Doctor says leukemia rare, CML rarer
Last updated Thursday, September 14, 2006 12:57 PM CDT in News
By Ron Wood
The Morning News
FAYETTEVILLE -- Cancer is an old person's disease, a physician told jurors in a lawsuit alleging arsenic from chicken litter caused cancer in Prairie Grove.
"Cancer in young people is very rare," Dr. James Dahlgren told jurors Thursday in Washington County Circuit Court.
Michael "Blu" Green and his parents sued Alpharma and Alpharma Animal Health, makers of the arsenic-based feed additive Roxarsone. The Greens claim exposure to arsenic from litter spreading near Prairie Grove in the 1990s caused Blu to develop leukemia.
Dahlgren said age is a major risk factor for all cancer types with people older than 60 being the most common victims.
The type cancer Green suffered, chronic myelogenous leukemia, is almost never seen in anyone under 60, Dahlgren said.
"It's a rare disease, very rare," Dahlgren said.
Alpharma lawyers spent most of Thursday morning trying without success to move Dahlgren off his opinion that Green developed leukemia because of acute exposure to arsenic from the spreading of litter.
Dahlgren was battered for a statement that litter was spread around Prairie Grove at night so as to avoid detection and to keep people from seeing the dust or taking pictures.
They also got some traction by getting Dahlgren to admit that there have been no other claims, before this lawsuit, that exposure to chicken litter caused any illness, including cancer.
The plaintiffs in the case are working under the theory that Roxarsone passes through the birds and degrades into a harmful form of arsenic in the litter, which is then spread on farm fields as fertilizer. Wind then carries the dust into homes and schools in the community.
The plaintiffs claim dust samples from attics, homes and businesses in the area have high levels of arsenic. The samples have allegedly been matched through "fingerprinting" to litter applied on nearby fields, according to the suit.
Reader Comments (No comments posted.)
The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsibility of their authors. The Morning News does not review comments before their publication, nor do we guarantee their accuracy. By publishing a comment here you agree to abide by our comment policy. If you see a comment that violates our policy, please notify the web editor.
Not already registered?
