Laine's Aim: Add Residential Data to Cancer Surveillance System

Concerns about Fridley's elevated cancer rates has one state representative seeking data, while a visit from environmental activist Erin Brockovich is delayed.

Over the last several weeks, state Rep. Carolyn Laine (DFL-50A) has been looking into the possibility that environmental causes are partially to blame for , and now she is hoping to input residential and occupational data into the Minnesota Cancer Surveillance System.

“I do not see this as a blame-for-the-past issue but as wake-up for today and the future: We need to be sure we are doing all we can/should be doing now,” Laine wrote in an email to Patch late last week.

In a letter to the editor published in the Sun Focus (see PDF), Laine wrote that she is “uncomfortable with the suggestion that smoking is the only culprit in Fridley’s unusually high lung cancer rate” and that “there may be legislation that can help gather important data.”

Laine’s approach of gathering additional citizen data is in line with the aims of the 2,700 member-strong , which has encouraged current and former Fridley residents to input more than 570 data points into . (The markers on the map have been clicked more than 23,000 times.)

Laine said she has spoken on the phone with the Facebook group’s founder, Jason McCarty, and has corresponded with Bob Bowcock, ’s environmental investigator.

Bowcock has been collecting anecdotal cancer data from Fridley citizens in order to fill a “data gap” and determine whether there is a link between cancer cases and contamination plumes.

“I have scores of reported cancers from people who lived in Fridley for forty years or more [who] died in the statistical time period, yet moved away before they could be counted,” Bowcock has written on the Facebook group’s discussion board.

Bowcock was initially planning on visiting Minnesota with Brockovich in the middle of May, but McCarty wrote Thursday that Brockovich’s crowded May schedule means that either Bowcock will visit Fridley alone in two weeks or will visit with Brockovich a little later.

Bowcock has not yet returned messages sent Thursday or Friday; look for updates here with more information.