Health Officials Investigate Rare Cancer In Local Kids
MARINE CITY (WWJ) - The St. Clair County health department will hold a public meeting on June 2nd to discuss an investigation into seven cases of a rare form of cancer in area children.
WWJ Newsradio 950 spoke with Danielle Williems whose daughter Erika was diagnosed with Wilms' Tumor three years ago at the age of seven. Williems said the chemotherapy made her daughter very ill.
"May days she didn't want to go in. I mean, sometimes we had to go down there twice. We'd get home and she'd spike a fever, and I'd have to turn around and take her back down. And we'd have to stay another four or five says until the fever went," Williems said.
Erika had a kidney, an adrenal gland and lymph nodes removed, but she's now in remission. However, Williems said her 14-year-old daughter has been diagnosed with Lupus and she thinks chemicals in the environment are to blame.
"We live on chemical valley, here, and I believe we're being polluted, really being polluted really bad by air and water. And I'm fighting to have water monitors there are out there kept in place and funded," Williems said.
Seven Wilms' tumor cases have been reported in seven Southeast Michigan children in the last four years. Most of the cases have come from the Marine City area, which has industrial plants and sits more than 10 miles down the St. Clair River from a number of petrochemical plants.
Although, there are no indications yet that the cases are linked.
WWJ spoke also with Kristina Tranchemontagne, whose daughter Ashleigh was diagnosed with Wilms' Tumor when she was just three years old.
She, too, had a kidney, her adrenal glands and several lymph nodes removed. She also underwent radiation.
Tranchemontagne said that nearly three years later, Ashleigh is still a spunky kid. "Mom and Dad always worry about her, but she's pretty healthy. She's in kindergarten," she said.
However, Tranchemontagne's best friend's six-month-old baby has now been diagnosed with the disease.
"I strongly believe that's its something in our environment. With such a rare cancer, I can't imagine it just being a coincidence," she said, adding that the family is now drinking bottled water.
Michigan Congresswoman Candice Miller is asking the Centers Disease Control to step in and investigate. (More on this).
Find out more about Wilms' tumor at this link.
