By Andrew Court April 14, 2022
Former resident says 65 people who either attended or worked
at a N.J. high school have had rare brain tumors – CBS News
A cancer survivor is vowing to untangle the twisted mystery of why almost 100 people associated with a New Jersey high school have developed “extremely” rare malignant
brain tumors.
Al Lupiano is among the 94 former staff and students from Colonia High School in
the Woodbridge Township School District who has been stricken by the devastating diagnoses in recent years.
“I will not rest until I have answers,” Lupiano, 50, declared in an interview
with NJ.com and the Star-Ledger on Thursday. “I will uncover the truth.”
Among the others diagnosed with brain cancer was Lupiano’s younger sister,
who passed away from the disease in February at the age of 44.
Is there a possible link between Colonia High School and brain cancer? (yahoo.com)
The devoted brother promised his sister on her deathbed that he would get to the bottom of what was causing the apparent cancer cluster at Colonia High. On Tuesday — after a public push by Lupiano — local officials approved an emergency probe of the school.
“There could be a real problem here, and our residents deserve to know if there are any dangers,” Woodbridge Mayor John McCormac said in a statement.
“We’re all concerned, and we all want to get to the bottom of this. This is definitely not normal.” Starting this weekend, various radiological assessments will be conducted across the school’s 28-acre campus, including the testing of indoor air samples for radon.
Lupiano was diagnosed with a brain tumor back in the late 1990s, at the age of 27.
He went on to recover from the disease. Last year, his wife — who also attended Colonia — was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor. On the exact same day, Lupiano’s younger sister, Angela DeCillis, another alumna of Colonia, learned that she too had brain cancer.
Lupiano promised his sister, Angela DeCillis, on her deathbed that he would get to the bottom of what was causing the apparent cancer cluster at Colonia High. The school was built back in 1967. Today, it enrolls around 1,300 students, many of whom are said to be concerned and anxious about the probe.
After his sister’s death in February, Lupiano became convinced of a link between the Colonia campus and the brain cancers that he, his wife and his sister had developed.
Last month, he started a Facebook group asking locals whether they knew of any other people associated with the school who had been stricken by similar diagnoses.
Colonia High School Brain Tumors: New Jersey Cancer Cluster | FACEBOOK.
In less than six weeks, Lupiano says, he has gathered the names of 94 people connected with the school who have developed brain tumors.
The disturbing development became headline news this week after CBS News took it national. A subsequent TikTok video discussing the medical mystery has also racked up more than 2.2 million viral views in just 24 hours.
The vast majority of those who have developed brain tumors “graduated between 1975
and 2000, although outliers have come as recently as a 2014 graduate,” according to the
Star-Ledger.
The diagnoses include “several types of primary brain tumors, including cancerous forms like glioblastoma and noncancerous yet debilitating masses such as acoustic neuromas, hemangioblastomas and meningiomas.”
“To find something like this … is a significant discovery,” Dr. Sumul Raval, one of New Jersey’s top neuro-oncologists, told the outlet. “Normally speaking, you don’t get radiation in a high school … unless something is going on in that area that we don’t know,”
Raval added, calling for an immediate investigation.
The viral TikTok video discussing the purported cancer cluster was posted Wednesday by popular personality Dr. Joe Whittington.
Whittington — a board-certified MD in California — claimed several of the brain
tumors developed by ex-Colonia High staff and students are glioblastoma multiforme —
an aggressive cancer which spreads to brain tissue.
While the exact number of former faculty and staff diagnosed with glioblastoma is not precisely known, the cancer is exceedingly rare. According to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, glioblastoma has an incidence of 3.21 per 100,000.
Meanwhile, the TikTok video sparked panic and a range of conspiracy-theory style comments, with people claiming mold, toxic waste, asbestos and nearby cell phone
towers could all be causing the cluster.
Lupiano also spoke with CBS News on Thursday, saying he now believes ionizing
radiation must be responsible for the health issues. “What I find alarming is there’s truly only one environmental link to primary brain tumors, and that’s ionizing radiation,” he declared. “It’s not contaminated water.
It’s not air. It’s not something in soil. It’s not something done to us due to bad habits.”
The school was built back in 1967 on acres of empty land, with McCormac telling the news network he is stumped as to what could be causing the cancers.
Officials conduct a radiological survey on the school’s baseball field.
Lupiano has reached out to the state Department of Health, Department of Environmental Protection and the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry for help — which is reportedly still in the “early stages,” according to the CBS News report. Lupiano told NJ Spotlight News that the school is located less than 12 miles from the Middlesex Sampling Plant — a site that was used, under the direction of the Manhattan Project, to crush, dry, store, package and ship uranium ore for the development of the atomic bomb.
He alleges that some contaminated soil was removed from the site when it closed down in 1967 — the same year Colonia High School was built. Lupiano is wondering whether some of that soil ended up on the school grounds. Today, Colonia enrolls approximately 1,300 students, with many said to be “anxious” about the possible cancer cluster.
“We are looking at possible things that we can do between the town and school, and they said they will look at anything we come up with,” McCormac said.
Mystery As 100 people Associated With 1 School Develop Brain Tumors – YouTube
Survivor claims illnesses may be caused by a uranium plant which was part of the Manhattan Project and contaminated nearby soil – Newsbreak
Were 100 rare brain cancer cases at New Jersey high school linked to the first ATOMIC BOMB?
VIDEO: Nearly 100 people at one school got brain tumors — a survivor demands answers (dennismichaellynch.com)
Medical mystery: This woman’s brain lesions led to a diagnosis that affected her entire family (inquirer.com)
Is there a possible link between Colonia High School and brain cancer?
Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa (Johns Hopkins) Part 1: Brain Tumors.
Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa (Johns Hopkins) Part 2: Brain Tumors.
Mystery as 1 school develop brain tumors – Search (bing.com)
Mystery as 1 school develop brain tumors – Bing video
iBiology – YouTube
MORE ON: BRAIN TUMOR
BONUS: Clyde Ohio Cancer Cluster – Search (bing.com)
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Must Watch: Pluto TV – Jim Allison: Breakthrough
Synopsis:
Jim Allison: Breakthrough is the astounding, true story of one warm-hearted,
stubborn man’s visionary quest to find a cure for cancer.
Today, Jim Allison is a name to be reckoned with throughout the scientific world —
a 2018 Nobel Prize winner for discovering the immune system’s role in defeating cancer — but for decades he waged a lonely struggle against the skepticism of the medical establishment and the resistance of Big Pharma.
Jim Allison: Breakthrough takes us into the inspiring and dramatic world of cutting-edge medicine, and into the heart of a true American pioneer, in a film that is both emotionally compelling and deeply entertaining.
James Allison, winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine, was born on August 7, 1948 in a tiny South Texas town called Alice. Named for the daughter of the legendary King Ranch owner, Alice has boasting rights as birthplace of a second Nobel winner, Robert F. Curl, Jr., who took the honor for chemistry in 1996. It is also where Tejano, a unique Tex-Mex musical genre, took root in the mid-1940s. Tejano may have inspired young Jim to take up the harmonica, which he still performs at parties and events, sometimes sharing the stage with fellow Texan Willie Nelson.
Allison’s father, Albert, was a physician and his mother, Constance, a homemaker and “positive influence” who tragically died of lymphoma when he was eleven years old.
There were 2 older brothers, Murphy and Mike. Life was difficult for Jim following his mother’s passing. His father, an officer in the Air Force Reserves, was often away from home, during which time he was fostered by a local family with a son about his own age.
Even as a kid, Allison displayed a yen for science. Encouraged by his parents, he toyed around with a Gilbert chemistry set, setting off little bombs in the woods behind their home. A summer in a NSF-funded science-training program deepened his interest.
After graduating from high school at sixteen, he entered the University of Texas, Austin where he would earn a B. S. Degree in microbiology (1969) and a Ph.D. in biological science (1973). He was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.
But the fierce passion which kindled his interest in curative science, was unquestionably ignited by the early passing of his mother. His life’s path was set by the time he entered graduate school, when he convinced his PhD advisor to bring cancer study into the lab.
It was a propitious moment.
The immune system’s “T-cell” had recently been discovered. A type of white blood cell,
the T is a front-line soldier in the battle to keep us healthy, its role assigned by nature to distinguish friend from foe. Though immunology was not even a bona fide science at the time, Allison zeroed in on the immune system’s potential against cancer.
(His dissertation proposed a new approach to treating leukemia,
but decades would pass before a similar drug was patented.)
Soon after graduation, Allison began crisscrossing the country in a quest to unlock
the mysteries of the T cell. How do T cells work? How do they identify an invader?
Why can they recognize the flu virus, for example, but not cancer?
In addition to pure knowledge, he sought institutions open to innovative research –
not a simple matter in a profession tending toward caution and rigidity.
His first stop was Scripps Clinic & Research Foundation in San Diego (1974-77)
where he did postdoctoral work.
Married by now to the former Malinda Bell, the couple often joined other Texas
ex-patriots at the port city’s Stingaree bar. He fondly remembers one night playing his harmonica until the wee hours with Willie Nelson and his band. “I didn’t have to buy a beer for a couple of years after that,” he recalls.
LOVE THIS VIDEO: TCU “We Fight Back” Flash Mob for Komen 🙂