🔗 Share this article

A concerned parent and Fraser's father received heartbreaking news in 2018 when their toddler Fraser was confirmed to have a unusual variant of childhood cancer.

An extended period of demanding therapies came next, including drug treatments, targeted radiation, and biological therapies before a cellular therapy. Their son, then aged three, made a extraordinary turnaround from the surgery, with doctors announcing the cancer in remission.

During this period that Gaffney, aged thirty-six, began investigating causes. She could not stop thinking about remarks made by medical professionals at the time of her Fraser's condition. “We lose sleep wondering how he got his illness,” a consultant had shared with her.

“We can't sleep wondering how Fraser got his illness,” a consultant had informed her.

Past Events

The improper handling of vast quantities of contaminated waste after the closure of the town's primary employer in Corby in 1979 had “always been a known thing,” said the mother. A court ruling associated the local authority's mismanagement of the site to a series of developmental issues in local children during the 1980s and 1990s.

Over time, Alison started to connect the case to her own. “[His illness] is not hereditary,” she explained. “So what are the reasons? … It has to be down to the town. So many children [with] cancer.

“Each person here knows somebody who’s got a minor [with] the disease. That's unusual.”

Collective Efforts

Gaffney and Hinde started to reach out to additional households in their community with similar stories – among them some of Gaffney’s past schoolmates at their former educational institution – and the collective began gathering thorough information on those impacted. They now lead a initiative supporting about 130 families with cases of youth disease dating back to 1988.

The group has been pressuring the municipal government to research any relationships between occurrences of youth disease in the town and the shutdown of the facility. At the end of this month, health authorities are set to publish their study of whether the area has had a elevated incidence of cases of childhood cancer for its population of 70,000.

“What we seek is to try and protect future people so they can avoid the pain that we've endured,” said Alison.

Historical Context

The decision in the legal case acknowledged that, between a fourteen-year period, enormous amounts of contaminated materials from the industrial facility were moved “typically” from the south of Corby to Deene Quarry in the opposite end – with “significant amounts” of hazardous materials moved and deposited on public roads and “substantial quantities” of particulate matter produced by the reclamation.

However, it also cited documents from the environmental authorities in 1997 that discovered collections of contaminated material that had been abandoned at this location were later extracted in “large quantities”.

Growing Suspicions

Gaffney suspects contaminated materials was not only dumped at the Deene Quarry site but in other parts of the municipality. Lately, she approved a “important advancement” after local authorities said it would test land that could be polluted and investigate where contaminated substances was deposited.

The mother said local officials confirmed in the discussion that they did not know where the locations of toxic materials could be. “They stated: ‘We lack information where these sites are. We have no documentation, we possess no information.’”

Public Endorsement

The official statement was also supported by another parent, a educational worker at a primary school, whose young child, Bella, was confirmed to have leukaemia in the summer.

“I needed to cut my little girl's hair because her hair was coming out from the medications she had to administer to eliminate her illness. Therefore it’s in everyone's benefit, it’s in her daughter's welfare [for the council] to disclose that data,” she explained.

“Numerous people in the area that have been confirmed to have childhood cancer and I believe it’s too much to ignore – it demands examination. This isn't typical.”

Individual Accounts

A community member, in her early thirties, who has a professional career and now resides elsewhere, said households earned “absolute honesty and openness” from the government.

Lyons’s young sibling, her sister, passed away on in recent years after being diagnosed with a uncommon malignancy at the childhood. The girl, who raised awareness for medical research, was “among the charming, entertaining and caring” persons, the sister said.

Her parent recollects the effect of the shutdown of the manufacturing site on the town, she stated. “She said you could not position your palm in ahead of you because [of] the particulate matter.”

“This has been going on since I was approximately about early childhood. It’s an excessive amount of time and it is negligence toward the local residents.”

Past Associations

Lyons’s cousin, Maggie Mahon, was part of multiple families involved in the 2009 claim against the former government after her infant was diagnosed with a foot condition. Her spouse, her partner, was a member of the truck operators responsible for transporting materials from the manufacturing facility. Their story was depicted in a media production, and demonstrated the mother beating the dust from her husband’s jeans.

The campaign leader said the collective has been contacted by informants who were involved in the placement of substances in the area.