THE ACREAGE, FL--Acreage resident and personal trainer Jennifer White is obsessed with diet and fitness.
For three years she has been searching for the cause of a pituitary tumor that she fears will destroy her life.
"It's in my pituitary gland and we just don't know the source," she said.
Jennifer lives in The Acreage within two miles of Richard Cotromano.
Richard's five year old daughter Elizabeth suffers from an optic nerve glioma that requires chemotherapy.
He too wonders if there is something in the environment of the sprawling rural area that is causing cancer.
"It's so many people in such a small area. Something is not right"
Jennifer and Richard contacted NewsChannel 5 after seeing our report on three Acreage mothers whose children all developed brain tumors.
The children all survived.
I met another Acreage mother, Raeda Hourney, who lives a few blocks away from the women I profiled yesterday.
She told me her daughter Amarra has a lung tumor. She is six years old.
"My husband and I are from big families. Never anything like this, no cancers in the brain or the chest," she said.
"Cancer Cluster" is a frightening description of similar cases in a small area developed over a short period of time.
NewsChannel 5 medical expert Doctor David Soria says the proximity of one case to another is unique but not necessarily alarming.
He says it should be investigated but 'clusters,' a thousand a year are reported in the US, are hard to prove.
The six children who developed tumors in The Acreage lived within 2 miles of each other.
There is no panic, but there is concern and the state health department says it is in the early stages of investigating.
