Comments on: Riverside Elementary = Cancer??

By: Ray

Ray — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 01:08:41 +0000

I have a daughter at Riverside and watched the global coverage. My first thought was why they would air this story, I just got off the phone with someone at global and asked her exactly that. My point to her was that putting out a story like that creates alot of fear and uncertainty, the story did not seem to be in the publics best interest and seemed to be weak in substance. My other concern was the timing of such a story and it’s source. I hope to hear back from someone on this and look forward to hearing about any real study of this situation as I am like everyone else, concerned for my child’s safety above all else.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 23:40:04 +0000

Yup, the last line should have included the tags

By: Cameron

Cameron — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 22:02:50 +0000

I assume that you mean that we SHOULDN'T be fear-mongering.. I agree.. There are a lot of unknowns. Please read the next post titled Riverside Elementary - Update!

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 21:39:52 +0000

Not to downplay ANY cancer deaths/diagnoses, but I’m sure that 2 students over the course of ten years is a VERY small percentage of the overall number of students that have passed through the doors of that school…if the number were 20 or 200, I’d be more inclined to say, “Aha! A pattern!”

The figure of 9 teachers is indeed a bit more alarming, but this too prompts several questions. For example, did any of the nine teachers have a family history of cancer? Did any of them partake in lifestyles associated with cancer? How old was each teacher? Did all 9 teachers die of brain cancer; what types of cancer were they? The list of questions goes on…

The answers to these questions may already be known, and merely not covered in your blog entry; they may in fact not be known, and obviously further investigation is necessary.

In the meantime, I’m sure the fear-mongering demonstrated by the other ballet parent is EXACTLY what we should do.