By
The Associated Press
FALLON, Nev. - Up on Rattlesnake Hill, a small and proud white cross overlooks this rural farming and military town that boasts of its simpler way of life. Just off the main road lives 5-year-old Dustin Gross. He was one of the first.
Now there are 11 - all children stricken with leukemia that some fear might have something to do with living in the self-proclaimed "Oasis of Nevada."
"You can see it in his eyes," Dustin's father says, glancing at his son. "When they really start turning dark."
It started out like the flu. Then came the bruises, and his lips turned translucent. The leukemia was taking over, just as it had the children before him and just as it would the children after him.
Acute lymphocytic leukemia is the most common childhood cancer, but still rare. Just 2,000 new cases are diagnosed annually in the United States. What puzzles people is that 11 of those cases since 1997 have been in and around Fallon, a town of 8,300 residents. Eight were diagnosed last year. This is a cluster, the state health department says. A chance occurrence, perhaps? Or maybe something else that might never be known.
