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As More Cases of Rare Cancer in Children From California Town Are Reported, Parents Say ‘This Is Not Random’
More cases of rare cancer have been reported in children from Ladera Ranch, a California town where one child has already died. “I think that people need to listen and wake up and realize something is happening to our children. This is not random,” Jessica Keetch told NBC LA on Wednesday, July 15.
Her daughter, Haven, had her right foot amputated after she was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma, a soft tissue cancer that impacts the muscles and ligaments, and is often found in the limbs, near joints, the National Cancer Institute says. The day her daughter was diagnosed, she told the outlet, is “the worst day for a parent that you could ever have.”
The outlet reports that there are 12 more cases now attributed to this cluster. Health concerns about Ladera Ranch first made headlines following the death of 17-year-old Brody Matteson, who was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma in August 2024. As a GoFundMe established to support the family explains, his treatment caused him to develop a secondary cancer, acute myeloid leukemia (AML). He died on March 22.
Help, My Sofa Is Killing Me! The Toxic Chemicals Hiding in Your Home — and How to Avoid Them
The problem: Whenever we burn anything inside our homes, we cause indoor air pollution, whether we’re cooking using gas, frying bacon, lighting a wood burner, an open fire, a cigarette or incense, or ruining the toast. “ We spend 80-90% of our time indoors,” says Prof Francis Pope, chair of atmospheric science at the University of Birmingham. “And there is potential to have quite high concentrations of pollution indoors.
This affects your respiratory and cardiovascular systems; certain components are carcinogenic, and there’s a growing body of evidence that air pollution affects cognition. In the long term, you get awful diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s. But relatively short exposures to air pollution are linked to things like educational outcome, workplace productivity and general mental wellbeing.”
Gas cooking is another significant source of pollution, says Prof Frank Kelly, Humphrey Battcock chair of community health and policy at Imperial College London. “It produces both nitrogen dioxide — which is a respiratory irritant and has long-term consequences like cardiovascular disease and dementia, causes problems in pregnancy and has even been linked to asthma development – and also tiny particles, known as PM2.5.” These measure less than 2.5 microns across, making them small enough to reach the brain.
‘Cancer Doesn’t Care What Party You Belong to’: Poisoned Water Is Turning This Rural State Bluer
Chris Jones, the 65-year-old Democratic nominee for Iowa secretary of agriculture, stands at the edge of a pond on a 72-acre farm in eastern Iowa. “What you see here is how fertile Iowa is,” he says, looking intently into the water. Massive bluegills dart about in the clear depths. “When we go up to a corn or soy field, we don’t see this anymore.”
Jones isn’t just talking about the fish. He means the water’s clarity. Iowa’s lakes and ponds are often murky and fetid from algae blooms fed by fertilizer runoff, a byproduct of the state’s vast agricultural industry’s reliance on farming chemicals. Jones spent about a decade as a research engineer, monitoring the state’s rivers and streams. What he learned in that role about Iowa’s water is what spurred his run for office.
Iowa has a long-simmering water problem that has finally begun to boil over — and it’s changing Iowa politics. People are angry and worried about the quality of the state’s water, the health risks it poses and its increasingly undeniable tie to the state’s signature industry: agriculture.
Data Centers Want to Build Their Own Gas Turbines. Would That Skirt State Renewable Energy Laws?
Virginia’s surging energy demands require more power generation infrastructure to be built, a slow process that’s delaying new data centers waiting to be connected to the grid. Dominion Energy, the state’s largest utility, has an estimated 70 gigawatts worth of projects in their queue that need more power sources online before they can link to the energy network.
The company is able to connect about 10 large-load customers a year.
Tech companies are responding by creating their own power to try to skip the line.
Dominion’s data center customers have an average wait of seven years to be connected to the grid.
Project proposals containing on-site power generation for data centers — including natural gas turbines — have increased. This has heightened community concerns about air pollution, and created a gap in the state’s clean energy goals. The build-your-own power approach is called “behind the meter.”
EPA Rollback Could Bring Dirtier Air to Black Communities
The research is conclusive: Black communities are disproportionately exposed to diesel exhaust and other traffic-related pollution. So when Biden-era crackdowns on diesel emissions were scheduled to take effect, Black neighborhoods near freeways or industrial corridors anticipated breathing easier.
But a new move by the Environmental Protection Agency could mean the air in those communities could get worse, and soon. The Trump administration has announced it is pushing back or adjusting diesel emission restrictions that had been tightened under President Joe Biden, calling the regulations “unnecessary and unworkable.”
Originally announced in 2023 and set to take effect this year, the regulations would have required trucks and other diesel engines to use more advanced, emissions-reducing technology.
In a statement earlier this month, the EPA said the change will save truckers some $12 billion, including up to $6,152 per diesel engine subject to the regulations. American consumers and households would reap the benefits, according to the statement.
