Cancer-Cluster Found at Buffalo-Cheektowaga Border

Due to a high incidence of cancer at the Cheektowaga-Buffalo border, Erie County is planning to launch a public awareness campaign.

Credit: WIVB

Erie County is launching a public awareness campaign with $250,000 to raise awareness about a high incidence of cancer at the Buffalo-Cheektowaga border. The area where the campaign will focus, will be around the Kensington Expressway, the 33 and Walden Ave. The reason for the high rate of cancer has yet to be found, according to WIVB. The State Health Department may release a report with an answer later this year.

"People shouldn't panic thinking that they've been exposed to bad environmental carcinogens. For example, the cancers that were identified; kidney, esophageal, lung and oral cancers. Those are all increased by smoking. So if more people live in that area are smokers, that could to some extent account for that. And prostate cancer, the highest rates of prostate cancer are in black men. So if that area as it does, includes more African Americans, that could also account in part, so all of these things will need to be looked at, and I don't think people should get freaked out that they're living on top of a landmine of contaminants." ~ said Dr. Christine Ambrosone, an epidemiologist with Roswell Park.