BY RACHEL MELCER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Robert Hanavan Sr. watched his mother die of ovarian cancer and his 46-year-old brother develop colon tumors.
He saw friends and neighbors contract diseases that they believe were caused by radiation and other hazards from living and working near the former uranium processing plant in Crosby Township.
But other than a March study linking lung cancer deaths to radon that leaked from Fernald before 1979, there is no definitive proof to back up a link between their ailments and the Cold War weapons complex. The study was updated last week to report that those effects are being felt up to 19 miles from the site.
Yet Mr. Hanavan, a member of the Fernald Health Effects Subcommittee, said during a meeting Thursday that people need to be warned of the risks. Along with their doctors, they must be told to take preventive measures and watch for early signs of disease.
"I'm looking for something fast so the people in this area can protect themselves," he said. "It seems like everybody will be dead by a certain period of time if we wait (for lengthy scientific studies)."
Scientists with the federal Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assured him that research is under way.
Casey Boudreau, an ATSDR epidemiologist, reported that the first analysis of health data -- collected from people who lived within 5 miles of the plant while it operated between 1951 and 1988 -- will begin at the end of September.
The study is part of the medical monitoring program area residents won through a lawsuit alleging that their health was impacted by Fernald. Nearly 10,000 area residents were screened for cancer and other diseases every third year beginning in 1990. Edwa Yocum, who sits on a panel overseeing the program, said exams will soon be conducted every two years.
But the analysis that is expected to be complete in 1999 will yield just the most preliminary results, Ms. Boudreau said. It will show whether certain diseases are occurring more frequently around Fernald than elsewhere.
If higher incidences of an ailment are found, then scientists will study whether it can be linked to any of the toxic or radioactive substances used or stored at Fernald.
A similar analysis of diseases found among Fernald workers is also being planned by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
In both cases, "you have to be very careful and not jump to conclusions. You have to make sure that the findings are real," Ms. Boudreau said.
So far, after a cursory look at the medical monitoring data, "there are no major diseases in the Fernald area where the rate (of occurence) is 10 times that of the regular population. We would have seen that right away," said Susan Pinney, an environmental health professor at the University of Cincinnati, where the program is being administered.
While that is welcome news for local residents and workers, it complicates and lengthens the study.
Mr. Hanavan and members of Fernald Residents for Environmental Safety and Health (FRESH) say they want to know whether Fernald materials have caused bone and breast cancer, birth defects, gastro-intestinal disorders or thyroid disease.
For each ailment they want to assess, scientists must know its national average of occurence as well as whether it can be linked to radioactive or toxic materials found at Fernald. Much of that information is simply not available.
So Mr. Hanavan and his neighbors will have to wait.
In the meantime, Ms. Pinney and other environmental health experts say people concerned with lung cancer should avoid tobacco smoke and have their homes cleared of any naturally occurring radon, both of which increase their risk of developing the disease. Eating a low-fat diet and other common-sense health measures may also help.
The subcommittee is beginning to contact doctors throughout Butler, Warren, Clermont and Hamilton counties, to make them more aware of the issue. Patients who live or work around Fernald should be monitored more closely for signs of cancer and other disease. "If the physician population knows there's a little bit higher risk for lung cancer or breast cancer, we may do more screening," said Larita Frazier-O'Bannon, a doctor who sits on the Health Effects Subcommittee and supports the medical outreach program.
"We have to try not to get so bogged down in the science that we lose sight of the ultimate goal -- the public health," she said.
