Families Against Cancer & Toxics

Compiled by Terry Nordbrock, Executive Director of Families Against Cancer & Toxics (FACT)

Good question! This question has been surprisingly difficult to answer. Arizona has a cancer registry, in the care of the AZ Dept of Health Services. Renee Downing, reporter from the Tucson Weekly, published the first list of cases in 2/12/2004, using information obtained from the registry:







In November 2006, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), published another list of cases in their Final Report (page 26, PDF, 1113 Kb). They received their information from the Arizona Cancer Registry. The numbers are similar, but there is another case listed for 1998. (Click on the image to see a larger version).






In December 2006, the Arizona Department of Health Services published a 2006 update. On page 5 of that report, there is a list of resident cases and linked cases, and new information never before released that there was a child diagnosed in 2006.

Oddly, there are only two cases listed in 2001. Upon enquiring, Dr. Tim Flood of ADHS noted that they redefined the geographic definition of Sierra Vista, and one case from 2001 was no longer considered to reside in the area.

FACT notes that "redrawing the map" means Flood is not even following his own rules. When families objected to his excluding the cases diagnosed weeks after leaving Sierra Vista, he refused to bend on the case definition. He was adamant that once he had his case definition, to waver from it would be an epidemiological heresy that would prevent the data from having statistical meaning. Changing the case definition would introduce the oft-mentioned "Texas Sharpshooter fallacy." FACT notes that Dr. Flood is not so squeamish about avoiding Texas Sharpshooter fallacy when it provides more convenient numbers.





Soooo, how many cases are there in all? How many are incuded in the analysis of "statistical significance" by ADHS? Here at FACT we have gathered all the information we can find, and offer this. (Click on graph to see a larger version.)







If you have any other information, please contact us.