Department of Health report finds no evidence of cancer cluster

ANOTHER government report has found no definitive evidence to explain a cluster of cancer cases in the Barwon Heads area.

The conclusion is part of the Victoria’s Department of Health’s recent “Community report on the investigation in Barwon Heads for cancer and autoimmune disease 2019–2021”.

The issue dates to December 2018, when some people first in Drysdale and then in Barwon Heads feared a cluster of cancer cases in their towns were specifically linked with chemicals in the City of Greater Geelong’s mosquito spraying program from the early 1980s onwards.

This eventually led to an inquiry in october 2019 from the Senate’s Community Affairs References Committee, which held two public hearings, widened its investigation to include cases up to 2001, and and extended its reporting date.

The final report from the committee stated “the hypothesis of aggregate exposures causing disease is not supported by the expert scientific evidence presented to the committee” and that “very low levels did not constitute a cancer risk”.

The Department of Health report comes to the same conclusion, stating three studies undertaken between 2019 and 2021, all reviewed by an independent body of experts and assessed by the Senate inquiry, “found no elevated risk of cancer in Barwon Heads”.

“In addition, enquiries made at local hospitals in 2019 to specialist clinicians whose practices cover the peninsula found that none of them had detected an increase in the incidence of any autoimmune disease.

“The department commissioned two further studies from Cancer Council Victoria. The investigation reached the conclusion that there was no substantive evidence of increased incidence of cancer (other than breast cancer)… or for autoimmune disease for people living in the Barwon Heads area compared with all Victorians.”

The report noted a slightly elevated incidence of breast cancer was found in Cancer Council Victoria’s 2021 study, but none of the chemicals used are known to cause breast cancer, and the incidence was linked to the area’s high socioeconomic status, which is considered to be a known risk factor.

In the report’s conclusion, Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton stated “there is no substantive evidence of an increased risk of cancer (other than breast cancer, with known explanation), or for autoimmune disease, for residents of Barwon Heads”.

The conclusion also notes the Senate committee’s finding that “any further epidemiological or chemical exposure studies would be of little value to the community”.