§280g–17 Designation and Investigation of Potential Cancer Clusters

Summary

The Secretary of Health and Human Services must make rules for finding and looking into possible cancer clusters. A cancer cluster means more cases of a specific cancer than you would expect in a group of people, place, and time. A particular cancer is one cancer type or types known to have the same cause. A population group is people counted by things like race, age, gender, or ethnicity. The Secretary must make criteria that say how to tell when cases are higher than expected, make sure the cases are the same kind of cancer, account for who is in the population, choose fair geographic boundaries, and pick the time span to check. With state health experts, the Secretary must publish investigation guidelines that use the criteria, follow the best science, standardize how data is reviewed, and describe proper study methods. The Secretary decides whether to investigate, can set priorities, coordinates with HHS and other agencies like the EPA, uses biomonitoring data (for example NHANES), keeps expert staff, talks with communities, records and shares findings, and gives technical help through programs such as CDC’s Epi-Aids and ATSDR’s Assessments of Chemical Exposures.