Locals need answers and support

THE cloud of mystery surrounding unexplained animal deaths and human health problems in a Co Limerick farming community has deepened amid alarming claims that the area is now a cancer hotspot.

Doubtless, it is all too easy to be alarmist when dealing with issues relating to cancer. Nevertheless, the fears of people around Askeaton who believe their lives were radically affected by industrial pollution are easy to understand, as they continue a relentless search for answers to questions which medical and environmental probes have failed to explain.

Despite a three-year, €5 million investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), no conclusive cause has yet been identified for the abnormal problems experienced by both humans and farm animals in this rich agricultural heartland.

Now the Askeaton saga has taken another ominous twist amid claims that statistics garnered by a local organisation, the Cappagh Farmers Support Group, show the incidence of cancer among the population has increased dramatically in the past two years.

Throughout this long-running controversy, the outcome of official investigations into the incidence of cancer in the area has left local people unconvinced by findings which they continue to dispute.

This is particularly true of a combined probe conducted by the National Cancer Registry and the Mid Western Health Board. It found that while the number of cancers registered in some parishes were higher than expected by national rates, the levels were not of statistical significance. Nor were clusters of unusual cancers discovered.

Overall, cancer rates in the Mid West region from 1994 to 1999 were found to be lower than the national average. And around Askeaton, cancer rates were said to be lower than the regional average.

However, if the latest statistics hold good, there are compelling arguments for reopening the cancer investigation, in order to dispel lingering fears and suspicions in the public mind about the general health of people in the area.

According to the farming group, there were 39 cases of cancer in the community in 2001. Two years later, the number has risen to 70, and 55 victims have died within an eight-mile radius. If these figures are accurate, then the cancer rate has almost doubled.

Statistically, this would put the local level of cancer at more than three times the national average, a scenario which gives cause for serious concern.

Nor is it surprising that doubts persist in the popular mind, since an independent report commissioned by the IFA claimed animal deaths and human illnesses could have been partly caused by industrial pollution. That probe was interpreted by locals as throwing doubt on the costly and inconclusive EPA study.

In yet another disturbing development, vital medical samples from the area vanished under circumstances that have never been satisfactorily explained, apart from blaming human error.

It is not good enough for the Government to wash its hands of a situation which continues to be a cause of widespread fear in a community where people are angry and afraid.

The bottom line is that the State should establish a programme to monitor human and animal health in the Askeaton area on a continuous basis. Until they get answers, local people will remain fearful that industrial pollution is to blame for their traumatic problems in this saga that will not go away.