As this week's series of articles in The Times by staff writer Lauri Harvey shows, there is a sickness in Hammond, a pain in need of healing. More than 150 former and current residents of the North Hammond and Robertsdale neighborhoods have been diagnosed with or lost battles to cancer. In a 31-mile radius, there are many such other cases in the south suburbs and other parts of Northwest Indiana as well. No community is immune.
Some cases are common, and some are considered by oncologists to be rare forms of the disease.
It has affected all age groups from children to the elderly. While Lake County's annual rate of newly diagnosed cancer cases is higher than the Indiana average, state health officials do not consider the rate itself statistically significant. And nobody has ever made an official determination that there is a significant problem with cancer in the area in question. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is studying emissions from Keil Chemical to see if they pose a potential health risk. The residents of North Hammond and Robertsdale whose lives have been changed by cancer want to know who or what is responsible.