An alumnus of Colonia High School in Woodbridge, New Jersey is investigating his former high school, claiming he has counted 115 people who attended or worked there to have had a rare brain tumor.
Al Lupiano, an environmental scientist and a 1989 graduate of the N.J. high school first decided to investigate when both his wife and his sister were diagnosed with brain tumors, two decades after he himself had suffered from a benign tumor. All three had been students at Colonia in the 80s and 90s. Lupiano’s sister died from brain cancer earlier this year.
After his sister passed away, Lupiano wrote a lengthy Facebook post as well as an article in a local newspaper in March, asking for people in the area for help in reporting cases of brain tumors. “As previously stated, there is basically one medically proven cause of rare brain tumors like ours – radiation,” he wrote.
Lupiano’s search for others with similar experiences eventually uncovered more than 100 former students and staff who had suffered from brain tumors since their time at Colonia. Nearly half of these brain tumors were cancerous. Although no specific cause has yet been determined, the discovery set off alarm bells for the school district and local government officials.
Glioblastoma is an aggressive type of cancer that can occur in the brain or spinal cord, according to the Mayo Clinic. It is the type of brain tumor that Arizona Sen. John McCain died from in 2018.
The cause of glioma, the tumor that occurs in the brain or spinal cord, is not known – like most tumors, Mayo Clinic says. Age, exposure to radiation, and family history are all risk factors.
According to AWM, after some research, Lupiano learned that uranium ore might have been brought to the site where the high school was built. The soil was moved from the contaminated site when it was shut down in 1967 – the same year the high school was built.
With this, the City of Woodbridge has now allocated hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding to test for radiation on the school’s grounds, and Woodbridge Mayor John McCormick has expressed his concern in recent interviews.
“One hundred out of 15,000 have brain cancer—sure sounds like something we should be concerned about,” McCormick reported when asked by local reporters.
Watch the video report below for more details:
Sources: AWM, Mayo Clinic
Thomas Cooper