What is it with Long Island and Cancer? (Brookhaven, Smithtown: power lines, how much)
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My Uncle was just diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer. I lost my Mom in 2000 due to a recurrance of Breast Cancer. And a friend of mine had breast cancer and just finished treatment (lumpectomy, radiation, and chemo).
I dont know whats in store for my Uncle, he seems otherwise healthy but they found a tumor in his Thyroid and the needle biopsy looked "suspicious" and was most likely malignant according to the doctor. The Thyroid gland will have to be removed.
On the street I grew up on in N.Wantagh there were 3 other cancer cases.
What is going on? The only thing I can think of is the water. I grew up in the same house my Mom and Uncle grew up in, but when they grew up there were no sewers or city water, they drank well water, and it was probably contaminated with toxins from the pesticides Potato Farms used.
Its why I refuse to drink tap water and only buy bottled.
Same story for my friend, they grew up in Roslyn and drank well water when they grew up. Unlike most other parts of the country LI does not get its water from reserviors, but from underground. What we do up here, all our lawn treatments, pavement oils (known carcinogens),etc screws up our water.
I'm starting to get quite mad about all this cancer going on here. If the politicians gave a damn they'd outlaw this crap and save our water supply.
Ban pesticides, resurface roads with non-toxic surfaces, and ban development in the pine barrens.
Who knows what companies from NY were dumping on Long Island many years ago when it was still very rural. Do not forget about the old Grumman site that you still can't get near. Then of course there is always the Brookhaven Lab. Who the knows what they have going on there. I read science magazines quite often (Scientific American, Discovery, etc.) and they mention Brookhaven Laboratory quite often. I remember reading articles about them splitting atoms and stuff.
My father passed away from cancer at 56 years of age. He grew up in Queens and that is where I spent the majority of my Childhood and teenage years as well. My wife also has cancer and she spent most of her life living in Queens as well. I had a heart attack at 34 years of age and required a stent. Heart disease and cancer both are major problems everywhere but I have read in many places that Long Island is pretty much the cancer capital of the country.
I was digging and doing the "bucket brigade" from September 12,2001 until about two weeks after. The cardiologists said my heart attack may have been linked to that but they really have no way of knowing. I only mention this since it is possible that I am not a typical "heart disease" statistic living on Long Island. I have been smoking since I was a teenager as well though. I was not overweight at all but I will admit that I never did eat the best foods either.
I remember reading an article in one of the science magazines a number of years ago that stated that every living thing on this planet; whether human, animal or plant has a small trace of plutonium within them. It explained something that happened with one of the NASA crafts carrying plutonium exploding and releasing enough plutonium to do this. It was either in Scientific American or Popular Mechanics magazine. I do not remember which. I also do not know if this is true or not since I have never heard it said anywhere but in the one magazine article.
I was trying to find something on the internet that might confirm what I had read. I did not look very long and did find some interesting information about everyone coming in contact with plutonium due to atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the 50's and 60's which resulted in very low concentrations of plutonium in soils around the world. The same source does mention that plutonium also enters the atmosphere upon the reentry of space satellites. I read this information at U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
I am not trying to sound like a conspiracy theorist but hearing things such as this makes me wonder what other things are in the atmosphere that governments know about but the people do not.
I don't think it's that complicated to figure out. Chemicals in all of the packaged food you eat, pesticides, chemicals in your drinking water, chemicals in your air. Air pollution is a hugely underestimated factor in cancer, as toxins are entering your bloodstream through the path of least resistance (other than injecting).
I've heard people say "blah, how can air pollution cause breast cancer?"
Air pollution increases the risk of most kinds of cancer, not just lung. Our air here on LI is not good. We are downwind from all the crap that NYC and New Jersey spew every day. I remember seeing a diagram of what would happen if a nuclear weapon blew up over Manhattan....everyone on LI all the way out almost to Montauk would receive fatal doses of radiation, while people just west of NYC would be relatively unscathed, because of the prevailing winds. Think about what that means for all the particulate crap coming from west of us.
I recall seeing a gray trail of smoke in the sky over Stony Brook for the weeks after 9/11 in which fire smoldered at the WTC. The plume traveled across the sky, west to east with a slight northward orientation. I kept my windows closed and tried to stay inside as much as possible. Lord knows what we were breathing in.
As you've written, we are bombarded on a daily basis with pollutants eminating west of us -- not only from NYC. Nuclear testing (who knows how much fallout made it into the atmosphere -- look at volcanic ash and the way it can travel) waste dumping, exposure through food and water...we are living on a very dirty globe and now we are paying the consequences for the destructive, neglectful or ignorant actions of others.
I don't know, didn't someone do a study a few years back and the findings stated that the cancer rates on LI were in line with the rest of the country (or something similar)? I don't recall the study but could probably find the info with a search.
Having said that, my older brother passed away in 2004 from brain cancer. He lived in Shirley.
I recall seeing a gray trail of smoke in the sky over Stony Brook for the weeks after 9/11 in which fire smoldered at the WTC. The plume traveled across the sky, west to east with a slight northward orientation. I kept my windows closed and tried to stay inside as much as possible. Lord knows what we were breathing in.
As you've written, we are bombarded on a daily basis with pollutants eminating west of us -- not only from NYC. Nuclear testing (who knows how much fallout made it into the atmosphere -- look at volcanic ash and the way it can travel) waste dumping, exposure through food and water...we are living on a very dirty globe and now we are paying the consequences for the destructive, neglectful or ignorant actions of others.
I lived up in Northport at the time of 9/11, and the morning after I could smell the "burning electrical fire" very distinctly.
I lived downtown in the Village on 9/11; the attack was Tuesday and we stayed in NY till Friday. I was going a little nuts trying to seal off vents and stuff...my building had windows from the 50s too so the seals weren't so great.
I don't even want to think what we were breathing in.
Bottled water is not any better for you than tap...and Long Island has very safe and clean water...some of the best around. I do not think cancer is being caused by our tap water.
It may seem like a lot of people have cancer on LI...the thing is, there are more people here than other areas of the country, so more people, thus more people with cancer. Obviously Long Island would have a higher percentage of cancer rates than some small town in Iowa with half as many people. It's all relative.
Not to mention, this area of the country...especially NJ & PA, is home to a lot of different industrial plants....examples Herrs in PA (they make snacks). It could be attributed to things like that, I don't think it's solely b/c of the water.
BTW, if I can find it, yesterday Yahoo posted an article about why tap water is actually healthier than bottled.
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