"On a positive note," Lagakos said, "all associations we found were related to the wells, and they've been turned off for four years."

However, the researchers said they were not certain to what extent the health risks are decreasing since the shutdown.

Citing the difficulty of drawing conclusions from limited data, Zelen explained, "We're talking about diseases that rarely hap- pen. There may not be enough follow up time for an adequate answer to whether the risks will decimal.

The conclusions the group did draw, however have ended years of uncertainty for Woburn residents, after the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) and the Center for Disease Control could not determine a correlation of disease to the water supply.

"They identified a cluster of childhood leukemia and renal [kidney] eancer," said the Rev. Bruce Young. "They made a statement: 'Yes, you're right, there's lot of leukemia in Woburn. But that was it. They said they didn't have the money or manpower to help us," added Young, who helped form a group of concerned citizens who sought definitive answers to their questions.

The group. For A Cleaner Environment (FACE) was started by mothers who had lost children to the disease, and it grew to include many other concerned citizens.

In 1982, members of FACE were invited to participate in a seminar at APH, part of a weekly series of meetings with community residents sponsored by SPll's community Health Improvement Program.

Zelen and I agakos heard the group's concerns and offered in early not an in depth study if FACE would supply volunteers to conduct telephone interviews to guiltier data on residents health histories and respite to the water supply.

During the summer of 1982, more than 300 volunteers collected data on 7000 households, or 54 percent of the town's population.

Lagahies rejected suggestions that MDPH had been negligent in not continuing its sickly, explaining that such a follow-up would be extremely costly. He and Zelen estimated that if their study had been commissioned and per formed without volunteers, it would have cost between $500,000 and $750,000.

EACE members had become concerned as it result of the highly publicized Love Canal incident, in when if won believed that a toggle ward she in New York State had caused genetic demanders.

Dean of SPHI word limit said yesterday. O my knowledge, the Love Cural studies showed no more, and perhaps and even its much of a bashed as wodworth."

Although young said he was uncertain what action community members might take as a result of the SPH findings, FACE founding member Donna Robbins, whose son died recently at the age of nine, said that "six or seven families have gotten together to sue" suety of the companies responsible for the to sins.

At the end of the meeting, the researchers and Young answered questions from the residents, One man asked, "if you found not you lived in a town like ours, where the cancer rates are so much higher than the national average, how would you feel? Would you want to leave?"

Young answered. "Well, with the interest rates, and the scarcity of jobs, it doesn't really make sense to leave Wohurn. We're sort of in a Catch-22 situation."