[John]

My 13 year old son was diagnosed with moderate AA in April 2005 and his blood counts continued to deteriorate towards severe AA over the next few months. We were projecting a BMT in September with my younger son who was a perfect HLA match. I had read about exposures to toxins particularly benzene as a cause for AA. We took Tim to Loveland Colorado for 3 weeks in August to get him out of the Vancouver, WA area. In his bi-weekly CBC in Colorado we seen for the 1st time improvements in all his blood cell counts. He went back for Thanksgiving, Xmas, Spring Break, and the entire summer the next year and most holidays and every summer since then. With each trip his blood counts have improved. He never had IST or blood transfusions and the doctors indicated his recovery was indicative of an acute exposure to a toxin. A friend provided us with a Portland, OR newspaper article in October 2006 about a family in Goble, Or about 30 miles from us. They had been trying to raise money for a BMT and received calls from 6 other families in their area that their children had AA. When they researched the area industries they found a chemical plant a couple miles from their property that was permitted to emit over 7 tons of benzene into the air and produced over 1/2 million gallons as a waste product. When I contacted the family their 9 year old daughter went to the doctor with bruising and petichae the same day as my son. The Oregon and Washington Department of Health conducted a study and finally published a report after three 9 year old girls from Longview, WA all the same soccer team and going to the same school came down with AA, AML, and ALL within a short period of each other. The report did not include the 3 girls or my son. The DOH concluded that even though statistically high for the number of cases over a 10 year period they felt the chemical plant could not have caused the illnesses because they had studied the wind patterns in the area. They never tested the air, soil, or water but that was their conclusion. My son is in college out of state now and all his blood counts are within the normal range except platelets which are 121k.
We are still pursuing what happened to cause our kids AA and hope someday someone will step forward and tell what occurred. The DOH as far as I am concerned was more interested in protecting industry then protecting the public.
I hope your child recovers but I believe that 80% of AA cases that are diagnosed as idiopathic may have been exposures to a toxin. The problem is benzene does it damage and excretes from the body within 48 hours. AA symptoms don't show up for weeks possibly and then how could you prove it.
I know this is a long reply but I wanted to reply with what happened to my son in hopes that it might create an awareness that people should not accept the doctors explanation once the diagnostic tests come back as negative that there might be an environmental problem in your area.
If you would like additional information or just like to talk you can call me at (360) 883-9197. I have information on a recent EPA air monitoring study that was conducted nationwide because of a USA Today investigation into pollution near schools.
John F. McCarthy