HUNTERSVILLE – Summer Heath, just one of several other girls in the Huntersville area who has struggled with ocular melanoma, still searches for answers regarding the eye cancer cluster in town.
Heath, who grew up in Lake Norman and attended Hopewell High School, was diagnosed July 1, 2013. She hopes to come across potential causes of the OM trend facing young girls in the Huntersville area.
Read her story here —> “Hopewell grad continues despite rare eye cancer”.
But the journey hasn’t been easy. Last summer, Heath and other young females who face OM, spoke to WSOC Channel 9 to discuss their battle with the rare disease, in addition to their disappointment with responses and progress from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.
The girls are curious as to whether environmental factors have caused the eye cancer cluster. Fortunately, Stewart Simonson, a chemical engineer from Atlanta who works for AMEC, an engineering firm, has conducted research for a couple years investigating whether ocular melanoma is linked with microwave radiation.
Simonson said a microwave radar station, or terminal weather Doppler radar, is situated three miles south of Hopewell High School that seems to be blocked by something in the area of the high school. He said the radar reaches 50 miles out, comes around five times a minute and appears to be bouncing off something in direct line with the high school.
“The radar is hitting something in that area. It’s purely an observation,” Simonson said. “I don’t want to mislead anybody.”
Simonson believes the radiation could be striking a hill, building or football bleachers in the area of the school, locations where students socialize and spend a lot of time. Simonson said those areas could consist of higher levels of radiation, which overtime could lead to damaging and even fatal effects, in this case, OM.
The engineer also claims Huntersville is in the flight path of the Charlotte-Douglas International airport with the radar sitting right near the I-485 loop. High-powered radar systems that control air traffic were implemented at the airport after it experienced several plane crashes during the mid-‘90s, according to Simonson.
Alongside his airport studies, about a year ago, Simonson tracked and mapped diseased fish and wildlife. He witnessed a strong correlation between the locations of these radar stations and dying fish.
Although Simonson has gathered radiation data using graphs, stats and Google Earth models, he said the correlation between microwave radiation and OM does not mean the radar station is causing the eye cancer cluster. As of right now, he is communicating with a head eye doctor in Philadelphia and collaborating with senior researchers.
Heath has given a look to Simonson’s observations, but feels they will need to be further investigated.
“I just looked over the emails and have forward(ed) them to the researchers to see if they may think he is on the right track,” Heath said. “It definitely seemed interesting.”
Jennifer Glicoes, a Health Communications representative for the Melanoma Research Foundation, said the MRF can only consider findings and speculations that have been peer-reviewed- something Simonson is the process of completing.
He is one of four authors on a peer-reviewed paper to be issued sometime this year discussing correlations with the cancer and microwave radar tower locations.
“The MRF prides itself on providing sound, credible, scientific information to consumers to help them reduce their risk of melanoma,” Glicoes said. “Tim (Turnham, executive director) is not aware of any peer-reviewed data that links radiation and exposure and ocular melanoma. At this time, the MRF will only comment on peer-reviewed research.”
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