Bethlehem Residents Have Higher Rate of Cancer

A 14 year study conducted last year showed Bethlehem had higher cancer rates than it should given its population.
Some residents believed that the town’s landfill, operated by North Country Environmental Services, is the cause - but that study couldn’t prove it.
Tuesday night, State health officials released results of a broader study that looked at cancer rates in Bethlehem and eight surrounding communities.
Karla Armenti, with the Office of Health Statistics and Data Management, shared the results with a small group of residents.
“ if you look at the nine town region we do see that there is a 13-percent elevation in breast cancer, 38-percent increase in pancreatic cancer over the expected cases.”
Armenti says in Bethlehem, pancreatic cancer rates were statistically significant, while breast cancer came in a close second.
Both leukemia and melanoma cancers were statistically significant in all nine towns.
In addition, health officials reviewed medical records of Bethlehem residents who were diagnosed with cancer to try to garner a better picture of why rates were higher.
But Armenti says that proved difficult.
66 :04 we had some records that had actually been destroyed already, unavailable charts from outside New Hampshire, that’s always an issue, and unrecorded information, so not every variable we would like to have is actually documented in a medical record.
But bottom line, the study couldn’t find any pattern or reason that would explain why the cancer rates are higher.
68 4:05 the risk factors most strongly associated with the cancers we identified as elevated in the study are non-environmental, they would include age, race, family history and smoking.
For example, someone who smokes has two and a half times a greater risk of developing pancreatic cancer.
Some residents have feared that contaminated groundwater at the landfill is the cause of higher cancer rates….and recent acknowledgement of a leak by the landfill’s owner has increased those fears.
The DES has ruled that local residents’ wells are not in danger.
But Bethlehem resident George Manupelli expressed concern that the study didn’t rule out the landfill as the cause of increased cancer rates.
:29 “I guess you’re saying that you couldn’t positively identify the landfill as the source of the cancer, but on the other hand you couldn’t eliminate it either and that’s rather frightening I would think if you can’t eliminate it.
Bethlehem town selectwoman Jeanne Robillard pointed out that the report only looked at cancer cases from 1991 to 2005, which is the most recent data available.
78 226 between 2005 and now I know that there are a significant number of cancer diagnoses in our town that are not accounted for in this study, and I’d like to know when or if those statistics will be brought in 239
State health officials say they should have cancer case data through 2007 updated by March of next year.
After the meeting, Bethlehem resident Mary Lou Krambeer says overall she’s satisfied with how the state has helped Bethlehem with this.
87 2:15 I’m actually pleased with what I heard tonight, which is there are people who are concerned about further exploring elevated cancer rates in the north country, and I recognize its very difficult to link environmental factors to cancer, but it’s a starting point, and it’s a solid starting point.”
State health officials plan to revise the report based on comments from the group.
A public meeting will then be held in Bethlehem to release the results.
For NHPR news, I’m Amy Quinton.