Word: grufferman
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...might have Burkitt's lymphoma, caught from their visiting aunt. A typical reaction, says the Georgian, was " 'Don't you ever say anything like that. If you came into my office and said that cancer is contagious, it would empty out.' " In desperation, a family member called Dr. Seymour Grufferman, a cancer epidemiologist at Duke University Medical Center, explained the contagion idea and sent him biopsy slides of the victims' tumors...
...Grufferman too was skeptical -- until examination of the slides showed that one patient indeed had Burkitt's lymphoma. With Dr. Joseph Pagano, a cancer virologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, he promptly launched an investigation. Soon, Pagano recalls, "we realized that a virus was a more likely explanation than any other...
...researchers found that the aunt had become ill just before she left Africa and that blood samples from four of the twelve Americans she visited showed signs of recent Epstein-Barr virus infection. Genetic causes were ruled out because not all the victims were blood relations. Says Grufferman: "This is one of the best-documented cancer clusters worldwide, but it's difficult to investigate...
...While Grufferman and Pagano search for a new virus, the afflicted family is living on edge. A second of the four victims has died, but two are in remission. "In the back of our minds is the question of whether or not we are carriers," says one. "If they can find out what triggered me," she says, "maybe we can protect my children as well as Joe Blow. I just wouldn't want anyone to go through what we went through...
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