The Associated Press
CAMERON, Mo. — A state investigation into a rise in brain tumor cases around Cameron found no central cause, a state epidemiologist said Thursday.
Sarah Patrick told about 150 people at a meeting in Cameron that the number of brain tumor cases in a four-county area around the northwest Missouri town is not statistically higher than the numbers throughout the state.
Brain tumor cases are increasing throughout Missouri and the nation, and Cameron is part of that trend, Patrick said.
Patrick said about 70 people in Caldwell, Clinton, Daviess and DeKalb counties met the scientific criteria used by the state during its cancer inquiry. That included 24 with benign tumors since Jan. 1, 2004, and 46 with malignant tumors in the last 11 1/2 years.
“If your perception is that you know more people with brain tumors, and it is changing over time, that perception is right,” Patrick said. “That is true nationally, too. Brain tumor reports are going up.”
The results came after a five-month state inquiry that began when people who had either been diagnosed or had a relative diagnosed with brain tumors contacted health officials and the news media about what they considered an abnormally high number of brain tumors in and around the northwest Missouri town of about 6,500.
The state expanded the investigation to include the four counties, with a total population of about 50,000.
Patrick also said the number of brain tumor cases in the four-county area was ranked 10th behind several other types, with lung cancer at the top of the list. Statewide, brain tumor reports ranked sixth.
The findings drew immediate skepticism from some Cameron residents who have been affected by a brain tumor diagnosis.
Catherine Frasher, whose husband, Jim, has been battling a benign brain tumor since January, said she expected the state to issue the no-cause report.
“I’m disappointed, I’m very disappointed, but I expected it,” Frasher said. “Because they’ve told us the same thing all summer: ‘There’s nothing here, there’s nothing happening.’ ... You can’t tell me that there’s not something significant going on here.”
Billy Kemper, whose wife, Karen, died this summer after battling a benign brain tumor, agreed with Frasher. The Kempers lived just two houses away from the Frashers; Karen Kemper and Jim Frasher both had benign tumors near their brain stems.
“They never answered the question,” Kemper said. “Is there a cluster? They won’t say. We’ve just got too many brain tumors here. I don’t believe that, I don’t believe it all. When her mouth was moving, I didn’t believe anything she said.”
But Patrick said after the meeting that she is convinced there is not a cluster of brain tumors in Cameron.
“What we’re really seeing is an increase in brain tumors across the country,” Patrick said. “That’s the problem that needs to be solved.”
Frank Buck, a Cameron resident, asked Patrick if she could say how many of the 70 cases were within Cameron city limits. He said media reports had “put a target on the city of Cameron” and he resented it.
But Patrick said she could not remember the exact number and that confidentiality rules limited what she could say.
However, she said, the investigation showed that Cameron “is not ground zero” for a brain tumor outbreak.
“If I was a resident here, I would be relieved (by the results),” Patrick said.
But Rep. Jim Guest, R-King City, whose district includes Cameron, said many Cameron residents wanted to know what was going on in their town, not in the four-county area.
“They certainly didn’t answer that to the satisfaction of people here,” said Guest.
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources said in May that its tests had ruled out the town’s water as a possible cause of the tumors.
In September, a team from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and DNR took samples of tap water from homes in Cameron and the surrounding area.
In August, investigators found high levels of lead and arsenic near a long-closed insulation plant but not enough to threaten health. The business, which is hooked into the city’s water system, turned iron into fiber insulation for buildings and dumped residue from the iron product next to the plant and at a quarry three miles away.
Despite the state’s finding, at least five lawsuits have been filed against the business, Susquehanna Corp. of Delaware, which owned and operated the Rockwool Industries plant three miles west of Cameron. The plant closed more than 20 years ago and the city leased it to a coat hanger manufacturer from 1992 to 2003.
