Hanover Select Board Hears No Cancer Cluster Found Near Former Fireworks Site

HANOVER — April 5, 2021 — Hanover Select Board hears no cancer cluster found near former National Fireworks site. Dr. Julie Goodman, an epidemiologist and board-certified toxicologist with Boston-based consulting firm Gradient, told the board Monday that a Massachusetts Department of Public Health screening-level analysis found 96 brain cancer cases over 30 years in eight nearby census tracts against an expected 98 — a result consistent with normal variation. Of hundreds of statistical analyses run across the tracts and three ten-year intervals, only three showed statistical significance, with no geographic or temporal trends. Goodman, hired by the town on the recommendation of town attorney Robin Maine to interpret — not conduct — the study, also cited the companion environmental assessment, which found no excess radiation and no meaningful vinyl chloride exposure at the site. Residents including Kenton Green of 595 Circuit Street and a speaker identified only as Rhonda pressed Goodman on whether relocated former residents were being missed by the registry-based methodology, and on whether state average rates used for comparison might themselves be skewed by cancer near other contaminated sites elsewhere in Massachusetts.