A confusing mystery.. 100 patients with rare cancer were in one American school
A New Jersey man revealed a confusing medical mystery as he and more than 100 people were exposed to rare cancers, and the confusing story is that they were all studying at one school, Cologne High School in Woodbridge, New Jersey, according to Fox News.
In 1999, when he was just 27 years old, Al Lupiano was diagnosed with an "extremely rare" and abnormally large brain tumor of a person his age called acoustic neuroma (AN).
Last summer, Lupiano's wife and deceased sister were diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer around the same time.
Lupiano also explained in a post on "Facebook" that he had been updating his status since then, according to "Al Arabiya Net".
"I think my wife and I are the first documented cases of having the same neuroma, either of about the same size or on the same side of the head and according to him these cases are probably 1 in a billion," he added.
"The surgeon was concerned when he found out that we all grew up in the same neighborhood. Why? There is a well-documented reason that brain tumors are caused by exposure to radiation."
Lopiano eventually found a single worker who connected him with his wife and sister, all of whom attended Cologne High School in Woodbridge in the 1990s.
But Lupiano wasn't initially sure that high school was a link to similar, rare cases of brain cancer until he submitted a Facebook request for former classmates who attended the same school to connect with him in person.
By April 11, the surprise came when he learned that more than 100 former students at the Cologne school had been diagnosed with rare cancers.
Woodbridge Mayor John McCormack said he has begun talks with the Woodbridge Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Environmental Protection and the Toxic Substances Disease Registry Agency about opening investigations into possible radiation exposure around the high school campus.
McCormack said the town wants local and federal participation in the investigation.
Lupiano also speculated about a possible link between Cologne High School and the Middle Sachs sampling plant in New Jersey.
The factory, which was closed at the time, is about a 30-minute drive from Cologne.
The plant was an entry point for African uranium ores known as pitchblende that were "imported for use in the country's early atomic energy program, screened at the Middle Sachs sample plant and then shipped to other sites for processing," according to the US military.
The plant received uranium, thorium and beryllium ores between the 1940s and 1967, the same year the Cologne High School was built.
While authorities said the plant was then "disinfected in accordance with standards in force at the time", though "the traces of radioactive materials that have been carried away from the site over the years by wind and rain into the yards of neighboring homes are overlooked".
Also, records later revealed that in 1948, some of the radioactive material was trucked from the factory to Middlesex municipal landfill, half a mile from the school.
The soil from the factory was likely trucked to the Cologne High School during its construction in 1967, the report said.
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