Jim Saxton: “I take out this special order this afternoon to bring to the attention of my colleagues a very, very important and a…”

“I take out this special order this afternoon to bring to the attention of my colleagues a very, very important and a very, very unhappy circumstance that has occurred in my district. Many of you may have watched the CBS Evening News last night and observed an alarming segment of the news about a situation in Toms River, NJ. Toms River is in Dover Township in Ocean County. Unfortunately, over the past several years, the rate of brain and central nervous system cancers in children has increased very dramatically. As a matter of fact, it has increased far beyond what would be expected if you looked at some kind of a national average or at a normal town. In Ocean County itself, as a matter of fact, 54 children have been diagnosed with brain or central nervous system cancer since between 1979 and 1991, just those several years. This is a rate which is far in excess of what we would expect to find. In Toms River, there were eight children diagnosed with those types of cancers when you would expect an average of maybe two.”