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Fort Chipewyan (often called Fort Chip) is a town of 1200 in northern Alberta. In 2006, a local physician reported 6 suspected cases of a rare form of cancer, cholangiocarcinoma, as well as elevated rates of other cancers. What made this particularly alarming is that Fort Chipewyan is located downstream from the huge Athabasca oil sands development and there is also uranium mining and pulp and paper industry in the area. Yesterday , Alberta Health Services released a report on Cancer Incidence in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta 1995-2006 [pdf]. It turns out that only two of the six suspected cases were in fact cholangiocarcinoma. However overall cancer rates do seem to be elevated. The report concludes that: In particular, increases of observed over expected were found for biliary tract cancers as a group and cancers of the blood and lymphatic system. These increases were based on a small number of cases and could be due to chance or increased detection. The possibility that the increased rat...