🔗 Share this article

Alison Gaffney and Fraser's father received life-altering diagnosis in 2018 when their 17-month-old Fraser was found to have a uncommon form of leukaemia.

An extended period of intensive medical care ensued, involving drug treatments, radiation therapy, and immune system treatments before a bone marrow procedure. Fraser, by age three, made a remarkable improvement from the operation, with medical staff declaring the cancer in regression.

As Fraser improved that Alison, aged thirty-six, began seeking causes. She remained troubled by comments made by hospital staff at the time of her child's illness. “We lose sleep wondering how he got his illness,” a doctor had shared with her.

“We can't sleep wondering how he got his disease,” a consultant had informed her.

Background Information

The improper handling of vast quantities of toxic materials after the closure of a major industrial facility in the town in 1979 had “long been recognized,” said Alison. A court ruling connected the local authority's mismanagement of the site to a string of congenital abnormalities in community youth during the 1980s and 1990s.

Gradually, Gaffney started to connect the situation to her own. “[Fraser’s cancer] is not inherited,” she stated. “What's the explanation? … It has to be down to the community. So many children [with] illness.

“Everybody in this town knows someone who’s got a minor [with] the disease. This isn't typical.”

Collective Efforts

The parents started to contact additional households in Corby with comparable experiences – including some of the mother's past schoolmates at Brooke Weston Academy – and the organization began assembling comprehensive documentation on those affected. They now spearhead a movement advocating for about numerous households with situations of pediatric illness dating back to 1988.

The collective has been pressuring the municipal government to examine any links between instances of youth disease in the town and the shutdown of the facility. At the end of this month, health authorities are expected to release their analysis of whether the town has had a unusually high rate of occurrences of youth disease for its residents of seventy thousand.

“What we seek is to try and protect subsequent residents so they do not have to endure the hardship that we've experienced,” said Alison.

Previous Cases

The decision in the court proceeding accepted that, between 1983 and 1997, millions of tonnes of hazardous waste from the manufacturing site were relocated “almost invariably” from the southern part of town to a designated site in the opposite end – with “significant amounts” of hazardous materials carried and dumped on local thoroughfares and “large volumes” of airborne particles produced by the cleanup.

Nevertheless, it also referenced reports from the Environment Agency in 1997 that found accumulations of toxic substances that had been left at Deene Quarry were later removed in “significant amounts”.

Expanding Concerns

Alison believes waste was not only dumped at the Deene Quarry site but in other parts of the community. Recently, she approved a “important advancement” after municipal government said it would examine soil that could be polluted and study where contaminated substances was deposited.

Alison said government representatives confirmed in the meeting that they lacked information where the locations of hazardous substances could be. “They stated: ‘We lack information where these sites are. There are no records, we possess no information.’”

Community Support

The council’s announcement was also welcomed by a community member, a school staff member at a primary school, whose school-aged girl, her daughter, was confirmed to have leukaemia in the summer.

“I had to shave my nine-year-old daughter's scalp because her tresses was coming out from the treatments she had to administer to kill her illness. Consequently it’s in the community's concern, it’s in the child's wellbeing [for the council] to share that data,” she stated.

“Numerous individuals in the town that have been confirmed to have youth disease and I believe it’s impossible to overlook – it requires investigation. This can’t be normal.”

Family Experiences

Meg Lyons, aged thirty-one, who has a professional career and now has moved away, said parents deserved “absolute honesty and transparency” from the government.

Lyons’s young sibling, her sister, passed away on a specific date after being confirmed to have a rare bone cancer at the age of nine. The girl, who raised awareness for cancer charities, was “one of the most charming, entertaining and caring” persons, she stated.

Her family member remembers the impact of the closure of the industrial facility on the community, she stated. “She said you could not position your fingers in ahead of you because [of] the particulate matter.”

“This situation has persisted since around about my youth. It’s an excessive amount of time and it is negligence toward the community members.”

Past Associations

Lyons’s cousin, Maggie Mahon, was among numerous families connected to the 2009 claim against the then Corby council after her infant was had clubfoot. Her partner, Derek, was a member of the vehicle operators participating in handling substances from the manufacturing facility. Their experience was portrayed in a recent series, and showed the woman cleaning the debris from her partner's pants.

Alison said the collective has been approached by whistleblowers who were participating in the disposal of waste in the community.