Community Chat

[CrazyKittyLvr2]

I got an email from a friend that another legal secretary has cancer.

I worked in a one stop light town that is also the country seat. 99% of the law firms are one attorney/owner with 1, sometimes 2, secretaries.

I counted all the secretaries from when I started in the early 90s to now.  It came to 28 legal secretaries and I know and dealt with all of them up to my retirement in 2015.

Of the 28 women 7 have been diagnosed with cancer in the last few years.  3 have died.

I'm told this county has a high incident of cancer.  I guess they are right.  I also know 4 people who have had a colostomy, my DH was one of them.  I dare say most folks don't personally know one.

[skatting44]

Is the water supply contaminated  or is the air contaminated by factories ???

 Stress can have a very negative impact on one's body .  Can imagine that it could be a very stressful job  meeting deadlines and working over time .

[Suzeecat]

Do the legal secretaries seem to have a higher incidence of cancer diagnoses than the general public in that county?  That's certainly alarming and I wonder what the connection is?

[CrazyKittyLvr2]

@skatting44   A lot of people have individual wells on their property. Some boroughs  do have their own water supply.

There are no major factories in the county.  A lot of people work in nearby NY state or travel to neighboring PA counties for work.

Yes, the job could be stressful. During weeks when I was tearing my  hair out I joked that if stress really killed I'd be dead on the floor.

The youngest secretary was in her 30s, the oldest in her 70s.

[bikerbabe]

More than 1/3 of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, with most common in middle age to 70s. My question would be: Is there a certain type of cancer that is most common locally and is it different from the national average?

I’m sorry about your friends. 💕

[CrazyKittyLvr2]

@Suzeecat   I don't know the stats.  I just find it odd that so many in the same profession got sick. 

It is not like a big city with dozens and dozens of law firms where you might have hundreds of secretaries.

[CrazyKittyLvr2]

@bikerbabe   The secretaries were 4 with blood cancer, either leukemia or non-Hodgkins, 1 with breast, 1 with lung and the most recent, brain, I'm told she is terminal.

2 of the leukemias and the breast cancer all worked in the same office.

[Tinkrbl44]

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@CrazyKittyLvr2 wrote:

I got an email from a friend that another legal secretary has cancer.

I worked in a one stop light town that is also the country seat. 99% of the law firms are one attorney/owner with 1, sometimes 2, secretaries.

I counted all the secretaries from when I started in the early 90s to now.  It came to 28 legal secretaries and I know and dealt with all of them up to my retirement in 2015.

Of the 28 women 7 have been diagnosed with cancer in the last few years.  3 have died.

I'm told this county has a high incident of cancer.  I guess they are right.  I also know 4 people who have had a colostomy, my DH was one of them.  I dare say most folks don't personally know one.

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@CrazyKittyLvr2 

Okay, that's really weird ........   what about incidence of cancer with the attorneys?

The first thing I thought of was if these practices were all in one office building, but it sounds like that isn't the case.   So the building materials causing the problem seems unlikely.

What is unique to what legal secretaries do, as opposed to other secretaries in other professions? 

My best guess is that it could be office supplies that are unique to the legal profession ... somehow contaminated in the vendors' warehouse.

Has this caught the attention of any investigative reporters in that area?

[CrazyKittyLvr2]

@Tinkrbl44   I can only think of one attorney that had cancer.

Most of the offices were within a block of where I worked. You could walk to them in a few minutes.  2 of the offices were in other towns within 15 miles.

To my knowledge  no one is looking into it.

There are 2 banks close to the law offices and I have not heard of any excessive cancer there. Being a very small town you know everyone. The same goes for the restaurants.

[shoesnbags]

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@CrazyKittyLvr2 wrote:

@Tinkrbl44   I can only think of one attorney that had cancer.

Most of the offices were within a block of where I worked. You could walk to them in a few minutes.  2 of the offices were in other towns within 15 miles.

To my knowledge  no one is looking into it.

There are 2 banks close to the law offices and I have not heard of any excessive cancer there. Being a very small town you know everyone. The same goes for the restaurants.

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Sounds as if there's a need for an Erin Brockovich type to do some investigating.  Alternatively, is there an investigative reporter at a TV station that serves your area? Maybe in the nearest larger city?  This seems like the type of thing they often like to look into.  All it would take is a couple of calls for you to find out if anyone might be interested in doing a story.