Multiple cancer diagnoses among group of Mass. teachers raise questions
After several teachers at Uxbridge High School in Massachusetts were diagnosed with breast cancer in recent years, public health officials began to investigate—but determining whether there’s an environmental cause could be difficult, experts say.
Two Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health faculty members—Timothy Rebbeck and Joseph Allen—were quoted about the cancer diagnoses in a June 4 Boston Globe article.
Rebbeck, Vincent L. Gregory, Jr. Professor of Cancer Prevention, said that it’s extremely tough to prove that a pattern of cancer cases is actually a “cluster”—a greater-than-average number of related cancers among people in a certain location over a certain time period. He said that investigators would have to prove that the cancer rate in the group of cases is “remarkably higher than what you’d see in a general population.” It’s known, for instance, that breast cancer is more common among women. Proven risk factors such as family history, reproductive history, and hormone levels, as well as other demographic factors, would have to be ruled out.
“You’d want to eliminate the known likely causes before you went on to thinking it’s something in the air conditioning,” Rebbeck said. “Those are much less likely to be causing these kinds of elevated risks.”
Allen, professor of exposure assessment science, said that investigators at Uxbridge High School need to look for anything in the environment that could pose a breast cancer risk, such as PCBs, lead, and asbestos—banned in the 1970s but still present in older buildings—and endocrine-disrupting chemicals, organic solvents, and formaldehyde. It’s also important to examine the building’s mechanical systems, including airflow and filtration, he said.
Read the Boston Globe article:
What to know about multiple diagnoses of breast cancer among teachers at Uxbridge High School
