Five Nurses who work on the same floor at hospital have brain tumors
46 comments
·April 6, 2025jjtheblunt
dmix
Interesting. In that case six people had the same rare type of cancer which caused a settlement. The five nurses have three different kinds.
SoftTalker
It’s not cancer in TFA though. “The tumors, all benign, are three different types.” Sorry that just sounds random to me.
I’m not disputing that there are literally toxic workplaces or environments that do correlate with cancer clusters.
janice1999
Similar story: "More Than a Hundred Graduates of a Particular High School Got Rare Cancers"
https://futurism.com/neoscope/high-school-classmates-rare-ca...
bluGill
No reason to think this is anything other than normal stastical variation - at least at this time. not the same type of cancer even.
when there are billions of people in the world it is expected that some where several get cancer at the same time.
genter
I'm also curious if there's an increase of diagnosis because they work in a medical setting. Either they recognize the symptoms, or casual conversation with a doctor.
tengbretson
If you start with the assumption that brain cancer's occurrence is randomly distributed, then sure I guess.
Retr0id
If you assume it isn't randomly distributed, those odds only go up.
mmooss
Which odds go up, if you would clarify?
throwaway290
nope. they go down for some people and up for other people. if these nurses are the second kind then that is interesting.
surgical_fire
The nurses did not have cancer. They had benign tumors.
mmooss
> when there are billions of people in the world it is expected that some where several get cancer at the same time.
That would be the answer if we asked whether such a coincidence ever happens in the world. In this specific case, the question is, 'what are the most likely causes?'
clircle
What’s the pvalue ?
TheBen1
You can't really put a useful p-value on that.
To calculate a p-value (roughly spoken), you need to start with a single hypothesis. Then you gather data and the p-value gives you the probability that your data occurs while your hypothesis is false. When you start with a finite set of multiple hypotheses, you need to take that in to account when calculating your p-value.
When you start with data and come up with a hypothesis afterwards, you would have to find the whole potential space of all hypotheses. So, for example, how many hospitals are there? Do you only consider US? Do you only consider nurses or other employees as well? What about only four nurses would that have made it to the news? What about other forms of cancer? What about time? Do you consider the time period of the last 50 years? As you think about what might have made the news, the set of hypotheses grows bigger and bigger and as it approaches infinity, the p-value for any data would approach one. Because when you have a very large set of unlikely hypotheses, the probability that your data accidentally supports one of them is quite large.
That's what parent was talking about.
acomjean
P values are common in science for those that don’t know. It measures what the odds are something you observe would happen in just a random sample. Or something like that.
defrost
The article closes with that note.
The American Cancer Society says that in order to meet the definition of a cancer cluster, occurrences must be the same type, in the same area, with the same cause, and affecting a number of people that's "greater than expected" when a baseline for occurrences is established.
“Nearly 4 out of 10 people in the United States will develop cancer during their lifetimes," the society said on its cancer clusters webpage. "So, it’s not uncommon for several people in a relatively small area to develop cancer around the same time."
If (for example) twenty percent of the time 500 people were scanned, five at least had benign brain cancers, would this report be unusual or suspicious in itself?
klipt
Right but five people all getting brain cancer is certainly more suspicious than five people getting any cancer.
card_zero
> with the same cause
That seems circular, like it's not a cancer cluster until we find out that it's a cancer cluster, or it's not a cancer cluster because we didn't determine a common cause, so don't worry too much about there maybe being a common cause that would make it count as a cancer cluster.
This underlines how stats are no substitute for reasoning about mechanisms.
SubiculumCode
You know, if a bunch of nurses got their heads exposed to a radiation burst in an event, would they all get the same type of cancer? Probably not.
giantg2
It seems unlikely all 5 would only have their heads exposed. It seems it would be more likely they might develop various other cancers.
keepamovin
Many cancers are definitely caused by pathogenic vectors.
bglazer
Which ones?
hobs
Cervical cancer is an obvious one that comes to mind.
chongli
And the cancer devastating the Tasmanian Devil [1]. It’s awful!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease?wp... (content warning)
fnord77
ok, but the article said all the tumors were benign
SoftTalker
Randomness is clumpy
Willingham
Wow this is a profoundly unsettling and truthful fact, thanks for sharing.
throwaway290
it also sneaks in a hideen assumption "cancer is random" in a way that tries to avoid a "citation needed". I hate those sorts of comments, worse than propaganda (at least that one obvious)
OutOfHere
Even so, most of the times, when there is a clump, it's likely causal, not random.
Solstinox
I suggest you go to random.org and play with the coin flipper or dice roller for a couple of hours.
[edit] I just rolled 60 dice and got a string of 7 2’s in a row. Can someone calculate the odds of that happening for me?
OutOfHere
Randomness can be clumpy, but clumpiness does not have to be random. Clumpiness is typically causal. Your experiment won't tell you what you need to know.
throwaway290
"repeated number 2 out of 5 on a dice" vs. "repeated brain tumour out of infinite other things that can happen in dynamic system you don't even know all the parts" rly?
run an RNG that doesn't quantize to an integer and see how many repeats you get then:)
d342d32d3d
Shift work increases the cancer rate.
zekenie
I’m surprised the hospital said they were confident it was safe. I wonder what gave them confidence? I’m struggling to think of what data I could have on hand that would convince me it was really safe. Also, to folks saying that randomness is clumpy… did you read the article? I think a bunch of nurses that notice they are all getting sick (and then FIVE of them getting brain tumors) should be taken quite seriously. I’d start with the assumption that there IS an environmental problem and then figure out what it is.
linsomniac
>I wonder what gave them confidence?
I'd guess it was their lawyers...
giantg2
They said there weren't any environmental factors. However, we don't know that much about brain cancers and the only real environmental factor would be radiation and some meds (like the mini pill). Checking the water supply is fine, I guess, but it takes years for the cancers to form (usually). Who knows if whatever they would look for would still be there. I think there's little chance of finding a new environmental factor. I think it's likely some unknown factors exist. I just don't think it's likely they'll find one this time.
OutOfHere
Nurses near pathology or surgical areas may be exposed to carcinogenic VOCs like formaldehyde, xylene, and toluene.
RONROC
Just a coincidence! Nothing to see here!
Another example from a few years ago that extends back over time decades
https://www.chicagomag.com/chicago-magazine/september-2018/c...