MS mystery in Harrison
Surveys aim to find cause of high number of disease cases

The object of the questionnaire is to "determine whether there is a potential cluster," said Mathilda Solowey of the National MS Society. A cluster is a large number of cases in a narrowly defined geographic area and period of time.
Smeltzer said his doctors haven’t been able to put a finger on why he has MS, and he hopes the study will shed some light on the disease’s cause.  But Smeltzer, 39, wonders if his MS was caused by chemicals buried in and around Harrison’s Alsco Park, an EPA Superfund site. He grew up near the site.
Smeltzer said he pushed for the study "to find out if there is a link between what’s in that dump and MS."

The site, known to contain Lindane, arsenic and other pesticides, is to be cleaned up starting in 1996. Despite Smeltzer’s claims, there is no scientific evidence that MS is caused by environmental agents.  "Our word means nothing," Smeltzer said. "We have to get scientists to prove it."
Multiple sclerosis strikes an average of one or two people out of 10,000, Solowey said.
But by working through the MS Service Society in Pittsburgh, Smeltzer identified 25 to 30 MS cases in Harrison, which has a population of about 12,000.

Liz Willard, coordinator for the National MS Society’s Allegheny district chapter, said there are many pockets in western Pennsylvania where multiple MS cases have emerged, including East Liberty, Homewood, Oakmont and Verona.   "Sometimes you find a little thing like that, and you think it's a coincidence," Williard said. "But then you wonder what’s going on there."
A cluster study is under way in Munhall, where five cases were reported among neighbors living within 150 yards of one another, said Dan Mantia, who grew up in Munhall and was diagnosed with MS five years ago.

Mantia said his trek to gather information on local MS cases took him throughout western Pennsylvania. Now the study is in the hands of the state health department.
Mantia, who grew up in the Mon Valley’s steel producing heyday, also believes an environmental factor could have triggered his MS.
"I always knew when I was breathing that brown smoke that something wasn’t right," said Mantia, 40.

MS society officials know of 3,100 MS cases in western Pennsylvania, Williard said. There are about 250,000 cases nationally.

The disease does not strike in tropical areas, Williard said. It’s prevalent in more temperate climates such as Washington, Oregon and Scandinavian countries, she said.

The cause of multiple sclerosis has yet to be determined Other MS cluster studies have not linked MS with any single agent.  Scientists are studying the disease’s links to immunological, viral and genetic factors.  The MS society is trying to determine what activates the virus to attack the central nervous system, Solowey said.

Once the questionnaires are collected and returned to the MS society, they will be reviewed to determine if further study is warranted, Solowey said.

If the study proceeds, the questionnaire and medical histories of those participating will be sent to a neuroepidemiologist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., for further study, she said.  But the questionnaires will go no further than her New York office until the NIH replaces the neuroepidemiologist who left the Institute a year ago, Solowey said.

"We’re really on hold with three or four other clusters that we have in other parts of the country," she said.
"It’s a very slow process."  Any study could yield important clues to a disease that has been somewhat mysterious to researchers, she said.
Still, MS must compete fiercely with other neurological diseases for study funding.

"All I can tell you is what we know now, and that’s not very much," she said. "There’s a lot of research being done, but not enough."