Benzene Leukemia Law Blog : Benzene and Leukemia Lawyer & Attorney : Burke & Eisner Law Firm : Benzene Exposure, Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Last February, doctors diagnosed Chuck and Jacqueline Roberts' young daughter, Victoria, with a rare and life-threatening bone marrow disease, aplastic anemia.

Since then, the Robertses say, they have heard of five other cases in Columbia County, where they live, or across the river in Washington's Cowlitz County.

To the couple, six cases in counties with 150,000 residents combined looks suspicious. But is it? Is it just bad luck? Or is something, perhaps a pollutant, causing illness in the area?

Oregon and Washington officials are tackling those questions as they try to figure out whether Victoria, 7, is part of a disease cluster. So far, they have no proof of a cluster. But workers from seven agencies in two states have spent weeks gathering initial information, including climate data from a Kalama, Wash., plant that legally emits tons of benzene, a chemical that can damage the blood of people exposed to large enough amounts. This week, investigators will share their data and discuss whether there is enough suspicion to push ahead.

You can read the entire article here... www.oregonlive.com

Here is a description of Aplastic Anemia from the article.

In aplastic anemia, a person's bone marrow loses the ability to make blood cells that stop bleeding, battle infections and move oxygen through the body. In the United States, an estimated 200 to 1,800 new cases are found each year. Many things can cause the disease: genetic flaws, radiation, some drugs, chemicals such as benzene, even pregnancy. Most commonly, something spurs the body's immune system to attack the marrow, said Dr. Grover Bagby, an aplastic anemia expert at Oregon Health & Science University. But in most cases, no root cause is found.