Surge in Childhood Cancer Rates in New Zealand

The increase comes as birth rates in New Zealand are falling. There were 56,532 in the year to March 2001, 6 percent below the 60,331 recorded a decade earlier.

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SATURDAY, 19 MAY 2001

Surge in child cancers
19 MAY 2001
By CHRISTINE LANGDON
New Zealand children are being struck down by cancer at steadily increasing rates.

Childhood cancer rates climbed 50 percent between 1990 and 1997, Health Ministry statistics issued to Green Party MP Sue Kedgley show.

A provisional 153 cancer cases were recorded in children under 14 years in 1997, up from 104 in 1990.

The increase comes as birth rates in New Zealand are falling. There were 56,532 in the year to March 2001, 6 percent below the 60,331 recorded a decade earlier.

Ms Kedgley and health experts called yesterday for authorities to closely study the steady rise in child cancer cases in the 1990s.

"We need to look as a society at why children, even at very young ages, get cancer, which normally develops over many years," Ms Kedgley said.

Reporting new cancer cases to the Health Ministry's register became mandatory in 1995, but the ministry believes about 97 percent of cases were being recorded in the early 1990s.

Between 30 and 45 children a year died from cancer in the 1990s.

Leading cancer epidemiologist John Dockerty, of Otago University, said earlier studies had shown significant increases in childhood leukaemia between the mid-1960s and 1990, but the latest statistics for all cancers needed closer examination.

"I don't think we should dismiss this sort of thing. We need to look at it carefully and see what it is telling us," he said.

"We don't know whether it is related to demographic changes in the population or whether there is some kind of environmental risk factor that has been increasing."

Ms Kedgley wanted a closer look taken at environmental risks, including the possibility that mercury in dental fillings and chemicals in pesticides could penetrate a mother's womb.

"I want to know what the ministry is doing to try to understand why there has been a 50 percent increase in children being diagnosed with cancer, and to study the increase in number of children dying," she said.

Child Cancer Foundation chief executive Kay Morris said New Zealand needed a dedicated national child cancer registry, which was expected to be set up soon.

The Health Funding Authority formed a national child cancer steering committee last year, which had made the registry a top priority.

"Until that happens, it is all just guesswork," Ms Morris said.

Mr Dockerty said research into the causes of cancer in New Zealand was restricted by the small population. "Statistically speaking, you can't learn a lot."

It was more valuable when looked at with overseas research, he said.

Local research was being done. So far, studies have pointed to the benefits of breastfeeding in lowering the risk, and found that the risk is higher for the children of single mothers and children in poorer families.

Original Published:  http://www.stuff.co.nz/

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A Mark Poppelwell a  of the Taranaki Health in the New Zealand government wrote in an email to Don Sarten, New Zealand citizen:

"present guidelines for dioxin levals in soil in residential areas to be presently 1500 parts per trillion. If you have any problems with this ,please call me."

If you have any help or advice for a New Zealand citizen seeking justice please email Don Sarten.

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(Editor's Note:  Fewer babies, more cancer... is anyone listening?.)

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