A Boston area hospital is investigating after five nurses who have worked on the same floor have developed brain tumors.
Mass Brigham Newton-Wellesley said that in total, 11 employees of the fifth-floor maternity unit identified health problems. Five had brain tumors, all of which are benign. Two of them have the most common benign type: Meningioma, according to Newton Hospital, Massachusetts, which is about 10 miles west Boston.
“The investigation did not find environmental risks that could be linked to the development of a brain tumor,” Jonathan Sonis, associate medical director, and Sandy Muse, director of Nursing, in a statement, said in a statement.
The hospital said that his research was completed in collaboration with government health and safety officials and considered multiple possible sources. Disposable masks, the water supply, the nearby X -rays and the treatment of chemotherapy on the floor below, said the hospital.
“According to these results, we can reassure our dedicated team with confidence … and all our patients who are not environmental risk in our facilities,” said the administrators.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association, the union that negotiates the compensation of nurses at the Newton-Wellesley hospital, said it will continue to investigate.
“At this time, the best way we can help is to complete an independent scientific investigation,” said MNA spokesman Joe Markman, in a statement on Friday. “That effort is underway and can take additional weeks.”
The union indicated that the nurses presented health problems in the workplace, which led to the discovery of those with tumors.
“The hospital only spoke with a small number of nurses, and their environmental evidence were not integral,” he said in his statement. “The hospital cannot make this problem disappear trying to provide a default conclusion.”
A spokesman for a state agency could not provide conclusive information on the matter with a deadline. Federal Occupational Health and Safety officials did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
The American Cancer Society says that to meet the definition of a cancer group, the occurrences must be the same type, in the same area, with the same cause and affect several people who are “greater than expected” when a baseline for occurrences is established.
“Almost 4 out of 10 people in the United States will develop cancer during their lives,” society said on their website of cancer groups. “Therefore, it is not uncommon for several people in a relatively small area to develop cancer at the same time.”
