Questions and Answers Concerning the Cancer Cluster
At La Quinta Middle School
1. What’s All the Fuss About LQMS?
In 2003 there were eleven cancer diagnoses among a teacher population of 137 who had ever worked at LQMS. Now, three years later, there are 18 cancers among LQMS teachers, and at least five cancers among the non-teacher staff.
The 18 cancers represent a 2.8-fold times the expected number of cancer from what would have been expected from that size population. The melanoma cancers among the LQMS teachers (4), is even larger: almost 10-fold times above the expected number. Yet even with the melanoma cases removed, contrary to the District’s “Report to the Community”, it becomes clear that LQMS does indeed have an “excess level of reported non-skin cancer cases”: in fact it is a worrisome two-fold times what is expected.
These excess LQMS cancer cases, above what would have been expected, constitutes what has come to be called a “cancer cluster”, and a very strong one at that.
2. What is a Cancer Cluster?
According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), a cancer cluster is “an unusually large number of cancers,…or other adverse health effects which occur in one area or over one period of time”.
Many cancer clusters remain mysteries as to the cause of the cancer. However, through a “process of elimination”—that is, eliminating the “usual (environmental) suspects”, and focusing on the environmental problem that remains—the mystery can be solved. Such has been the case with the cancer cluster at LQMS: testing found that LQMS received a “clean bill of health” for its quality of air, soil, water, and mold potential—but (contrary to what the District has written) testing found problems and something “unusual” with the electricity.
The LQMS cancer cluster is not a mystery, but instead can be pinpointed to specific problems with the electricity at La Quinta Middle School.
3. What is Wrong With the Electricity at LQMS? The District Says Its Electricity “Meets Standards”.
It is true that that, according to the District’s summary of an FBA Engineering report, the “electrical distribution system” and the “distribution system equipment” at LQMS are in “good condition”.
But the distribution system aside, three other aspects of the electricity at LQMS indicate concerning trouble spots: Field Management Services Corporation found high electromagnetic fields in at least one room; they and others found a worrisome “net current” problem in one room, and beside the light switches in many other rooms; and at least three groups measured high frequency transients (AKA “dirty power”) throughout La Quinta Middle School. The teachers, the Milham and Morgan team, and Dr. Raymond Neutra (head of the California Department of Public Health’s Environmental and Occupational Health Services), all found high levels of dirty power. The Milham and Morgan team found (measuring during the after school hours with much of the electrical power systems turned down or off) the few rooms they measure were bathed in high dirty power levels. Dr. Neutra labeled the high levels that he measured “unusual” compared to the dirty power found in other occupational and residential sites in other California communities.
4. What Is “Dirty Power”?
For close to 100 years, high frequency transients—also known as “electrical smog”, “electrical pollution”, as well as “dirty power”—have been a known artifact of 60 Hz electricity. This dirty power, or high frequency transients, is the “fuzz” or oscillating spikes that appear on the humps of the sinusoidal electrical wave when electricity is turned off and on very rapidly. Sources of electricity with this rapid on/off cycling can be varied including modern electrical equipment, florescent lights, and dimmer switches. The “unusual” levels of dirty power at LQMS indicate something else is going on at the school.
The “Microsurge II meter—the dirty power meter used by the teachers, the Milham and Morgan research team, and Dr. Neutra to measure the “rate of change” in the oscillating spikeshas been approved by the United States Patent Office and is a dependable measurement tool relied on by many researchers, in several countries. The meter is not, as the District asserts, the “subject of considerable controversy and skepticism” and, in fact, is being utilized (among other studies) in a large, multi-year research project conducted by the much-esteemed research arm of Kaiser Permanente.
5. What Is The Connection Between Dirty Power And Cancer at LQMS?
The cancer cluster at LQMS is “statistically significant”(i.e., “large”) and the dirty power at LQMS is alarmingly high. Not only do these two factors present a presumption of causation, but as well, the dirty power measurements at LQMS themselves, matched room for room (and adjusting for increased power) with the cancer cases, indicate a high correlation between the rooms with the highest dirty power and the cancer cases. In fact, there is a 5.1-fold increase in cancer over what would have been expected for LQMS personnel in the rooms with the highest dirty power.
Too, melanoma and thyroid cancer, found at an excess rate at LQMS, are cancers highly correlated with exposure to electrical anomalies.
6. Are Dr. Neutra or Others Trying to Use The LQMS Teachers as “Laboratory ‘Guinea Pigs’” for “Unproven Theories”?
No, no one is trying to use the teachers. Actually, everyone involved with LQMS is united with one paramount goal: to make sure that LQMS, and all of the teachers, staff, and students who call it “home”, are assured a safe and healthy environment. However, the parties differ as to how to accomplish this goal.
The District thinks that the LQMS community will be best served by denying the all too real cancer cluster; by denying the school’s very real EMF, net current, and dirty power electrical issues; and by refusing to find the source of these very real and troubling problems.
The teachers themselves, and their supporters, feel that the best way to assure a healthy LQMS community is to face the facts squarely: to admit that, yes, there is a cancer cluster; to admit that, yes, the dirty power is off-the-charts; and to admit that, yes, everyone involved needs to work diligently to find the source of the electrical problems, and fix them.
And no one is advocating the testing, nor the promotion of “unproven theories”. Dr. Neutra is only recommending, and the teachers, and the teachers’ friends and supporters only would hope, that an investigation be completed to discover the source of the electrical problems, most pointedly, the source of the high dirty power fields.
7. Why Does the District Say That Additional “Scrutiny”, or Investigation, Into the Source of Electrical Issues At LQMS Would Be “Harmful”?
This indeed is a curious position for the School District to take: if problems at LQMS concerning the air quality, the soil, the water, and the mold have all been ruled out—but the electricity has a quality that the California Department of Public Health deems “unusual”—why would the District not want to find out what the problem is, and fix it?
The District, by their own admission, has already spent “tens of thousands of dollars” on consultants and legal fees—Why? It would have cost the District a fraction of what they already have spent to find and fix the problem—and with no need for a legal team. Perhaps the District is a bit confused: surely the “harm” to LQMS will come from a failure to adequately “scrutinize” La Quinta Middle School.
April 23, 2007