An investigation is under way after a former pupil discovered 65 people from his New Jersey school have a very rare brain tumour.
Al Lupiano, who attended Colonia High School, Woodbridge, told how he started to research the cases of the cancer and was shocked with the results.
He himself had been diagnosed with the extremely rare cancer 20 years ago and when other family members also developed the disease, which affects the left side of the brain, he began to look into what was going on.
He discovered that 65 sufferers had gone to his school.
The environmental scientist said that he lost his sister to stage 4 glioblastoma who was diagnosed in August last year and two hours after that diagnosis his wife also was told she had a primary brain tumour.
It led to him putting a post on Facebook enquiring if other Colonia High School children have suffered from tumours.
"What I find alarming is there's truly only one environmental link to primary brain tumours and that's ionizing radiation. It's not contaminated water. It's not air. It's not something in soil. It's not something done to us due to bad habits," Mr Lupiano told CBS News.
He is now working with local officials to find out what could have happened at the school that was built in 1967, with materials used in the construction one theory put forward.
"It was virgin land. It was woods. The high school was the first thing to be there, so there was probably nothing in the ground at that time. The only thing that could have happened, potentially, was fill that was brought in during construction. We have no records 55 years ago," Woodbridge Mayor John McCormick said.
The states department responsible for environmental protection has been contacted now to investigate.
"We are looking at possible things that we can do between the town and school, and they said they will look at anything we come up with," said Mr McCormick.
"I'm a lifelong resident here. I raised my family here. So the health and safety of our students is of paramount importance to me."
