Frederick’s Fluster Cluck

What’s the answer to the Cancer Cluster question?

By Sean Jester

Photos by Bill Millios

Jnnifer Peppe-Hahn noticed a crop-dusting plane flying above her while she was waiting for her school bus on Baughmans lane off route 40 in Frederick City. By the time the 11-year-old arrived at Waverley Elementary School that morning, her skin and clothes were sticky; she’d been covered with the spray from the crop-dusting plane.

Within two years, Peppe-Hahn was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Now an adult, she never imagined she’d be in the middle of the suspected cancer cluster surrounding Fort Detrick, the local army base where biological warfare work has been conducted and where work-related toxins have been buried—but here she is. Thinking back, she can’t help but wonder if the crop-dusting plane—or other environ- mental factors in Frederick—played a part in causing the lymphoma. 

“Growing up, I often wondered how much the environment contributed to my illness,” says Peppe-Hahn. “And I knew at 13 that most girls didn’t have cancer and that lymphoma did not run in my family.”

It’s that nagging uncertainty that fuels the activist’s crusade to find answers today.

In 2010, when she was 38 years old and receiving treatment for breast cancer—a byproduct of the radiation treatment she received as a child for lymphoma—a friend emailed her about the alleged Fort Detrick cancer cluster that was starting to grab headlines.

“At first I didn’t have time to research it be- cause I was busy dealing with [breast cancer] treatment,” she says. “But when I first saw the news reports about the cancer cluster, it was just a circus. When the people from Fort Detrick kept saying, ‘get those cameras out of my face,’ it felt as if all the people involved with this issue needed a referee.”

Being a lifelong Frederick County resident, Peppe-Hahn is no stranger to Fort Detrick’s history with hazardous materials. “We all heard the rumors,” Peppe-Hahn says. “And we all knew for a fact [Fort Detrick] did experiments with chemicals and diseases. We also took for granted that the scientists’ policies regarding safety for developing, testing, and disposal, were not only laid out and adhered to, but safe.” 

Peppe-Hahn is referring to Fort Detrick’s extensive past involving bio- logical weapons testing and related medical research. 

From World War II until 1969, Fort Detrick was home to the U.S. bio- logical weapons program. It was a program that included the testing of Agent Orange—a chemical defoliant used in the Vietnam War—on the installation’s grounds and reported on in a February 23, 2011 article by Megan Eckstein in The Frederick News-Post. In a July 2011 status report, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stated that the waste from Fort Detrick’s biological weapons testing, including Anthrax, was buried in barrels at “Area B”—a 399-acre plot of land used by the fort as a landfill just northeast of Frederick’s Shookstown Road and Kemp Lane. Area B is routinely cited as the bull’s eye of the alleged cancer cluster.

The EPA report goes onto mention that cancer-causing solvents such as Trichloroethylene (TCE) and Tetrachloroethylene (PCE) were discovered in some Frederick drinking wells in 1992.

Furthermore, in April 2009, the EPA named Area B a “Superfund” site, the agency’s designation of an area that has been so contaminated by hazardous materials that it requires clean-up by federal authorities. The same EPA report states that the government has spent at least $44 mil- lion to address Area B contamination.

It’s this history with hazardous materials that has placed a spotlight on Fort Detrick and given accusers ample material to support theories that the fort is responsible for the suspected cancer cluster.

“Typically we look at lifestyles, environment, and genetics to understand pathways to cancer,” explains Peppe-Hahn when talking about what makes Frederick different from other areas being investigated for cancer clusters.

“What makes Frederick different from other farm communities being investigated is that we are living above a karst geological system,” she explains. Karst systems are cavernous, and therefore have high rates of permeability, resulting in a reduced opportunity for contaminants to be filtered out. Fort Detrick has made Frederick digest biowarfare for over 50 years. Fort Detrick is the elephant in the room.”

Peppe-Hahn has also come up with an interesting way to study the cancer cluster possibilities around Fort Detrick. Having educated herself in the matter, she decided to send a Facebook message to her classmates at Waverley Elementary School—located directly across the street from Fort Detrick’s Area B—asking if any of them have been diagnosed with cancer.

“Within two days, 23 people responded ‘yes’,” she says. “I thought, alright, I’m onto something here.”

Since then, Peppe-Hahn has thrust herself into the Fort Detrick cancer cluster debate, sit- ting in on meetings of the Frederick County Health Department’s Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), which has allowed her to facilitate a study on cancer rates at Waverley and Yellow Springs Elementary Schools.

Both schools are located near Fort Detrick’s Area B, and the study will compare the cancer rates of those schools with those at Walkersville and Middletown Elementary Schools.

Peppe-Hahn is also on Fort Detrick’s Restoration Advisory Board (RAB), which she says, “encourages community members to sit at the table and get involved. They’re creating an open dialogue between them and us—their neighbors.”

And Peppe-Hahn does all this—becoming a voice of the public in interviews with the News- Post, The Baltimore Sun and WUSA television—while being a mother and running her own business.

Randy White’s Crusade

For Randy White, the founder of the Kristen Renee Foundation (KRF), the cancer cluster issue isn’t at all complicated. It’s painfully real. 

White’s daughter, Kristen, for whom the foundation is named, died of a brain tumor in 2008 at the age of 30.Two months after Kris- ten’s death, White’s other daughter, Angie, was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and has under- gone several successful surgeries.

However, shortly after Angie’s surgery, White’s ex-wife, Debra Cross, was diagnosed with renal cell cancer and died in January 2011.

The three women, who eventually moved to Tampa, Florida, lived on Lake Coventry Drive from 1995 to 2005, which is located directly across from Area B.

In addition to his daughters and ex-wife, White recalls others in contact with the Lake Coventry Drive house who later became cancer victims. 

“There was Debbie’s father-in-law,” he says. “He had kidney cancer. Kristen’s boyfriend at the time got non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma—and his mother got lymphoma. And they were all a part of that household.”

In Tampa, Florida, at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, doctors told White the cancer plaguing his family wasn’t genetic, but caused by environmental factors. That led White back to Frederick, where White hired John Bee, an environmental investigator, to look into the Fort Detrick issue. “What alarmed me, when I first came here, was that when you study a groundwater problem, you don’t expect all these cancers,” Bee says. “And some of them are fairly exotic cancers. So I knew something else was going on.” White has spent more than $250,000 of his own money leading the charge against Fort Detrick and in creating the “Fighting For Frederick” campaign, which according to its web- site, aims to “ensure our water is pure, our air is clean, and our community is safe.” 

Bee says White has gotten the answer as to why Kristen died.

“I told Randy a year ago that he actually found the answer he was looking for,” Bee says. “Kristen lived close to a hazardous waste dump. That was the link.”

The Health Department Weighs In

In October 2011, a report published by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (in collaboration with the Frederick County Health Department) found no major evidence that Fort Detrick was responsible for an alleged cancer cluster.

Two findings in the report, however, raised some eyebrows—a slight bump in lymphoma cases from 1992 to 2008 (102 cases found when 82 were expected, a 20 percent difference when compared to the rest of Maryland) and a noticeable increase in all cancer types from 2001 to 2006. But those two findings were drops in the

proverbial bucket of decades of personal experience and eyewitness accounts of suspicious activity at Fort Detrick from many long-term neighbors of the base. For many people, like Peppe-Hahn and White, who have been diagnosed—or know someone diagnosed—with cancer, these experiences and eyewitness ac- counts are the only proof they need to believe that the cancer cluster around Fort Detrick is real.

Accordingly, what many suggest is the health department report’s biggest flaw is that it didn’t gather any data before 1992—the year the Maryland Cancer Registry started keeping case files.

“The data is flawed,” says White. “For in- stance, Kristen and Debbie were not included in the cancer registry because the report only goes back so far. When the health department looks at the numbers, they’re only looking at a small window of information. There are a lot of people who’ve moved out of the area and aren’t included. So I think that even the people who conducted the report would say that they have an archaic system, which is the best they can do with the finances they have right now.”

John Bee believes that most exposures took place in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

“A lot of the people who died of cancer weren’t on the cancer registry,” says Bee, who like Peppe-Hahn, is making the monthly meetings of the TAC. “I believe in the work that the Maryland Cancer Registry is doing, but the data that was used for the report was limited.”

Bee says that White’s KRF has a database of more than 1,000 Frederick citizens that were diagnosed with cancer and can be directly tied to Fort Detrick. “Someone living in every house along Shookstown Road and Kemp Avenue has had cancer,” Bee says. “For years there were multiple exposures from aerial spray, Agent Orange, burning pits, groundwater contamination and medical experimentation. The past history of Fort Detrick is abominable.” 

But Frederick County Health Officer Dr. Barbara Brookmyer, who was involved in the October 2011 health department report, says it’s not that simple. “Is there an increased rate of some kind of cancer, in some time period, in some geographic distance from Fort Detrick? Every way that someone could answer that question would have significant methodological flaws,” she says. Brookmyer and her department remain neutral in the debate, but she admits that Fort Detrick came up short in providing answers to the public.

When she compiled a list of frequently asked questions, Brookmyer says she received specific answers from every governmental organization involved—except for Fort Detrick, which directed readers to generic fact sheets posted on it’s website.

“Here at the health department, we just have a different way of approaching things,” Brookmyer says. “We just have a different orientation. Ours isn’t homeland security, or whatever.” 

Fort Detrick Speaks

Despite the claim that no definitive answer will ever be found to a possible Fort Detrick- caused cancer cluster, many people involved— including Peppe-Hahn and KRF—are continuing their research.

For others, however, the health department’s October report closes the book on the issue.

Rob Sperling, chief public affairs officer for Fort Detrick, believes the report was definitive in its findings, despite its purported limited data.

“A lot of the criticism expressed was that [the report] only used the Maryland Cancer Registry data,” Sperling says.

“Well that’s the only repository they had. Everything else is circumstantial. I think they did the best with what they have. People need to know there are carcinogens everywhere that can cause cancer—not just at Fort Detrick.” 

As for the 20 percent increase in lymphoma around the fort, Sperling adds, “We’re going to support the public health officials as much as possible as they delve into the data.”

Sperling, who has been at Fort Detrick for approximately a year and a half, is also aware of the mounting anti-Fort Detrick backlash that exists here, and says he understands the public’s suspicion and frustration.

“Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion,” he says. “Did things go on in the past—waste practices, disposal methods—that we know now to be bad? Yeah.”

And despite sympathizing with White’s plight—once saying, “It’s horrible that Mr. White lost several family members to cancer; I can’t imagine losing my daughter”—Sperling nevertheless holds that White’s suspicion of Fort Detrick’s activities is based on fear, not fact.

“I know there’s a lot of fear—and rightly so—because for so long [Fort Detrick] did operate in a lot of secrecy,” he says. 

However, it may be telling that Sperling, while conceding that the base’s past “waste practices” and “disposal methods” may have been “bad,” never supplied specific instances of such events. 

There are, however, many to choose from.

A Checkered Record?

In 1953, a Fort Detrick microbiologist named Frank Olson suspiciously committed suicide after he supposedly volunteered for a CIA program to test the effects of the psychedelic drug LSD on humans. The event is chronicled in the book A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments by H.P. Albarelli, Jr.

Fort Detrick’s biological weapons testing program was also the source of many a rumor and conspiracy theory. In the book, Cutting Edge: A History of Fort Detrick, Maryland, by Norman Covert, the author writes, “Distrust of the Fort Detrick program and questions on the morality of [biological weapons testing] prompted a wholesale review and eventual ma- jor revision of Fort Detrick’s mission.”

Finally, The Gorilla published “Broken Justice,” an article by Stephanie Yamkovenko in it’s December-January 2012 issue, about the questionable outcome of the FBI’s “AMER- ITHRAX” case, which sited Fort Detrick’s Dr. Bruce Ivins as the anthrax letter-killer, despite his suicide before going to trial. But Sperling insists that times have changed at the base.

“There’s a huge misunderstanding about what the fort does, and I think that’s at the front of the issue. For so long it did operate in a lot of secrecy. There’s a misconception that we’re still doing weapons. But we haven’t done weapons since the 1960’s.”

Sperling, who lives in Virginia, also points out that 85 percent of Fort Detrick’s 12,000 workers live in Frederick County—and 1,500 permanently live on post. 

“The people who live here have laid their roots down here. Frederick is their home, not just for now, but permanently. And we don’t want to make ourselves, or our families, sick.” 

John Bee, however, sees it differently. He claims to have spoken with a former Fort De- trick worker who is riddled with cancer. (Bee prefers not to disclose her name)

“She lived close to the fort and worked there,” he explains. “They sprayed Agent Or- ange over her house and the smoke from the burning pits wafted over her neighborhood at night. She thought they were protecting her, when they were actually using her for human testing of different viruses, and now she has multiple cancers.”

Bee is also critical of the fort’s security, say- ing it’s easy for someone to sneak on post and come into close proximity with deadly viruses. “No one will bother you as long as you wear a hard hat,” he says.

Bee also noticed something that startled him at the fort’s entrances.

“They’re checking the cars that go into the fort, but not the ones coming out,” he notes, re- ferring to the possibility that deadly materials can be taken out of the fort with ease.

When his observation is brought to the attention of a guard working the gate, Bee says the guard agreed that it was something to look into. 

“That’s absurd,” Sperling replies regarding Bee’s observation . “There are so many controls in place….There are so many checks and bal- ances. That all goes back to misunderstanding what the fort does.”

To back up his claims, Sperling invited The Gorilla on post for a personal tour of Fort Detrick.

“So, this is the infamous Area B,” Sperling says as he pulls his car up to it.

Today, Area B is still home to the fort’s landfill, and Sperling is sure to mention that it meets all Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) and EPA standards. 

Finally, Sperling points out testing wells that measure the level of contamination in the groundwater plume beneath the soil, as well as a paintball course— located directly on Area B land— open to military and civilian personnel who work at the fort.

What’s That Smell?

In November, in response to an odor detected during the drilling of a test well in Fort Detrick’s Area B—and reported in the November 20, 2011 Frederick News-Post—KRF held a press conference in Washington, D.C.. At the press conference, White raised pointed questions about the odor and what was being done to ensure related public safety.

Sperling’s answer is that KRF’s response was an overreaction.

“The odor was a non-event,” he says. “All the workers are safe; they followed all the stan- dards set forth by OSHA. We wanted to get the information out there and I’m glad we got the coverage we got because we’re doing testing and we’re trying to learn as much as we can about it.” 

Sperling’s answer is one that Peppe-Hahn and White would welcome—if only they believed it was accurate and complete. Both want what they call “full disclosure” from the base. 

“We want to know about the Agent Orange—what was buried and whatever documents we can get our hands on,” White says. “I think that would be critical. 

“I hear more and more Frederick citizens saying that they want disclosure—more so than they want to be compensated. They want knowledge and closure of what’s happened—of ‘why did 17 people in my family die?’ But I do believe there should be some kind of compensation for people who’ve lost their livelihood and family members.” 

Bee adds, “I came up here to study the past practices. And you’d hope that, based on what they now know, they’d apply it to future decisions. Basically if we give Fort Detrick a bloody nose on this Agent Orange [issue] and its dumping, they’ll think twice about doing any- thing so stupid.”

But for Sperling there’s a past and a pres- ent, and a big difference between the two. “We [the people who work at Fort Detrick today] aren’t the ones who contaminated the soil. That happened in the past, when there weren’t any waste disposal regulations. I wish people could understand that. We didn’t do that. We’re trying to make it better.” 

So, What’s Next?

KRF is planning to file a class action lawsuit against Fort Detrick, hoping that the discovery process will shed light on information previously kept in the dark. 

“It’ll take a Senate inquiry to really get to the bottom of this,” says Bee. “We’re not get- ting all the information. You file a freedom of information act request and the paperwork you get back is 90 percent redacted.”

In addition to the lawsuit, White says more than 200 people have filed individual legal actions against Fort Detrick.

But Brookmyer agrees with Sperling that things are improving, especially as Fort Detrick’s Restoration Advisory Board (RAB)—created to promote public awareness when the superfund site was designated—works to address the public’s questions and concerns.

Peppe-Hahn, too, believes that things are improving at Fort Detrick—albeit slowly.

“I think Fort Detrick has good intentions in saying, ‘What can we do from here on out?’” she says. “They’re also starting a groundwater study to assess the flow of water under our feet.” 

But she’s not content with a wait-and-see approach, and is continuing her elementary school study, which, she hopes, will paint a clearer picture of the cancer cluster issue.

“We’re not bound by red tape or the government process,” she says, “and we can say with simple truth, ‘I went to this elementary school and this many people were sick.’ We’re not going to make this complicated at all.” 

In addition to Peppe-Hahn’s study, Ed Kruse, a University of Maryland graduate stu- dent, is conducting a cancer cluster survey that will randomly select people who live within a two-mile zone around Area B and compare them to Middletown and Walkersville residents.

“I’ve always been interested in health issues associated with water quality,” Kruse says in an email. “And I wanted my research to focus on a real issue and not an abstract scientific concept.

“After almost a year of monthly meetings with the Technical Advisory Board, I have a great understanding for the concerns of the community, and hopefully my study can con- tribute to that understanding.”

Summing things up, Peppe-Hahn says, “It’s counterintuitive to think you can bury chemicals in a small town’s ground and not see the health of the community suffer. I’m not looking to incriminate anyone; just trying find out what was tested and buried, and make certain that it’s not still leeching out of rusted drums and bio- degrading into our water and air.

“I can’t imagine losing someone to cancer. Randy White lost his daughter and ex-wife. But I spent a year of my life going in and out of a cancer ward.”

The activist pauses, choking up. “Sorry,” she says, composing herself. “I spent a year watching kids get hooked up to IV’s and being sick. And if this is why, it needs to stop.”