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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]zero that I'm aware of, at the kids' elementary, middle and high schools.

I think you're looking at confirmation bias.

Cancer is common everywhere. When I had cancer, it seemed like suddenly tons of people around me also had cancer. Same as when I was pregnant (suddenly seeing pregnant women everywhere.) [/quote]

Nice try, but you really should study math, not sophistry.

Although there are about 448 per 100,000 new cases of cancer diagnosed in the U.S. each year, there were only about 17 (to 21, depending on which source you use) cases per 100,000 in children.  You would also have to reduce that number by about 25%, since MCPS does not offer daycare from ages 0-5.  That equates to 13 to 16 per 100,000.  Since Beverly Farms ES only has about 585 children, not 100,000, that means that there should be 0.08 (we'll be generous and round up) chance of a child being diagnosed with cancer in any given year.  That's about 1 child diagnosed with cancer in 11 years.  For the staff the numbers are comparable, but the point is there is no way in statistical hell that it's possible for 18 cases of cancer to be at that school within a 10'ish year period.

However, it also matters what type of cancer it is.  The statistics above are for ALL forms of cancer (e.g. leukemias 4.57, brain tumors 3.09, lymphomas 2.62 and so on).

Although the number of cancers at that school does seem high, but the real indicator would be an association to a cancer type associated with asbestos (e.g. mesotheliomas, lungs, larynx, ovary).  That is because the most common types of cancers found in children are:
[list]Leukemia[/list]
[list]Brain and spinal cord tumors[/list]
[list]Neuroblastoma[/list]
[list]Wilms tumor[/list]
[list]Lymphoma (including both Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin)[/list]
[list]Rhabdomyosarcoma[/list]
[list]Retinoblastoma[/list]
[list]Bone cancer (including osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma)[/list]

Any cancer outside of these types would stick out like a smoking gun. [/quote]

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