Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cancer Coast

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was

Cancer Coast
User:Wetman questioned the accuracy of this article on Talk:Cancer Coast back in Sept 2003, but no response has been given. A current Google search reveals 29 hits once an attempt is made to filter out noise, none of which on the first page look good. Seems unverifiable to me, so I recommend a delete. - RedWordSmith 04:19, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete unless verefied. Timbo 05:32, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC) Keep, merge. Timbo 22:24, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete: I don't doubt the veracity of it. I'm sure that the amazing area of heavy carcinogenic plants has cancer clusters.  However, it is of small regional interest.  There is a "heart attack band" in Savannah to Charleston.  There are lots of places like this.  I would recommend merge and redirect to the appropriate article, but I cannot figure out which it would be. Geogre 13:53, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * The proper redirect would be to cancer cluster but that article doesn't exist. Out of curiousity, I decided to see how much of the article I could verify, and I was able to positively verifiy the entire article except for the claim that the term "cancer coast" was coined by oncologists at the Texas Medical Center.  Curiouser and curiouser, I found this in the article on the AAAS website, ...the Texas Medical Center...has a conspicuous absence of environmental health initiatives on its research agenda. Some believe that this represents the institution's accommodation to sponsors in the petrochemical industry, which drives the institution's conscious complicity in ignoring the adverse public health effects of petrochemicals.  This claim is attributed to an an investigative reporter named [mailto:burtman@indyweek.com Bob Burtman], a former journalist for the  Houston Press. He published an informative article on this subject for the NRDC called, The Silent Treatment.  A similar article was published in the Sept-Oct, 2003 issue of Mother Jones.  Finally, the medical literature is full of citations.  I found numerous articles on pub med, such as: Int J Health Geogr. 2004 Feb 26;3(1):4., Tex Med. 2003 Aug;99(8):58-64., South Med J. 1998 Feb;91(2):173-81., and South Med J. 1997 Aug;90(8):801-5,   Also, I found this on the U of Texas at Austin library site: The United States Department of Health and Human Services, in its Atlas of U.S. Cancer Mortality, has noted that cancer death rates for white males along the Texas Gulf Coast are among the highest in the country. In addition, the death rates from cancer among whites are increasing faster in this area than in the rest of the United States. Studies at petrochemical facilities have indicated marked increases in cancers of the blood system, brain, prostate, and skin.  Citation can be found here. --Viriditas 12:54, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * So it looks like this is, indeed, a political move? Very odd.  This article is an attempt at making TMC look innocent?  Very much not a good thing.  I'm going to check the history on the article to see if perhaps that claim was added later.  Perhaps this material can be merged with Environmental Medicine or Epidemiology?  The facts are worth preservation.  There are too many sites around the nation that could be/should be mentioned. Geogre 13:16, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * So what is our general consensus? Is it that the phenomenom of high levels of cancer in the area is real but the term "Cancer Coast" to describe it is questionable or non-existant and that the actions of the TMC's oncologists are possibly misrepresented, and the contents should be moved elsewhere? I'm cool with that. - RedWordSmith 18:43, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Geogre is correct in his assertion that the term is regional. Also, I couldn't find any evidence that the oncologists at TMC coined the term.  If possible, I would like to add this information to the cancer cluster article. --Viriditas 00:45, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I'm changing my vote to keep, with the understanding that it will be made a merge or redirect. I think you've done a good job of verifying the information, so I guess "Tim's" conditional vote doesn't count unless it's reaffirmed, and Geogre has said he'd like to see the contents merged, so it appears we all agree. - RedWordSmith 22:11, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * I guess I should have waited before I created cancer cluster.   Should I redirect and add the info?  What do you think of another article linked to that page, something like List of cancer clusters.  I can see a number of ways of doing this.  --Viriditas 05:35, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - I've never heard of this term, and I lived there. -- Cyrius|&#9998; 18:54, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.