Families Against Cancer & Toxics

Index of Fact Sheets

Local nonprofit Our Family Services received a $100,000 EPA grant for their Get The Lead Out! program to eradicate childhood lead poisoning in Tucson. FACT President Terry Nordbrock is one member of their Advisory Panel. We are working cooperatively with...  » read full text

FACT has received word that three children from Sierra Vista were diagnosed with leukemia within a one-month period this Summer. FACT has attempted to confirm this news with the Arizona Cancer Registry, who did not answer the question. It is...  » read full text

Communities across the country are experiencing high rates of disease. Currently, chronic diseases like cancer, birth defects, and multiple sclerosis are responsible for seven out of ten deaths in the United States.   » read full text

Experts agree that children are more vulnerable to environmental health threats than adults. Unfortunately, some of these health threats are present in our schools. These threats include exposures to pesticides, diesel bus fumes, mold, poor indoor air quality, radon, toxic...  » read full text

Are clusters a call for action, or merely a random statistical phenomenon? Read opinions on both sides, and make up your own mind.  » read full text

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Childhood From The National Cancer Institute's PDQ on ALL Family history and exposure to radiation may affect the risk of developing childhood ALL. Anything that increases your risk of getting a disease is called a risk factor....  » read full text

From NCI's PDQ on AML The risk factors for developing childhood AML, childhood CML, JMML, TMD, and MDS are similar. Anything that increases your risk of getting a disease is called a risk factor. Having a risk factor does not...  » read full text

The incidence of childhood leukemia in industrialized nations has been rising approximately 1% per year for more than 30 years. Public awareness of clusters also rose, with high profile cases such as the Love Canal, and movies like A Civil...  » read full text

Background: Cochise County is considering signing a 20-year agreement with a 10-month old private company who will build a "plasma converter" in Cochise County. On the surface the idea is really exciting. The county's garbage and old tires would be...  » read full text

The Center for Disease Control has a website on clusters. The National Cancer Institute also has a website on clusters. Here are the 1990 Guidelines for investigating cancer clusters, which most states still use today. The Trust for America's Health...  » read full text

Hello~ I’m a United States Air Force spouse whose husband is a Fuel Systems Mechanic. Quite frankly he crawls inside of the fuel tanks of jets and fixes any and every problem therein. On several occasions he has been...  » read full text

(Developed by the Trust for America's Heath) Cluster Request Process The following process describes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) guidelines for responding to disease cluster investigation requests. Some state health departments may follow their own protocol for...  » read full text

by Terry Nordbrock, MPH, MLS Mother of a child diagnosed with leukemia Investigating disease clusters represents some of the best work public health has ever done. One famous example of a successful disease cluster investigation was John Snow's analysis of...  » read full text

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,...  » read full text

Here are some precautions you can take to reduce your families exposure to toxics and carcinogens, and a resource list for more information.  » read full text

Families Against Cancer & Toxics (FACT) presented two public forums and hosted a conference for childhood leukemia cluster advocates.  » read full text

FACT's Open Letter to Jet Fuel Workers and Their Families The NIEHS complleted a study about leukemia clusters near military bases. FACT applauds this study but disagrees with its findings that "no general increase in childhood leukemia was found in...  » read full text

In England in the 1960s, the military conducted secret germ warfare tests over the community of Norwich. Cadmium, known at the time to be carcinogenic, was dropped on four occasions in order to measure the spread of the particles. Now...  » read full text

This is a continuation of the Clusters page Oak Ridge, Anderson County, Tennessee More than 100 residents of Oak Ridge may have suffered from thyroid cancer, brain damage, and other illnesses from past exposure to toxic releases at a nearby...  » read full text

Floyd Sands, age 56, passed away May 29, 2009 after battling brain cancer. Floyd Sands has been a powerful voice about the need for investigation into the Fallon childhood cancer cluster and response to the children's health crisis. Floyd...  » read full text

Stage II Vapor Recovery is an effective gas pump technology that prevents exposures to carcinogens, prevents the creation of smog, and prevents financial loss to gas station owners  » read full text

Eighteen children associated with Sierra Vista have been diagnosed with leukemia, and four have died. This is over three times the expected rate for this small desert town near a military base. See a timeline and read official documents about the cluster.  » read full text

Health tracking systems such as cancer registries collect data that will lead to a better understanding of what causes childhood cancers, but we are presently underusing this resource.  » read full text