If you heard of a ton of people all popping up in a short span of time with the same deadly brain cancer conditions, you might think you were hearing about a bad spec script for House or E.R. or something.
But it's real, it's happening in New Jersey, and it may very well be linked to a decades-old uranium processing facility just a few miles from a local high school:
A cancer survivor is vowing to untangle the twisted mystery of why almost 100 people associated with a New Jersey high school have developed "extremely" rare malignant brain tumors.
Al Lupiano is among the 94 former staff and students from Colonia High School in the Woodbridge Township School District who have been stricken by the devastating diagnoses in recent years.
"I will not rest until I have answers," Lupiano, 50, declared in an interview with NJ.com and the Star-Ledger on Thursday. "I will uncover the truth."
Among the others diagnosed with brain cancer was Lupiano's younger sister, who passed away from the disease in February at the age of 44.
Lupiano had one of these super rare tumors in the '90s at age 27. His wife – another graduate of the school – was diagnosed in 2021 with the same kind of brain tumor on the SAME DAY his deceased sister received her own diagnosis.
The vast majority of those who have developed brain tumors "graduated between 1975 and 2000, although outliers have come as recently as a 2014 graduate," according to the Star-Ledger.
The diagnoses include "several types of primary brain tumors, including cancerous forms like glioblastoma and noncancerous yet debilitating masses such as acoustic neuromas, haemangioblastomas and meningiomas."
It's a bizarre, baffling, and deadly mystery that's gone viral this week due to Lupiano's efforts.
And though it seems like a possible long shot, it would be crazy for investigators to rule out the, you know, radioactive processing facility a relative stone's throw from the school grounds:
Lupiano told NJ Spotlight News that the school is located less than 12 miles from the Middlesex Sampling Plant — a site that was used, under the direction of the Manhattan Project, to crush, dry, store, package and ship uranium ore for the development of the atomic bomb.
He alleges that some contaminated soil was removed from the site when it closed down in 1967 — the same year Colonia High School was built. Lupiano is wondering whether some of that soil ended up on the school grounds.
He's not wrong. The facility is just over 10 miles from the school:
If a local high school is or was actually radioactive, that would be a scandal of major proportions. Stay tuned.
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