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Donna,
I don't think there is a central repository of MDS information related to finding causes. Individual institutions may have made some efforts to analyze case data, but there's a fundamental problem blocking such research: controlled experiments can't be performed. Consider what happens if a researcher finds that diagnoses of MDS statistically correlate with exposure to Agent Orange, or with employment at oil refineries. They might sound an alarm about chemical exposures but they couldn't do the usual type of controlled study to prove that Agent Orange causes MDS. It wouldn't be ethical to expose 50 patients to Agent Orange and 50 patients to a placebo to see if patients in the first group get MDS more often. So suspected causal agents can be identified much more easily than the connections can be proven.
Still, when suspected causes like benzene exposure are identified, very strong statistically evidence leads to common sense measures to avoid such exposures in the future. It's too bad that one known cause -- radiation and chemotherapy for prior cancer -- often can't be avoided.
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