Kwinana cancer concerns grow

BY BARRY HEALY

PERTH — Under pressure from local residents, the Western Australian
health department on March 8 released worrying figures on cancer rates
in the Kwinana industrial area, south of Perth. The government department
is playing down fears that pollution has caused the cluster of victims.

The department's incomprehensible analysis, which accompanied the statistics,
concluded: “This data has no reliable indication that there are significant
area-based cancer risk factors present.”

Cardiologist Keith Woollard, a local Liberals for Forests candidate
who has campaigned on the issue, described the department's analysis paper
as “data dredging”.

“They take a little bit from here and a little bit from there to try
to give the impression that not much is going on. In fact, the figures
show that male instances of all cancers are 16% higher than the state average.
That's statistically significant”, Woollard told Green Left Weekly.

In nearby Rockingham, cancer rates among women are statistically higher
than the state's average.

The Kwinana Progress Association is calling for a full medical inquiry.
The KPA first received figures from the department last year. At that time,
the department claimed that the above-average cancer rates were caused
by the heavy population of retirees nearby and the area's socio-economic
level. Later, it was revealed that the figures had already been adjusted
to account for age.

“The figures show that this excess [of cancer] started happening in
the last five years”, Woollard said. There are two plausible explanations
for the results, Woollard told GLW: lifestyle factors like smoking
and diet, as suggested by the health department, and the toxic effects
of the Kwinana industrial strip.

“The Kwinana industrial strip is like a great big smoker, pumping out
cancer-causing chemicals every day. They say that they are under the safe
limits, but really there are no safe limits”, Woollard said.

From Green Left Weekly, March 20, 2002.

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From GLW issue 485