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still going on about cancer clusters

Posted by Aldie at 12:47 PM

After reading yesterday's post, a friend sent me some links that provide an update on the investigation into a cancer cluster at at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation headquarters in Brisbane. The building was closed in December 2006 but the search for answers continues, as the number of women affected continues to rise.

This is from an entry on Health and Nursing Issues Australia ("a clearinghouse for health, nursing and aged care issues in Australia"), dated December 19th, 2007 and entitled "ABC cancer cluster ‘unlikely to be bad luck’":

"The scientist who oversaw the investigation of a breast cancer cluster at the ABC’s Brisbane studios says it now seems more unlikely that bad luck was behind the cluster.

Professor Bruce Armstrong’s assessment comes after former ABC presenter Judy Kennedy announced she is the latest victim of the cancer scare.

Her case means at least 16 women who worked at the ABC’s former Toowong studios have been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Professor Armstrong says it is more likely that something at the Toowong studios caused the cluster.

“The fact that since we did our investigation there’s been a couple more women diagnosed and various other features, particularly the young age of the women affected … these really add to the evidence that there really was something at Toowong, that it wasn’t just a chance finding,” he said."

There continues to be considerable anger aimed at the corporation, as well as concerns that the ABC management should have acted more quickly to close the building. Despite the fact that the cause of the cluster remains unknown, there seems to be a consensus the building was, in fact the site of a cancer cluster and that those affected deserved compensation and support. In July, 2007, the women affected were granted workers' compensation, "even though there has been no direct link drawn between their workplace and the cancer."

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