No ‘cancer cluster’ linked to old Bayshore High School, Florida health officials say
Following years of concern and public pressure, the Florida Department of Health has released findings on the old Bayshore High School and its possible impact on the health of decades of alumni.
“Specifically, the Department launched the study to determine whether or not Bayshore High School buildings and grounds could have contributed to a possible cancer cluster over the last 30 years,” the department said in a news release.
“The study’s findings suggest no evidence of a ‘cancer cluster’ associated with the high school,” it continues.
Demolished in the ‘90s, the old building was located at 5401 34th St. W. in Bradenton, where the current school remains. The old school led teachers and families to complain about strange odors and health complications for decades, leading to boxes of documentation on asbestos testing, radon testing, water testing, soil testing and mold assessments.
Dozens of teachers filed complaints about headaches, sore throats and asthma, according to Bradenton Herald archives.
“I never had asthma — until I started teaching here,” someone wrote in a 1995 complaint.
The health concerns grew more dire as alumni began to report cancer and autoimmune diseases, along with birth defects in their children.
It was an issue that gained widespread attention after the death of Terri Lumsden Jewell, a Bayshore alumna who died from a rare form of leukemia in 1999. Her sister, Cheryl Jozsa, learned years later that a classmate died from the same illness.
Jozsa made it her mission to document all the Bayshore High alumni who suffered from health ailments. She has collected information, updated the community and pressed for answers on her Facebook page: “Bayshore High School, Bradenton, FL Concerned Alumni and Friends.”
As of November 2017, Jozsa said she collected information on nearly 500 alumni, and that 174 were diagnosed with cancer.
The health department’s investigation followed her concerted effort and years of probing from concerned residents. In a message sent via the Facebook page, Jozsa said she would respond to the findings in a news release on Friday evening, after the information was shared with affected alumni and their families.
The first public review followed a 2007 meeting between then-state Rep. Bill Galvano and Bayshore High alumni The Florida Department of Environmental Health contracted Earth Systems to test the soil and groundwater on the site where two underground storage tanks were removed.
A 50-gallon tank — which held heating oil — was removed in 1989, followed by the extraction of a 10,000-gallon diesel tank in 1995. Earth Systems concluded that “no groundwater impacts were detected above applicable standards, and that no further testing was necessary.”
Some people also questioned the impact of a nearby facility for metal manufacturing. The EPA found some contamination in the area surrounding the facility, located about a mile north of the high school, but the findings posed “minimal concern,” according to the agency’s assessment in 1997.
Still, the overwhelming public concern led county health officials to partner with the School District of Manatee County in 2017. They opened a submission form and worked to collect information on Bayshore High students and faculty who were diagnosed with cancer.
The public filed 239 “patient information forms” between December 2017 and March 2018, according to a news release. That information was sent to the state health department for further review, and on Thursday morning — three years after the process began — the findings were released.
“While no documented environmental exposure link could be found for the area of the old Bayshore High School, DOH proceeded to review data from the state cancer registry, the Florida Cancer Data System (FCDS), to address community concerns received by DOH in Manatee County.”
The news release goes on to say that data from zip code 34210, the school’s former location, were reviewed for three time periods: 1986 to 1995, 1996 to 2005 and 2006 to 2015.
The review also included eight types of cancer: brain and other nervous system, breast, colorectal, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, kidney and renal pelvis, leukemia, prostate and thyroid.
“Cancer data from the FCDS and population data from the United States (U.S.) Census were used to calculate a standardized incidence ratio (SIR) respectively for each cancer type, allowing comparisons between the number of observed cases versus the number of expected cases to determine if the occurrence of these cancer types are higher or lower than one would expect given the population size and demographics of the local area in question.”
“For all three time periods studied, the final report suggests, the number of observed cases versus expected cases was significantly lower in many instances with regard to each type of cancer,” the release concludes.
The findings would come as no surprise to some experts in the field. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a cancer cluster has the following attributes:
A higher number of cancer cases exist than would be expected.
The cancer cases are all of the same type.
The cases are limited to a specific population.
That population is in a defined geographic area.
The cases all occur within a clearly defined time period.
In a 2013 report, the CDC said local and state agencies receive about 1,000 inquiries about suspected clusters each year, and those most are quickly dismissed.
While clusters are rare, they were still a regular fear in communities throughout America, according to a past interview with Thomas Burke, the associate dean for public health practice and training at Johns Hopkins University.
“A classic concern is in neighborhoods,” he said in 2017. “(People say), ‘Look at my block, there’s been five cases of cancer,’ “Well, cancer is our No. 2 killer, and unfortunately it is a very common disease.”
This story was originally published December 4, 2020 at 1:29 PM.