The Acreage Cancer Study

Acreage residents: Registry failed to red-flag cancer spike

By JOHN LANTIGUA

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Friday, August 14, 2009

THE ACREAGE — In 2003 Diane Klopfenstein's daughter, Jennifer, was diagnosed with a tumor on her pituitary gland. She was 20.

Klopfenstein says the next year, a member of her church and fellow Acreage resident, Robert Haine, died of a brain tumor. He was 29.

And by last year, Klopfenstein, an occupational therapist for the Palm Beach County School District, had heard of two Acreage children with brain tumors.

"I knew all those things," says Klopfenstein. "but I didn't put them together. Later I felt stupid."

In her defense, the other families hadn't made many connections either. They were all busy caring for their afflicted loved ones.

What Klopfenstein and other affected residents don't understand is why the state of Florida, which keeps a "tumor registry" of all new cancers reported, did not identify what the residents suspect may be an unusually high incidence of brain cancers in their area.

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