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Delaware House Democrats have joined the call for the state to release to the public detailed cancer statistics. They join gubernatorial candidates and local environmentalists in demanding the Department of Public Health release local-level cancer data to help those trying to uncover the cause or causes of the state’s eight cancer clusters.
A cancer cluster was first identified in the Millsboro area last year. Earlier this year, the state announced there were eight cancer clusters across Delaware. Six clusters are in New Castle County, one is in Kent County and Millsboro remains the only one in Sussex County.
Healthcare professionals and environmentalists say to determine the cause of those clusters requires that they have Census-level or community-level data on cancer rates. The Department of Public Health report released this year broke up the state into sub-county regions, but it did not release information by community.
State officials say patient privacy concerns have led them to keep the data under wraps so far.
Barbara Eichhorn, cancer survivor and former nurse, said the issue of protecting privacy is a fallacy and in well-kept records names should not be attached to statistics.
“The question is, ‘Has the Public Health Service done a professional and competent data-research study?’ If so, then this should be a clear matter of public record,” she said.
Citizens for Clean Power (CCP) member John Austin has asked the state to provide community-level cancer data. He said he fully supports the call for detailed cancer cluster data to be released to researchers. State health officials should make a yearly report to the public on the incidence of cancer in the state by ZIP code, Austin said.
Rep. Pete Schwartzkopf, D-Rehoboth Beach, said the report grew out of the study of cancer around the Indian River power plant, owned by NRG Energy, giving him an especially vested interest in seeing the data behind it. Acknowledging there are funding questions about starting another study, he said, “Let’s get the data released first and then we can discuss funding.”
Clean power advocates say waste generated by the coal-burning Indian River power plant contains arsenic, a known human carcinogen. “We want NRG to make good on its claim that it wants to be a good neighbor. They should do that by removing fly ash from the area, instead of building more uncovered fly-ash piles,” said CCP spokeswoman Patricia Gearity.
As part of a voluntary cleanup effort, NRG Energy is working with the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) to address erosion of Burton Island, which contains an old fly-ash pile. The company has also asked for a permit to install a new, lined landfill on the site. A public hearing for that permit will be held at 6 p.m., Thursday, June 26, at the Millsboro Civic Center.
The House Democrats’ joint call for cancer data release is not the first by state politicians.
Other state officials have also asked for more cancer data to be released to researchers. They applauded the Monday, June 9, announcement by House Democrats.
“This is an effort I started more than a year ago when I worked with residents in the Millsboro area to get cancer data released. I was able to get it done there and I want that information to be available to all Delawareans,” said Lt. Gov. John Carney, a Democrat running for governor.
State Treasurer Jack Markell, challenging Carney for the Democratic nomination, said, “I have been on record repeatedly to release the detailed cancer statistics.” Markell said the state has the 11th-highest cancer rate in the country and Delawareans need to know all they can about the disease.
Carney applauded House Democrats for taking a stand on cancer data and called for the Cancer Right to Know Law, Senate Bill 235, sponsored by Sen. Patricia Blevins, D-Elsmere, and Rep. Bethany Hall-Long, D-Middletown, to be passed. That bill would make detailed cancer data available to all Delawareans.
Markell said, “This data should have been released months ago, and when I am governor, it will be released immediately. It does not make any sense that this data is being withheld from the public.”
Carney said if the legislation does not pass this session, he would implement it as an executive order were he elected governor.
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