Staten Island, NY – My mother, my aunt, my neighbor, sister, daughter, grandmother, teacher, friend.
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The stories are told every day on Staten Island in pained and quiet voices: Who was diagnosed with breast cancer, who is going through treatment, who died after battling the disease.
Lives get lost to breast cancer far more often in this borough than in the rest of the city, and at a higher rate than most of the state and nation.
In fact, according to the state Department of Health, the mortality rate from the disease here is higher even than in the Long Island counties that have come to symbolize the scourge — spotlighted by national media, named in congressional acts and given millions of research dollars to root out the cause.
Trying to unravel the mystery on Staten Island is a small band of passionate researchers at the College of Staten Island in Willowbrook.
For the past two years, scientists at the Staten Island Breast Cancer Research Initiative have been engaged in groundbreaking work — plotting the demographics of the disease, performing sophisticated lab testing on chemicals in the environment and educating women in the community — all on a shoestring budget.
“All we need to know is why here,” said Dr. Donna Gerstle, the director of the initiative and of the Center for Environmental Science at CSI. “Staten Island has the highest breast cancer mortality rate in the five boroughs for at least 20 years, and everything we’re doing is to find out why.”
Every year, about 335 Staten Island women are diagnosed with breast cancer, and 77 women die of the illness, according to statistics gathered between 2002 to 2006 by the state Department of Health.
The incidence of the disease here is among the highest in the state; and the mortality rate of 27.7 per 100,000 women represents a peak.
“There is a stunningly high correlation between the length of residency and incidence of breast cancer,” said Dr. Gerstle, herself a native Islander, living in West Brighton.
with all the chemicals buried in Staten Island this is not surprising at all .
with all the chemical plants in Staten island and just across the kill van kull in new jersey , that makes it Evan worse . i think that in new york city , Staten island has the most polluted air.
however there is some good news. deer are making a comback in staten island . those who travel the 440 have come across signs that say deer crossing the next few miles.
This is an old piece of nonsense. It is simply not true, people living there want to get some money through a lawsuite so they blabber all this kind of stuff. Even if its slightly higher, does that mean people living there deserve millions of our money??? Do not live there if you feel threatend!!
Hey mayby because they vut off some fig trees there, who knows?
staten islanders tend to be stranger than most people…….I wonder if there is a connection?
#2 : And what was Love Canal in the 70’s? How many years of seepage did it require to cause a problem? SI had a building boom in the late 70’s on very cheap land. Do you really think inspectors did not look the other way, either thru payoff or political pressure, for SI to get the tax basis growth it had?