The city of Houston is underwriting "the first step" of a study toward determining whether cancer is linked to pollution from Texas petrochemical plants, health officials and a researcher said on Monday. The study, based on data already collected by Texas state agencies on cancer cases and pollution, cannot prove if the pollution caused the cancers. "This is really the first step," said Ann Coker, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston, who is doing the study. "We do not know if there is a relationship."

Coker said Houston cancer cases reported to the Texas Cancer Survey will be examined along with pollution data taken by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality looking at substances shown to cause cancer in workers. The study is scheduled to be completed this summer and will compare the Houston data with information from Dallas, which is of comparable size but has different industries. The city is also financing a similar study on asthma cases in Houston.

More extensive and detailed research would be required to prove a definitive link between the pollution and cancer, said Raouf Arafat, assistant director of the office of surveillance and public health preparedness in the Houston Department of Health and Human Services. "We are trying to see if we have to say, let s do some more research," Arafat said.

Few studies of the impact of petrochemical industry pollution and public health have been done in the United States. However, extensive research has been carried out on the effect of petrochemicals on industry workers.
(Planet Ark, 07/02/06)