Vashon Verité

A candid slice of Island life, from short feature digests to guess-where snapshots.

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Vashon Island – A ping on the MS Cluster radar?

December 29th, 2009 at Tue, 29th, 2009 at 8:14 am by heidiskrzypek

Riddle me this: If our Island has a population of 9,000 (or 10k on a summer day), and there are approximately 20 known residents with clinically definite Multiple Sclerosis, and only one in about 1,000 are typically diagnosed with MS worldwide, wouldn’t that make Vashon a cluster area? Some information on MS and cluster clues can be found here. Some studies suggest these are geographic areas lacking Vitamin D; others suggest it’s environmental factors such as industrial fallout. All I know is there are too many folks suffering, and there must be an answer out there somewhere.

Island mom and wife. Gainfully employed Seattle copywriter. Vashon forager. Emerging swimmer. Fan of dancehall reggae, good cooking, shallow reality TV shows, and public radio.

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