Department of Geography and GIS Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL.
Department of Sociology and Anthropology & Department of Geography and Environmental Development, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba, Israel.
Int J Cancer. 2019 Feb 1;144(3):470-475. doi: 10.1002/ijc.31902. Epub 2018 Oct 22.
A paper in the International Journal of Cancer analyzed Palestinian cancer registry data in the West Bank from 1998 to 2007, showing a cluster of elevated cancer incidence in rural villages in south-west Hebron, with a 4.10 risk ratio for childhood lymphoma (p = 0.0023). The paper called for investigation of the environmental or genetic etiologies of this cluster in an otherwise unremarkable rural area. Our research in these same villages shows them to be the center of an extensive informal electronic and electrical waste (e-waste) dismantling industry in Palestine, operating for almost two decades. This entails extensive open-burning of e-waste components to extract valuable metals or dispose of nonvaluable waste, releasing high concentrations of hazardous contaminants, which may be an important factor in the elevated cancer incidence. We offer a first step in assessing this link. We applied a novel multitemporal object-based method to map the prevalence and intensity of e-waste burn sites in the entire Hebron Governorate (1,060 km ) between 1999 and 2007. A weighted standard deviation ellipse of cumulative burn activity covers a smaller area (247 km ) very closely matching the childhood lymphoma cluster: it contains 85% of the core cluster area (RR of 4.1), and falls almost entirely (95%) within the broader area of elevated risk (RR of 2.8). Extensive international evidence linking informal e-waste processing to elevated cancer incidence and this strong spatial association of e-waste burning activity with a distinct unexplained cancer cluster in the Palestinian context signals the urgent need for investigation and intervention.
一篇发表在《国际癌症杂志》上的论文分析了 1998 年至 2007 年在西岸的巴勒斯坦癌症登记处的数据，显示在希伯伦西南部的农村村庄中存在一个儿童淋巴瘤发病率升高的集群，其风险比为 4.10（p = 0.0023）。该论文呼吁对这一集群在农村地区的环境或遗传病因进行调查。我们在这些相同的村庄进行的研究表明，这些村庄是巴勒斯坦一个广泛的非正式电子和电气废物（电子废物）拆解行业的中心，该行业已经运营了近二十年。这需要大量的露天焚烧电子废物组件来提取有价值的金属或处理无价值的废物，释放出高浓度的危险污染物，这可能是癌症发病率升高的一个重要因素。我们提供了评估这种联系的第一步。我们应用了一种新的多时相基于对象的方法来绘制 1999 年至 2007 年整个希布伦省（1060 平方公里）电子废物燃烧点的流行程度和强度。累积燃烧活动的加权标准偏差椭圆覆盖了一个较小的区域（247 平方公里），与儿童淋巴瘤集群非常吻合：它包含核心集群区域的 85%（RR 为 4.1），几乎完全（95%）落在风险升高的更广泛区域内（RR 为 2.8）。大量国际证据表明，非正式的电子废物处理与癌症发病率升高有关，而电子废物燃烧活动与巴勒斯坦背景下一个独特的、未解释的癌症集群之间存在强烈的空间关联，这表明迫切需要进行调查和干预。
