General Mills Vapor Study: Community Concerns about Cancer

Thank you for subscribing to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's General Mills vapor study electronic bulletin.

To date there are 157 access agreements signed (81% of properties in Study Area). To see the updated sampling results map, as well as additional information on the project, visit http://www.pca.state.mn.us/ax83hxk.

General Mills vapor study community office hours:

January 28, 4-6 p.m.
Van Cleve Recreation Center (901 15th Ave SE, Minneapolis)

This type of outreach is targeted for one-on-one communication with residents and property owners. Representatives from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Minnesota Department of Health, Barr Engineering, and General Mills will be available to answer any questions, address concerns, and make the sampling and mitigation access agreements available to review and sign. The format will be like an open house - attendees may come at any point during the times listed below.

Community Concerns about Cancer in the Minneapolis Como Neighborhood

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) found that there is not an unusual occurrence of cancer in the Minneapolis Como neighborhood. MDH epidemiologists looked at the numbers and types of cancer reported to the Minnesota Cancer Surveillance System (MCSS) in the Minneapolis Como zip code 55414 and the seven-county Twin Cities Metropolitan area between 2001 and 2010. The number of newly diagnosed cancer cases in the Como neighborhood over a 10 year period did not differ from the number expected based on comparison with the seven-county Twin Cities Metropolitan area. 

It is important to know that the conclusions drawn from the MCSS data have limitations. The population in the Minneapolis Como zip code 55414 is small in number, young, and highly transient with a low percent of people who lived in the same location five years earlier. 

• Cancer takes time to develop which means that newly reported diagnosis of cancer may come from an exposure or other factor not related to this geographic location. 
• In small populations, cancer rates are highly variable and statistically unreliable, especially for individual types of cancer. 
• The rates also do not take into account the many other risk factors - family history, smoking history, occupation and diet among them - that affect whether cancer rates are high or low in a given community at a given point in time.

While the conclusions drawn from this data analysis should provide some reassurance that cancer rates in this community are not unusual, this analysis of cancer rates does not specifically address potential health risks from environmental exposures to TCE.

The full report of the MCSS analysis will be available on the MDH website, http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/hpcd/cdee/mcss/documents/como_cancer.pdf. MDH Contact Information:  Kenneth Adams (651-201-5481) or Alan Bender (651-201-5882)

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