🔗 Share this article

Alison Gaffney and Fraser's father were given heartbreaking diagnosis in 2018 when their 17-month-old their child was found to have a uncommon form of leukaemia.

An extended period of intensive medical care followed, comprising drug treatments, targeted radiation, and immunotherapy before a stem cell transplant. The young boy, then aged three, made a extraordinary turnaround from the operation, with doctors declaring the cancer in recovery.

It was at this point that the mother, aged thirty-six, began seeking answers. She could not stop thinking about comments made by healthcare workers at the time of her Fraser's condition. “We lose sleep wondering how our son got his disease,” a specialist had informed her.

“We're constantly wondering wondering how he got his illness,” a specialist had shared with her.

Background Information

The improper handling of millions of tonnes of contaminated waste after the shutdown of the town's primary employer in the town in 1979 had “long been recognized,” said Gaffney. A court ruling connected the local authority's mismanagement of the site to a cluster of congenital abnormalities in community youth during the previous decades.

Over time, the concerned mother started to link the case to her own. “[The disease] is not inherited,” she stated. “So what are the reasons? … It must be down to the area. So many children [with] the disease.

“Everybody in this town knows somebody who’s got a youngster [with] illness. That's unusual.”

Grassroots Movement

The parents started to contact more parents in the town with similar stories – featuring some of Gaffney’s former classmates at a local school – and the collective began gathering comprehensive documentation on those involved. They now spearhead a campaign representing about 130 families with situations of youth disease dating back to 1988.

The organization has been urging the town council to investigate any connections between occurrences of youth disease in the town and the shutdown of the industrial site. Soon, medical experts are expected to release their study of whether the town has had a disproportionate number of cases of pediatric illness for its population of 70,000.

“Our only goal is to attempt to safeguard subsequent residents so they can avoid the suffering that we’ve been through,” said the mother.

Previous Cases

The judgment in the legal case recognized that, between 1983 and 1997, vast quantities of contaminated materials from the industrial facility were moved “typically” from the southern part of town to a designated site in the opposite end – with “significant amounts” of contaminated substances carried and dropped on local thoroughfares and “large volumes” of airborne particles created by the cleanup.

Nonetheless, it also referenced findings from the Environment Agency in 1997 that discovered stockpiles of hazardous waste that had been deposited at Deene Quarry were later taken away in “substantial volumes”.

Additional Issues

Gaffney believes waste was not exclusively placed at the main disposal area but in different locations of the municipality. Lately, she applauded a “significant progress” after local authorities said it would analyze soil that could be contaminated and investigate where contaminated substances was dumped.

Gaffney said council staff confirmed in the discussion that they did not know where the sites of hazardous substances could be. “They explained: ‘We don’t know where these sites are. Documentation is missing, we possess no information.’”

Public Endorsement

The government declaration was also embraced by a community member, a educational worker at a elementary institution, whose young child, her daughter, was confirmed to have a hematologic malignancy in the summer.

“I needed to cut my little girl's hair because her hair was falling out from the medications she had to administer to eliminate her cancer. Consequently it’s in the community's concern, it’s in her daughter's welfare [for the council] to share that data,” she said.

“There are so many residents in the community that have been diagnosed with childhood cancer and I just feel it’s too much to ignore – it demands examination. This can’t be normal.”

Personal Stories

Meg Lyons, in her early thirties, who works in sales and now lives in London, said families merited “full transparency and clarity” from the local authority.

The woman's 11-year-old sister, the girl, died on in recent years after being found to have a uncommon malignancy at the young age. The girl, who fundraised for medical research, was “exceptionally adorable, humorous and caring” persons, Lyons said.

Her parent remembers the consequence of the shutdown of the steel plant on the area, Lyons stated. “She said you were unable to place your fingers in front of your face because [of] the red ash.”

“This situation has persisted since I’ve probably been about early childhood. It’s an excessive amount of time and it is irresponsibility toward the community members.”

Historical Connections

Lyons’s cousin, a community member, was one of several households participating in the court proceeding against the former government after her baby was diagnosed with a foot condition. Her husband, the man, was a member of the vehicle operators involved in handling substances from the industrial site. Their story was portrayed in a media production, and demonstrated Maggie cleaning the particles from her husband’s jeans.

The campaign leader said the organization has been reached out to by informants who were involved in the disposal of waste in the town.