Louisiana Tumor Registry Research & Critiques
tschuetzLawsuit 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)