Lambton County's medical officer of health is calling an alarming McGill University study, which suggests the Sarnia area is a hot spot for a rare form of cancer, flawed.
Dr. Sudit Ranade said the study was not properly conducted.
"They can't draw conclusions because they didn't do a proper analysis," said Ranade. "We're actually writing something up where we will reply to those authors and hopefully that will be published in the same journal because I think it's important that people do this research the right way."
The study established an average number of cases of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) per million individuals per year, based on just over 18,000 patients in Canada from 1992 to 2010.
It concluded that Sarnia had about 1.5 times more cases than the national average, and the north part of the city and Point Edward was more than three times above average.
The study said Chemical Valley pollution, and specifically benzene, may be implicated as risk factors for AML.
Dr. Ranade said Sarnia's aging population wasn't taken into account.
"What they were really doing was comparing crude rates of cancer, just the pure number of people who get a kind of cancer in a year between different communities. But we also know that as you get older, you're risk of cancer goes up, and unless you account for the fact that some communities have a larger proportion of elderly people than others, you can't really compare rates between communities without doing that kind of standardization."
Dr. Ranade also said AML is a rare cancer, and it takes a long time to get enough data to accurately compare cases.
He said community cancer data compiled to date did not find one specific area of concern.
The provincial government has committed funding for a comprehensive study of the impact of Sarnia industry on the health of the population.
The Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks said it expects the project will be started this fall.
-With files from Dave Dentinger
