Fourteen years ago, due to public pressure, the New York State Cancer Surveillance Team conducted a study in the area. They needed twn thousand people to complete the study. Both the Towns of Collins and North Collins are extremely rural areas. In order to gather enough people to conduct the research project, the state team included all residents within the Town's of North Collins and Collins, as well as the residents of the Villages of North Collins and Gowanda. 

The team expected to find 400 cases of cancer, they found 424, just slightly elevated and, according to the report written about the study, nothing to become alarmed by. I have a copy of that study. The study indicates that all of the cancer is located in one particular section of the study area, passing right through Collins Center. It also indicated that there was no need to be alarmed, because there were so many varieties of cancer in the area, they noted possible reasons for the high cancer rate, these included:

1. The area was predominately white 
2. The residents in the area were more highly educated
3. Most patients were being diagnosed when the condition was still in a "pre-cancerous" state.

I had an extensive conversation with a member of the team that conducted the research in this area. I explained that they seemed to ignore the fact that all of the cancer was centralized in a specific area; I was told this just simply did not apply. The team studied the area in its entirety. I explained that the area in question had approximately 500 residents, therefore, 424 cases was extremely high. I was reminded first that the study encased an area consisting of 10,000 people, and second that there was a variety of cancer in the area, nothing to be concerned about. When I explained that the study did not include residents who had left the community, I was basically informed that they never would.

The Town fathers took the matter a bit more seriously, applying for a grant, they distributed radon detectors to the residents of the town, only to learn that we had no radon problem.

We have had no industry, to speak of in the general vicinity of Collins Center, unless of course you want to count the Milk Plant which made powdered milk for years. The local residents know what the milk spewing from the roof vents did to our homes and vehicles. It often amazed new comers as to the damage milk could cause. The plant had it's own sewage plant, but it dumped raw sewage into the stream that runs through the center of town. The smell was often so bad, that even in the midst of a heat wave, residents were forced to close their windows and stay inside, but there was little complaint because it was the only place local residents had to locate employment. 

The only other thing that happened in the area was a air force jet explosion and crash in 1958. I have the declassified file, but I must say I was not impressed when it arrived. Most of the pages were missing, and the pages that were made available had been photocopied, with large sections blacked out and then the pages were re-photocopied. My attempts to gather the entire documentation via the Freedom of Information Act were halted when the Air Force declared that  allowing me to view the documents was: "Detrimental to National Security."

I did manage to get my hands on one of the missing documents, as a matter of fact, within a few days I will scan the document and place it as a link. This document indicated that "CRYPTO Material and subjugating documents" were lost in the explosion. I wasn't sure what crypto meant, until I located a Webster's Unabridged Dictionary dated 1950, which indicated the word meant hidden, covered, or secret. I spoke with a career Air Force person who indicated that I should "leave it alone,"  because "crypto made top secret look like child's play."

I did find a great many strange coincidences occurring during the time I was investigating the explosion and crash. Enough to encourage me to have copies made and distribute them to a variety of people with the firm request that should I ever die, whether it be accidental or natural, please have it investigated. 

In 1995, shortly after I had remarried, a man came to my house looking for me under my married name. At that time, anyone who was not a close friend still called me by my former married name. My husband and daughter became quite concerned first because a stranger asked for me by my married name, when I had not been married for a great deal of time and second because I forced the man to not only show identification, but also to listen to my distrust of the government and  explanation about the copies and request should I die. I made the poor man step into another part of the house while I retrieved my files and then I forced him to stay in my small office area to work.

I think I should explain one thing here, as I mentioned, I had just recently remarried, however, I did leave out an important detail. I had met my husband six months before I married him, he had always lived in a town forty miles north of Collins Center and he knew nothing concerning the area. When he and my daughter questioned me as to who the man was and what he wanted, my reply was simple: he's from the government and he's investigating the Flight 800 explosion and crash. I believe that at that very moment, my new husband felt a sudden pang of regret in not getting to know me better. Four hours later, when the stranger left our home, my husband did demand that I give him a thorough explanation.

There is a great deal more to this story, a great amount of evidence that I have collected which indicates that the possibility for contamination caused by that explosion and crash  does exist. However, I am not positive that I can blame our cancer rate on the crash. You see, my mother moved to Collins Center in the early 1950's, I was born in 1955 with cancer, the crash was 1958.

Briefly I will give you some statistics to assure you that I am not imagining the high cancer rate. Collins Center is a tiny rural community, with approximately 125 houses and five hundred people. It is approximately 2 miles long and 1 1/2 miles wide. As I mentioned prior, there is a creek that flows through the town. The creek ran past the house I grew up in, the same creek borders the back of my property now. I grew up in a separate residence on the property owned by my aunt and uncle. They had moved into the house in the early 1950's. In addition to our two families, there was one other family that spent a few years living on the property in a separate residence. There were a total of thirteen of us on the property through the mid 60's.I shall discuss the families that have lived in the area since the 50's.

Of the thirteen people that lived on that property, five of us have been diagnosed and treated for cancer, I was treated twice for two different types of cancer. The cancers that plagued the residents of the property included, skin cancer, ovarian cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer, brain cancer and cervical cancer. The house next door to us had a family that cared for foster children, when I was young. They moved away, five  families have lived there since, with a total of  31 people not including the foster children; six of those people were treated for cancer. I am not positive of all of the types of cancer, but I do know they included brain, lung and colon. In the house I live in now, there were two families prior to my family for a total of twelve people, four were treated for cancer; one died of a malignant brain tumor, one had a mastectomy because of breast cancer, one had cervical cancer, the latest statistic was my ex-husband whose cancer was so severe and so fully distributed throughout his body that he could not even be treated. The house across the street has had only one family that I can recall with a total of 5 people, there was one person treated for cancer, twice, she had a double mastectomy.  I have just described four houses, 61 people, 16 of which were treated for cancer, two of those persons having cancer twice, one person having more than one type of cancer, one person having several types. That translates into 1/4 of the population of this town being infected by cancer and 100% of our population being affected by cancer. 

In upcoming editions of Issues I shall take a look at the history of Collins Center, so that our reader's can come to terms with the lack of traditionally known cancer causing agents in our area. I shall continue to disclose the cancer rate and will ask any of our readers who know someone who lived in the Collins Center area since 1950 and now is plagued by cancer to please notify Issues immediately. I shall offer scanned documents from the plane explosion and crash and documents which will prove that  IF a cancer causing agent were aboard that aircraft, that the agent would have been distributed throughout the Collins Center area. I will scan and share the documentation from the New York Cancer Surveillance Team.

There has been far too much suffering in this tiny town. Issues would like to change Collins Center from a DYING TOWN INTO A HEALTHY TOWN. We welcome all response to these articles. We want our readers to share their experiences, their knowledge or just their thoughts.