Leading leukemia researcher probes cluster cases:
 Preliminary results show genetic, metabolic similarities in Fallon cluster children
(Lahontan Valley News, 10/1/05)

With funding from the Environmental Protection Agency, S. Jill James of the Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute, and team, studied genetic and metabolic factors that may have increased the susceptibility to the illness of the children of the Fallon leukemia cluster. The investigators visited the children’s homes and collected 20 blood samples from six cluster families and 28 more from controls, plus DNA samples from 205 subjects statewide. The team found that all of the case children they tested lacked a protective genetic factor, which may have impaired their bodies’ metabolic ability to cope with local environmental contaminants. They noted that the affected children had high levels of oxidized, inactive glutathione and decreased free glutathione. The researchers theorize that the interaction of multiple toxins caused chronic oxidative stress in children whose “antioxidant defense capacity” was not strong enough to withstand ongoing exposures to arsenic, tungsten/ cobalt, uranium, mercury and JP-8 jet fuel—each of which can deplete glutathione, which is crucial to detoxification.