This map is a fascinating and important image as it does NOT show the many sites of (ongoing) nuclear radiation contamination in communities impacted by uranium extraction and processing. For example, the Navajo Nation has around 270 unreclaimed open pit tailings piles. This is not official "waste" but is quotidian waste that creates longstanding environmental harm.
Google Scholar search for “Louisiana Tumor Registry”
“Air pollution is linked to higher cancer rates among black or impoverished communities in Louisiana”, Kimberly A Terrell and Gianna St Julien 2022 Environ. Res. Lett. 17 014033 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4360#artAbst
Lawsuit led by River Region Crime Commission (RRCC) to retrieve LTR information
http://www.la-fcca.org/Opinions/PUB2004/2004-04/2003CA0079.Apr2004.Pub.12.pdf
Article by Barbara Allen (2005). The problem with epidemiology data in assessing environmental health impacts of toxic sites
https://www.witpress.com/Secure/elibrary/papers/EEH05/EEH05048FU.pdf
“The registry focuses on cancer incidence, which can be caused by a number of factors, instead of the risk faced by people exposed to emissions from industrial operations. In Terrell's view, that has allowed companies and by the state Department of Environmental Quality to misconstrue its significance.” (Mitchell 2021)
“While scientists will argue that the one-year reporting standard, as set by the state statute, is arbitrary, a five-year reporting timetable is equally arbitrary and less sensitive to changing health patterns. More problematic, however, were the eight large geographic regions. Each region consisted of as many as twelve parishes (a parish is a county in Louisiana) and in the case of the regions that include the parishes of the chemical corridor, industrial parishes are “diluted” by non-industrial parishes, making the determination of elevated cancer rates near chemical plants impossible to decide. The LTR also tends to downplay the rarer cancers, both adult and pediatric, saying the “rates tend to fluctuate because of small numbers...[and] are less reliable and should be cautiously interpreted” [4]. This infuriates the residents and researchers as these rare cancers are of major concern as they may be linked to chemical exposure.”
Response to new health study (March 2021)
Incidence, mortality, cancer stage, pediatric, cancer survivors
State, parish, and regional data (and soon census tract data in the LDH Dashboard)
“The Louisiana Tumor Registry (LTR) collects information from the entire state on the incidence of cancer. This information includes the types of cancer (morphology, grade, and behavior), anatomic location, extent of cancer at the time of diagnosis (stage), treatment, and outcomes (survival and mortality).”
“[A]ny health care facility or provider diagnosing or treating cancer patients shall report each case of cancer to the registry. It also protects health care facilities and providers that disclose confidential data in good faith to the LTR from damages arising from such disclosures.”, see cancer reporting.
Louisiana State University (LSU) School of Public Health
Mission: “To collect and report complete, high-quality, and timely population-based cancer data in Louisiana to support cancer research, control, and prevention.”
The LTR was formally founded in 1979 under the auspices of Louisiana’s Office of Public Health.
In 1992, the U.S. Congress passed The Cancer Registries Amendment Act making official a national program of cancer registries and monies to fund them.