daughter Stephanie was one of three young people with ties to Fallon to die of leukemia in recent years.

But after a cursory examination of Sands' results, state public health experts said the data does not appear to back the claim.

"There isn't enough information," said Randall Todd, an epidemiologist with the Nevada State Health Division. "It's forcing us to make too many assumptions."

Since 1997, 16 children under age 19 who live or used to live in Fallon have been diagnosed with leukemia. An investigation was launched when the cluster of blood cancer was discovered in 2000. A cause has not been determined.

Sands has complained about the investigation's lack of progress and has been harshly critical of state experts, especially Todd. So Sands launched his own investigation in October.

He and a group of volunteers canvassed the town of 7,500 people and asked residents about the history of various types of cancer that they and their family members had experienced in the past decade. Sands said he also collected data through email and telephone calls from residents of Churchill County, which has a population of 25,000, after his survey received media exposure in the area.

After almost three months of crunching the numbers, Sands released the results late Monday afternoon.

He said the survey uncovered 27 cases of leukemia that are not included in the official investigation, as well as an assortment of other cancers, including 13 lung cancers, 17 cases of melanoma, 16 cases of breast cancer and 15 cases of brain cancer.

"I think the survey confirms long-standing rumors in Fallon," Sands said. "I know it does."

In discussing why the data was difficult to decipher, Todd pointed in particular to a lack of information on when the diagnoses were made, leading him to believe that Sands may have improperly compared his findings to what scientists would expect to see in one year as opposed to over an entire decade.

Todd also pointed out that, if he were to include adult and childhood cases of leukemia over a 10-year period, he would expect to see about 36 cases in Churchill County, which includes Fallon. Sands' 43 cases, which include several people who no longer live in the area, would not be too far from the norm, Todd said.

There are similar comparative results when the known rate of brain cancer, which is about 7.5 cases per 100,000 people, according to the National Cancer Institute, is compared to what Sands found in Fallon.

Sands' data says he found 15 cases of brain cancer in the town, including several in unincorporated parts of the county. Todd said the state cancer registry shows 17 cases of brain cancer in the county since 1990.

If Churchill County were in the normal range, experts would expect to see about 18 cases in a decade.

Sands acknowledged that he doesn't know the date of diagnosis for most of the cases he found, but his survey asked for cancer histories dating to 1992.

Sands said the number of auto-immune diseases, lupus cases and lymphoma cases concerned him most because they are often linked to leukemia.

"The Hodgkin's lymphomas are frightful," he said. "The lymphomas overall are frightful."

Sands said although he does not plan to share his data with the state Health Division, he would share it with other credible scientists who want to study the Fallon leukemia cluster.

"Hopefully, this will mean something to someone in a position of authority, and maybe we can have a real epidemiological study of Churchill County," he said.