Three families face leukemia:
Part I
It happened overnight

(This was a series of stories I did not write until I had confirmation that there was indeed a very real cluster of childhood leukemia in Woburn. Other newspapers and TV stations had written anecdotal stories about the leukemia. But, even though I had broken a story in December 1979 which indicated there was an elevated level of leukemia in the city, that story was not confirmed until the following spring when the state's Department of Public Health officially cited the same statistics I had cited the previous year. The health problems in Woburn were being taken very seriously by the spring of 1980. There was another reason I had put off doing the story. It was a very difficult story to do and still respect the privacy and human dignity of the families involved. I had two children at this point. I lived in East Woburn, the area affected by the bad water, and I was worried that my own children might face the same future faced by Jimmy Anderson and Robbie Robbins.)

By CHARLES C. RYAN

(The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has said that no definite link between high rates of leukemia and cancer in Woburn and the toxic wastes in the city has been proven. While that may be the case, the incidences of these diseases take a human toll that cannot be conveyed by statistics. To tell the human side of the story, The Daily Times has interviewed three of the families affected by leukemia. In the following story, a parent describes in her own words how she has dealt with that problem, and how she feels about it.)

WOBURN - "Overnight, he lost his ability to walk, he was in so much pain. They took a blood sample from his hip, but the blood tests didn't find anything. He couldn't even roll over in bed, he was that sick from pain. It took three months before they diagnosed it as leukemia."

Dianna is 30 years old. She speaks slowly, carefully, keeping her emotions in check but not totally hidden as she relates how her seven-year-old boy became ill.

Dianna is not her real name. "I grew up in North Woburn near the chemical companies. I come from an old Woburn family. I've lived here all my life. Please don't use my name."

"It was only a five-minute walk and you could see the open pits filled with chemicals. We used to go blueberry picking where they found the arsenic. Truckloads of animal hides used to go by the house and pieces would drop off and we used to pick them up.

"Ronnie was born there. That's where he spent his first two years," she recalls. His five-year-old brother, born elsewhere, does not have leukemia.

"He got a lot of ear infections. Then he had a rash for two months. The doctors didn't know what was causing it. They were digging up Hall's Farm at the time. There was a lot of dust in the air.

"I wonder," she says, sitting quietly on her living room couch, "if it didn't get into his system and spark it off. We had some of the bad water up there. There were times when you couldn't drink it or smell it."

Around the same time Ronnie was diagnosed with leukemia, Dianna and her husband separated. They are now divorced and she is going it alone with her two boys living in a small apartment in Woburn.

For a while, around the time Ronnie was diagnosed, both he and Dianna were visiting a psychiatrist who was trying to help them deal with the trauma. "I go in more than he does," she admits.

"Every 12 weeks Ronnie loses his hair after the shots. He complains about stomach aches a lot. The kids in school tease him about his hair. He has to take pills each day. Sometimes his body tingles after taking the medication," she explains.

Ronnie is slim for a seven-year-old. The thin wisps of reddish-blonde hair on his head makes him look older than he really is. His skin is pale. The effects of the leukemia and drugs combined give him a look similar to that of children in India who suffer from malnutrition and vitamin deficiency, but Ronnie is well fed.

"I tend to go a lot more with natural foods now since Ronnie was diagnosed," Dianna says.

One evening last fall, Ronnie was watching "Little House on the Prairie" and it was about a little boy who had leukemia. The boy died.

"He just sat there very quiet. I couldn't say anything without becoming emotional," Dianna remembers painfully.

"He keeps a lot to himself. When I did talk to him he did say he thinks he is going to die."

"I just don't know what to say when he says that, except that we are all going to die."

Ronnie is better now. Dianna feels that the chemotherapy is working and has hopes in another year he will be able to come off of the chemicals he has to take each day. "He's doing really good now," she says, hoping.

Talking about the chemicals found in North Woburn, Dianna says, "I'm glad it's out in the open. I'm glad they're doing something about it."

"I think it should be taken care of. I'd like to see it all taken out of there. That's my feeling."

(Editor's Note: In the time since the above interview was conducted, Ronnie has suffered a relapse and is scheduled for bone marrow tests at the end of the month.)

(Editor's note 1999: Some time after the above interview, the mother, Donna Robbins, became involved along with Anne Anderson in the search for answers which made her story public and eventually led to the trial in federal court. Her son, Robbie, died from his illness before the trial began.)