Observations placeholder

The Scalpel and the Soul – Dr Allan Hamilton

In more than two decades of brain tumor surgery, I have never heard of two cases quite like Candy's and Taylor's [mother and daughter]. To me, they are just one single, dreadful case.

As of 2006, however, the data from the National Familial Brain Tumor Registry now contains more than two hundred familial cases.

Many occur between blood relatives, but some have also happened between a parent and a stepchild, or between stepsisters in the same household. Many of these cases cannot be traced to genetics. They probably arise from living in the same house and being exposed to the same environmental influences.

Environmental influences, such as living near the tremendous electromagnetic fields generated by high-voltage power lines, seem to be implicated. One recent study showed that electrical power-line workers in Scandinavia have more brain tumors than the average population.

Another study has shown that exposure to petrochemicals could also be a risk factor. There was a study that looked at which professions had the highest incidence of brain tumors. The worst profession was that of a dentist, because they're constantly getting exposed to X-rays as they shoot film for dental radiographs. The safest profession? Bartender. Go figure.

There is some foreboding data suggesting that the electromagnetic fields generated by cellphones may be setting the stage for a whole new generation of malignant brain tumors in the decades ahead.  What do we do? I don't know. I'm a cellphone junkie. So are my wife and all my kids.

A year after Candy's death, a man from Globe, Arizona, brought his wife to see me, as she had been recently diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Less than three months later the husband was also diagnosed with the same kind of tumor. They had worked together most of their adult lives, running a dry-cleaning business. Together with the Familial Brain Tumor Registry, I pored over the invoices from the business and found that both husband and wife had been exposed to well over a dozen potent, cancer-causing chemicals in their cleaning business.

"Why hasn't anyone said anything about these chemicals? Look at what it has done to us!" the husband cried.

In large part because of these unusual familial groupings, the U.S. government has finally undertaken a serious epidemiologic evaluation of environmental and chemical toxins and their role in the induction of malignant brain tumors. In 2004, the world's largest biomolecular consortium, under the leadership of several world-class researchers such as Jeff Trent and Mike Behrens, has begun to unravel the mystery of what genes in our own brain's cells might be triggered to start malignant astrocytomas growing.  When some progress has been made in this research, we may finally have the tools we need to understand how such a disease can be visited upon families, on households.

…… God intended for the human race to be careful with Mother Earth. I know that God expects us to be more attentive stewards of our planet-His creation. Pollution is a sin frequently paid for with the blood of innocents like Candy and Taylor.

And maybe yours and mine too.