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Texas air base disease rates not elevated

SAN ANTONIO, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- A four-year study released Wednesday shows workers at the former Kelly Air Force Base in Texas did not suffer a greater incidence of liver cancer, emphysema, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, as had long been claimed.

Researchers writing in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine said that 32,000 people who worked at Kelly from 1981 through 2000 were actually healthier than the general population.

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"Overall, the study shows that that Kelly Air Force Base workforce is generally healthy," said Lt. Col. Kenneth Cox, chief of the Air Force Institute for Environment, Safety, and Occupational Health Risk Analysis, who headed the study.

Activist groups and many doctors have long charged that a "lethal cocktail" of cancer-causing chemicals including benzene and jet fuel, which were stored in the base and leaked into the ground water, were responsible for a spike in serious diseases among civilian employees and residents around the former base.

While the report was being delivered at the Metro Health District's Environmental Health Center on the southwest side, a group of protesters stood outside chanting "Kelly causes disease!" and calling the report an example of "environmental racism."

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Scientists said they specifically studied rates of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, in the Kelly work force, and found the incidence to be consistent with the rest of the population.

The number of deaths from ALS found in the study, Cox said, at 13, is consistent with the number that would be expected from any similarly sized group in Texas or elsewhere in the United States.

"The total number of deaths from all causes was less than would be expected using either Texas or U.S. comparison rates," he said.

Bexar County Metro Health Director Dr. Fernando Guerra said the report indicates that high incidences of diabetes, heart disease, and liver cancer are alarmingly high among Hispanics in south Texas generally -- not just among workers at Kelly and residents of surrounding areas, who are largely Mexican-American.

He said "known risk factors," and not contaminants present at Kelly, are responsible for the spike.

"This shows that these conditions are, unfortunately, more common in Texas than in other parts of the country, but are not unique to former workers at Kelly," Guerra said. "This might be due to regional differences in known risk factors such as obesity, smoking, genetic makeup and sedentary lifestyle."

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Cox suggested that the study shouldn't be closed permanently but re-opened in five years, so the sample can be followed as they grow older to see whether higher mortality rates develop.

Kelly Air Force Base operated in southwest San Antonio for more than 80 years. It was ordered closed by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission in 1995 and decommissioned in 2001.

It is now Kelly USA, a business park.

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