Annotations for Places: Mexico--sonora--nogales

This is news from Latino USA. I'm Maria Martin. Another border community is reporting an alarming increase in a number of possibly environmentally-related diseases. From the twin cities of Nogales on the Arizona/Mexico border, David Barbour reports.

It was nearly two years ago that residents first realized there was a serious health problem in the border area of Nogales. Clusters of rare cancers began showing up, and one working class neighborhood could count 16 cases of cancer within a two block area. But it wasn't until a review of 600 death certificates indicating that nearly 50% were cancer-related, that community activists got the attention of state and federal health officials.

Dr. Larry Clark is with the University of Arizona's Cancer Center, and has uncovered a disturbing increase in cases of systemic lupus.

We've identified 18 definite or probable cases, and 30 possible cases. Nogales may have the world's highest rates of systemic lupus.

On December 2, Arizona Governor Fife Symington led an entourage of state and federal health and environmental officials to Nogales, Arizona to announce the creation of a border health task force to study the problem. Though more money has been promised to study the diseases, the causes are still anybody's guess. The residents of Nogales are still waiting for answers. For Latino USA, I'm David Barbour in Tucson.