If You Live In This Part of Cheektowaga You May Be At Risk

New York State has determined that in a very specific area in Western New York there are elevated cases of cancer.

Six different forms of cancer are more often seen on the Buffalo-Cheektowaga border by the Kensington Expressway, the mainline Thruway and Walden Avenue to the south.Now, Erie County working on public awareness campaign about the high rate of cancer and there will be a public outreach session. They want you to know that this is about awareness. Officials assume most people who live in that area would want to get checked. The State has no released a reason why and are still investigating why this is a thing.

According to WIVB, they talked to an expert on the issue:

People shouldn't panic thinking that they've been exposed to bad environmental carcinogens," said Dr. Christine Ambrosone, an epidemiologist with Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. She says, often times, it has nothing to do with pollution. "For example, the cancers that were identified; kidney, esophageal, lung and oral cancers. Those are all increased by smoking. So if more people live in that area are smokers, that could to some extent account for that. And prostate cancer, the highest rates of prostate cancer are in black men. So if that area as it does, includes more African Americans, that could also account in part, so all of these things will need to be looked at, and I don't think people should get freaked out that they're living on top of a landmine of contaminants."