Air sampling units set up in Fallon

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Nevada
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Air sampling units set up in Fallon
Frank X. Mullen Jr.
3/19/2004 02:11 am

FALLON -- Arizona scientists set up 11 air sampling units in this
military and agricultural town Thursday in the hope that the testing
results will shed some light on a cancer cluster that has sickened 16
children and killed three of them.

The toaster-size air sensors are set up on tripods around Fallon, and
some will collect dust for weeks. Five of the sensors will remain in
Fallon for four days and then be set up in Lovelock, Fernley, Yerington
and Reno.

The scientists said the sensors will be analyzed for heavy metals,
including tungsten, which a previous health investigation showed was at
high levels in residents' urine and drinking water. Tungsten had been
considered harmless, but some recent studies link the metal to genetic
mutations.

"If there's something funny about the tungsten levels and not the other
metals, we may have something," said Paul Sheppard, a tree-ring expert
from the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Sheppard and Mark Witten, a toxicologist and professor of pediatrics at
the university, have been doing research related to Fallon for about
three years. Their efforts were at first self-funded and are now paid
for by grants from the Gerber Foundation.

Sheppard found that based on analysis of tree rings, tungsten levels
seem to have increased in the Fallon area over the past 20 years. The
tree core samples also revealed organic chemicals that might be the
fingerprints of jet fuel. Witten's lab work revealed that tungsten seems
to spur the growth of human leukemia cells.

"They are doing the kinds of research that should have been done in the
Centers for Disease Control (and Prevention) investigation but were not
done," said Dr. Gary Ridenour, a Fallon internist who is helping Witten
and Sheppard. "The CDC's investigation didn't test ambient air, soil,
trees or anything in the wider environment."

This articlec can be viewed at:
http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2004/03/19/66573.php

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