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Alison Gaffney and Andy Hinde received heartbreaking information in 2018 when their young son their baby was diagnosed with a unusual variant of leukaemia.

Two years of demanding therapies ensued, comprising chemotherapy, targeted radiation, and biological therapies before a cellular therapy. The young boy, by age three, made a “miraculous recovery” from the operation, with physicians confirming the illness in recovery.

During this period that Gaffney, 36, began seeking explanations. She remained troubled by remarks made by hospital staff at the time of her son’s diagnosis. “We lose sleep wondering how our son got his illness,” a consultant had shared with her.

“We can't sleep wondering how Fraser got his cancer,” a doctor had informed her.

Background Information

The negligent management of enormous amounts of hazardous substances after the shutdown of Europe’s largest steelworks in the town in 1979 had “widely acknowledged,” said Gaffney. A legal proceeding connected the local authority's mismanagement of the site to a cluster of congenital abnormalities in local children during the twentieth century.

Gradually, Gaffney started to connect the circumstances to her own. “[His illness] is not inherited,” she said. “What could cause this? … It has to be down to the town. All these kids [with] the disease.

“Everybody in this town knows someone who’s got a child [with] cancer. That's unusual.”

Grassroots Movement

Gaffney and Hinde started to contact other families in Corby with parallel situations – featuring some of Alison's past schoolmates at Brooke Weston Academy – and the group began assembling thorough information on those involved. They now head a initiative supporting about 130 families with situations of youth disease going back to 1988.

The organization has been calling on the town council to investigate any relationships between instances of youth disease in the town and the decommissioning of the facility. At the end of this month, medical experts are expected to release their study of whether the community has had a disproportionate number of occurrences of pediatric illness for its population of 70,000.

“All we want is to work to secure subsequent residents so they do not have to endure the pain that we’ve been through,” said Alison.

Previous Cases

The decision in the legal case accepted that, between the 1980s and 1990s, vast quantities of contaminated materials from the industrial facility were relocated “regularly” from the southern part of town to a specific location in the opposite end – with “substantial volumes” of toxic waste moved and dropped on local thoroughfares and “considerable amounts” of particulate matter generated by the remediation.

Nevertheless, it also referenced documents from the environmental authorities in 1997 that found stockpiles of toxic substances that had been deposited at the site were later removed in “significant amounts”.

Growing Suspicions

The campaign leader suspects waste was not only dumped at the Deene Quarry site but in additional areas of the municipality. Lately, she applauded a “major step forward” after local authorities said it would analyze land that could be tainted and investigate where toxic waste was deposited.

The mother said local officials acknowledged in the discussion that they did not know where the sites of toxic materials could be. “They explained: ‘We're uncertain where these sites are. We have no documentation, we have nothing on it.’”

Public Endorsement

The official statement was also welcomed by Tonia Shalgosky, a school staff member at a primary school, whose school-aged girl, Bella, was found to have leukaemia in the summer.

“I had to shave my nine-year-old daughter's scalp because her locks was falling out from the treatments she had to administer to kill her illness. Therefore it’s in the community's concern, it’s in Bella’s interest [for the council] to disclose that knowledge,” she explained.

“There are so many people in the town that have been diagnosed with youth disease and I just feel it’s cannot be dismissed – it requires investigation. This can’t be normal.”

Individual Accounts

Meg Lyons, 31, who works in sales and now lives in London, said households merited “complete and utter truth and clarity” from the council.

Her 11-year-old sister, the girl, succumbed on a specific date after being found to have a uncommon malignancy at the young age. Eve, who raised awareness for cancer charities, was “among the adorable, entertaining and caring” people, she stated.

Her family member remembers the effect of the closure of the industrial facility on the area, she said. “She said you could not position your fingers in before you because [of] the red ash.”

“These issues have continued since I’ve probably been about three years old. It’s an excessive amount of time and it is negligence toward the people of Corby.”

Historical Connections

Another family member, a local resident, was one of several households participating in the 2009 claim against the previous administration after her baby was born with a congenital issue. Her spouse, her partner, was among the truck operators responsible for handling substances from the industrial site. Their story was portrayed in a television program, and illustrated the mother removing the particles from her husband’s jeans.

The campaign leader said the campaign group has been reached out to by whistleblowers who were participating in the placement of waste in the community.