Maine's high rate of bladder-cancer deaths sparks study (ground water suspected...)

WMTW ^

[chance33_98]

AUGUSTA (AP) -- Maine has a high mortality rate from bladder cancer, and a new study will try to find out why.

The state is taking part in the four-year study funded by the National Cancer Institute. It will seek to determine why the Northeast has a high mortality rate from bladder cancer.

From 1994 to 1998, Maine had 4.3 deaths from the disease per 100,000 population. That's second only to Delaware and just ahead of New Hampshire, which ranked third.

Researchers don't want to detail suspected causes of the cancer because they want to avoid influencing people who may be questioned as part of the study. But investigators do plan to look at possible environmental factors, including ground water quality.

[chance33_98]

I suspect it is from smokers in the midwest, their second hand smoke drifts into Maine and contaminates the water. Or it is from people shooting off guns in Maine and leaving the cartridges on the ground which then go into the water. Yeah, that's it...

[harpseal]

Since I grew up in both New Hampshire and Maine my best guess (not being facetious) is that it is possibly Radon gas which is emmitted from granite. This is very common in Northern New England (new Hampshire is called the Granite state).

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown

[Rodney King]

Even in a perfect environmentalist world, one of the 50 states would have to be the highest. It does not mean that there is anything wrong - other than lawyers looking for an excuse to sue the hell out of everybody.

[Random Access]

Too cold to go outside and piss. Bet there is next to zero bladder cancer here in Texas, where pissing outdoors is a constitutional right.

[Eagle Eye]

You'd be better off looking for a contaminant that is either directly or has its metabolytes passed through the urinary system.

Of course, it could just be that someone has to be at either end of the bell curve.

[harpseal]

I am not an MD and I do not pretend to be one it was just a wild guess becuase I had once read about exposure to Radon possibly being linked to bladder cancer.

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown

[Gorzaloon]

Since I grew up in both New Hampshire and Maine my best guess (not being facetious) is that it is possibly Radon gas which is emmitted from granite. This is very common in Northern New England (new Hampshire is called the Granite state).

I suspect you are on to something here. The average Massachusetts resident gets 475 MilliREM per year from radon. But the geology of Maine and New Hampshire has far more of the pegmatites that are the source of uranium and thorium minerals, such as uranophane (Can be collected at Ruggle's Mine, for example) and monazite. North of me by some distance, a deep (425 ft.) artesian well in pegmatite continually loaded water filters, and the homeowner brought it in for me to look at. It was plugged mostly with limonite, a hydrated iron oxide. But a thought occurred to me-(I am the Radiation Safety Officer for a Fortune 500)- I checked it with my counters, and it was emitting more than 8 mREM/ hour- Sufficiently high so the filter could not be legally mailed or shipped by UPS without a lot of special provisions and packaging.

What can you say to the homeowner...Never take a shower again?

Radon and Thoron (Rn220) are short-lived isotopes in the uranium and thorium decay series, respectively, and they have many "daughters" on the way down to lead 206. Before they are Radon, they are polonium and radium, to name a few, so these certainly are in the water also, as well as the U and Th. And some of these daughters are pretty hot alpha emitters.

I would not be at all surprised if your suspicions were correct. In fact I would be surprised if they were not.

[Eagle Eye]

Having recently stayed at a Holiday Inn, I'm emininetly qualified to opine on many topics!

Carcinogens are very target organ oriented. Paraquat, for instance, causes lung cancer no matter the route of entry.

Radon is very closely associate with lung cancer.

Bladder cancers often come from organic compounds inhaled, ingested or absorbed.

FWIW, anyway.

[Eagle Eye]

Gorzaloon's post came in whie I was replying to you. I hadn't considered radon saturated water, so I'll back off my opinion until I have more data.

[verity]

Any causal relationship with an excessive consumption of lobster? ;~)

[hillary's_fat_a**]

Tell me about those hot daughters again, will ya....:)

[Eagle Eye]

Arsenic poisoning, possibly, believe it or not.

[ozone1]

Throw in bad medical care, radon, uranium and we're #2 again, I thought it was just taxes.

[Gorzaloon]

Usually any alpha emitter, when absorbed and held in proximity to tissue is a carcinogen. An alpha decay typically gives off a gamma around 1/2 MeV, and the alphas from most natural isotopes are 4-5MeV. In WWII, young women painted altimeter dials with radium luminous paint. Radium occupies the same row in the periodic table as calcium. The women's bones were still growing, and the body took up Group IIA metals thinking they were calcium. This included Radium 226. Many died of bone cancers years later. Photomicrographs of bone showed "Alpha Tracks" made by the particles over the years. Addtionally, one carcinogen suspect in tobacco smoke is Polonium 210, which is found in the superphosphate fertilizers used on the crop. Lung cancers from Radons are caused not by the radon, but by the daughter isotopes that float around in the air, and attract dust particles so the clumps are exactly the right size (4-10 microns) to make it into the lung.

[Utopia]

Too cold to go outside and piss.
You're probably confusing Maine with upstate NY. The coastal area is quite warm. Portland Maine is still waiting for its white Christmas ... doesn't look like it'll be a white New Year, either. No snow. Just sunny days.

[Gorzaloon]

Too cold to go outside and piss. You're probably confusing Maine with upstate NY. The coastal area is quite warm. Portland Maine is still waiting for its white Christmas

Nope. My fahtheh was from Watehville, and he told me it was so cold in the winteh, that in order to pee, one had to hold it and warm it up for a ...long..time....I am not sure I want to finish this...

Naw, he couldn't have meant,.,must have meant..

Neveh mind.

[pkmaine]

Not Radon---It's either Mr. Boston or Allen's Coffee Brandy.

We have grocery store aisles lined with the stuff, not to mention half and half comes in gallon containers.

[Eagle Eye]

Lung cancers from Radons are caused not by the radon, but by the daughter isotopes that float around in the air, and attract dust particles so the clumps are exactly the right size (4-10 microns) to make it into the lung.

Thanks for making my original point that inhaled radon is associated with lung cancer. 10 micron particles are on the large side for inhilation, aren't they? I've not heard of radon being associated with bladder cancer because inhilation is the normal route of exposure, not ingestion or absoption.

As an RSO (are you also a health physicist?) you'd have good insight as to the possibility or probability of radon-induced bladder cancer. I'm skeptical, but open to the possibility.

[Utopia]

:-)
Its been unusually warm here this year - though I can't speak for Watehville.

[Gorzaloon]

As an RSO (are you also a health physicist?) you'd have good insight as to the possibility or probability of radon-induced bladder cancer. I'm skeptical, but open to the possibility.

I am just a chemist, but with experience with some of these materials.

An RSO in some organizations is simply someone with some training or experience who is not politically adept enough to avoid the position!

As to radon and cancers, remember that radon is only a symptom of the presence of the long-lived nuclides like U238 or Th232, and they have halflives in the billions of years. Cancers may not be caused by radon, but by its precursors or daughters like polonium and radium. Radon does not hang around long before it decays sequentially into many daughters like bismuth, etc.

The original studies implicating radon in lung cancers was done among uranium miners. There are several reasons why the study may have been flawed:

1: Most of the miners smoked. So we do not know whose agenda is served by the study.

2: When they ate their sandwiches at lunch, did they wash the carnotite dust off their hands every time...or did they just wolf them down? Any miners here? What do people think? I suspect they may not have been the most dainty diners.

So, these heavies, right up to lead, end up where? Liver, kidneys, bladder, and in the case of radium, bone.