The Northwest Herald (IL) has created an outstanding multimedia presentation that tells the story of the McCullom Lake cancer lawsuits. And boy, what a way to tell the story!

They include video interviews with plaintiffs and with attorneys for both sides, map of the contamination area, documents associated with the lawsuit (including an important expert report from Redpath's Dr. Sidney Finkelstein that we will highlight at another time) and more.

For those interested in McCullom Lake, the causal connection between brain cancers and TCE/vinyl chloride/chlorinated solvent exposure, and legal actions for personal injuries caused by chlorinated ethylenes, we highly recommend you check it out.

Warning: The title of the presentation is "Coincidence or Cluster?" We believe this is a poorly-chosen title and it does not properly reflect the main issue in these suits. The main issue, as we understand it, is whether or not the defendants' chemicals caused the individual plaintiffs' cancers. Whether McCullom Lake's cancers can be considered a cancer cluster is a red herring. So please ignore the overly simplistic title, but do check out the presentation.

The Northwest Herald (McHenry County, IL) reports:

Modine Manufacturing tentatively has settled out of court in the McCullom Lake brain-cancer cases, agreeing to pay an undisclosed sum to the 22 plaintiffs and $2 million to settle a class-action lawsuit.

If approved by a U.S. District Court judge, the settlement announced Friday would end Modine’s financial liability in the lawsuits, which tied pollution from its Ringwood manufacturing plant to brain-, nerve- and pituitary-cancer victims. That would leave Rohm and Haas, which operates a plant just north of Modine’s, and subsidiary Morton International as the only remaining defendants.

Modine does not, in any way, admit liability with the settlement, said James Rulseh, vice president of the company’s American operations. The lawsuits alleged that Modine contaminated groundwater and air with trichloroethylene, a chemical used as an industrial-strength degreaser, which in turn broke down into carcinogenic vinyl chloride.

[...]

The class-action lawsuit and the first three individual lawsuits were filed in April 2006. Three former McCullom Lake next-door neighbors, about a mile to the south of the factories, were diagnosed with brain cancer within eight months of one another.

Of the $2 million class-action settlement, Modine will pay $1.4 million toward a medical monitoring program to reimburse current or former village residents who want an MRI. Another $100,000 will establish a fund to reimburse property owners seeking property value relief, and the remaining $500,000 will pay for court-approved attorney’s fees and settlement costs.

Payments to the 22 individual plaintiffs will remain confidential under the settlement, attorney Aaron Freiwald said. The damage cases were filed in state court in Philadelphia, home to Freiwald’s law office and Rohm and Haas’ world headquarters.

Of the plaintiffs, 18 have brain or nerve cancer, three have pituitary cancer, and one has cirrhosis of the liver of unknown origin. Eight of the plaintiffs have died, all but one from glioblastoma multiforme, a deadly brain cancer that occurs in just more than 3 people per 100,000.

[...]

Freiwald said Friday that the settlement allowed him to focus all of his scrutiny on Rohm and Haas, which he said by far was the major contributor to contamination. The factory, owned at the time by Morton, dumped wastes into an 8-acre landfill/lagoon between 1960 and 1977. Rohm and Haas assumed control of the factory in 2005, six years after acquiring Morton for $5 billion.

[...]

The medical-monitoring class includes anyone who lived in village limits for at least one cumulative year between Jan. 1, 1968, and Dec. 31, 2002. The property damage class includes anyone who owned property in the village between April 25, 2006 – the date the class-action lawsuit was filed – and Jan. 18, 2008.

Read the full story here.

The San Antonio Express-News (TX) reported earlier this week:

The other day I received a call from a 58-year-old San Antonio man who worked at Kelly AFB from 1983 to 1999. He said he recently had a cancerous kidney removed, and he wondered what I could tell him about Kelly workers' exposure to carcinogens that cause kidney cancer.

...

A search of the Express-News archives turned up a dozen columns in which Kelly contaminants and potential kidney problems were discussed.

The first reference to Kelly contaminants and kidney cancer appeared in a March 22, 1998, column in which I reported that extraordinarily high levels of two volatile organic compounds — perchloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE) — had been found in groundwater near Kelly.

For decades, TCE and PCE were used as degreasers at the base.

...

Last fall, in a summary of Kelly findings, federal researchers noted:

1. During 1990-1994, liver, kidney and lung cancer incidence rates in neighborhoods around Kelly were higher than incidence rates found in demographically similar neighborhoods in Texas.

2. Those cancers "could have been the result of past exposures" to Kelly contaminants.

It seems reasonable to conclude that the same might be said about the cancers of longtime Kelly workers.

Read the full story here.

When this blog first launched, we created a topic category called "Health Effects". This was one of many topic categories we included to enable readers to find pertinent information more easily (see the list of "Topics" to the left).

Over time, we have realized that many of our readers have a particular interest in the way TCE (or related solvents) impacts specific organs in the body — and what is known about its relationship to particular diseases. As such, we've decided to begin categorizing health effects information (articles, studies, resources, etc) by target site/organ in the body. In doing so, we've created a number of new Health Effects categories. In a few cases, we've created specific disease categories, such as Lymphomas or Leukemia.

Want to know how TCE effects the brain? Click on Health Effects - Brain. The heart? Click on Health Effects - Heart. Want to to see all posts related to all health effects? Choose Health Effects - All.

At the moment, you'll notice these categories are relatively empty. It may take us a few days or more to re-categorize all of our old health effects-related posts. In addition, as we publish new items related to specific health effects in the future, you will be able to find them in these new categories. Over time, we hope to add as many resources as possible in each category so that the TCE Blog continues to be a useful online resource.

Note: If there are resources (or categories) you would like to see added to our library of health effects information, please don't hesitate to contact us. Also, please don't hesitate to shout if you think there is a better/easier way to organize this information.

This article was made available online yesterday by Environmental Health Perspectives. From the abstract [PDF]:

Trichloroethylene Monograph
Trichloroethylene Cancer Epidemiology: A Consideration of Select Issues
Cheryl Siegel Scott and Weihsueh A. Chiu

A large body of epidemiologic evidence exists for exploring causal associations between cancer and trichloroethylene (TCE) exposure. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2001 draft TCE health risk assessment concluded that epidemiologic studies, on the whole, support associations between TCE exposure and excess risk of kidney cancer, liver cancer, and lymphomas, and, to a lesser extent, cervical cancer and prostate cancer. As part of a minimonograph on key issues in the health risk assessment of TCE, this article reviews recently published scientific literature examining cancer and TCE exposure and identifies four issues that are key to interpreting the larger body of epidemiologic evidence: (1) relative sensitivity of cancer incidence and mortality data; (2) different classifications of lymphomas, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma; (3) differences in data and methods for assigning TCE exposure status; and (4) different methods employed for causal inferences, including statistical or meta-analysis approaches. The recent epidemiologic studies substantially expand the epidemiologic database, with seven new studies available on kidney cancer and somewhat fewer studies available that examine possible associations at other sites. Overall, recently published studies appear to provide further support for the kidney, liver, and lymphatic systems as targets of TCE toxicity, suggesting, as do previous studies, modestly elevated (typically 1.5 to 2.0) site-specific relative risks, given exposure conditions in these studies. However, there are a number of challenging issues that need to be considered before drawing causal conclusions about TCE exposure and cancer from these data.

Download the full version here [PDF]

The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies Trichloroethylene (TCE) as probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A). Here's a direct link to IARC's summary and evaluation (Updated 1997).



Update: The direct link above is no longer active. Try here.

Direct link here. Also added as permanent link in the right column under Science/Agency sites (------>)

Update:

ATSDR's full Toxicological profile of TCE (1997) is here.

Since approximately 1993, the ATSDR has been tracking the health effects reported by discreet communities exposed to Trichloroethylene. Their National Exposure Registry (NER) basically tracks this kind of data for well-identified communities who have been exposed to it (there are myriad qualification requirements, I'm simplifying here).

The NER for TCE has some interesting data and discussion. It raises questions about elevated cancer findings among the TCE-exposed population. Unfortunately, the detailed comparison of cancer types by age/sex for the exposed population vs. the general population never actually appears in the reports (despite references to appendices with this data in 3 separate reporting years: 1994, 1996, and 1999). Maybe I just can't find it. To be sure, in May of 2004, I wrote the ATSDR to request the missing data/appendices. I received this response:

Mr. Fischbein:

The TCE Subregistry cancer outcomes analyses are slated to be released under a separate study. The results are not publically available at this time. Please do keep tabs on our publications for future releases.

I confess, I'm not sure what to make of this. If anybody has any thoughts, please let me know or feel free to use the comments feature below.

In the U.S. National Toxicology Program's 11th Report on Carcinogens, TCE is reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.

Here's a pdf of the TCE review only. Thanks to VJ for link.

In 2002, the EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) reviewed the EPA's 2001 draft health assessment of TCE. The SAB "commends the [EPA] for its groundbreaking work [...] in several important new areas of risk assessment" while also providing suggestions "to strengthen and provide confidence in the assessment."

Here is the full SAB review. Thanks to reader VJ for the link.

Here's a direct link to the EPA's 2001 Document: Trichloroethylene Health Risk Assessment: Synthesis and Characterization (external review draft)

From the EPA's abstract:

This assessment presents EPA's most current evaluation of the potential health risks from exposure to trichloroethylene (TCE). TCE exposure is associated with several adverse health effects, including neurotoxicity, immunotoxicity, developmental toxicity, liver toxicity, kidney toxicity, endocrine effects, and several forms of cancer. Mechanistic research indicates that TCE-induced carcinogenesis is complex, involving multiple carcinogenic metabolites acting through multiple modes of action. Under EPA's proposed (1996, 1999) cancer guidelines, TCE can be characterized as "highly likely to produce cancer in humans."

Update:

I'm trying to find the published responses to this document. I know the Halogenated Solvents Industry (along with several others, if I recall correctly) filed a rather lengthy response. If anyone knows where I can find these, please email me.