A teacher with terminal brain cancer believes it was caused by washing her hands with toxic "blue water" at the school she worked at.
Jeana Watt, 48, was diagnosed with glioblastoma - a fast-growing brain tumour - and given just 18 months to live in June last year.
She now claims her condition was caused by ground contamination alongside chemicals from water she drank and washed her hands with during the three years she worked at the Skills Academy.
The mum-of-three taught maths at the school, which is built on an old industrial waste site in Lanarkshire, Scotland, reports the Daily Record.
It shares a campus with Buchanan and St Ambrose high schools where blue water was previously discovered running from taps.
Staff and pupils claimed to have contracted serious illnesses as a result, although an independent review commissioned by the Scottish Government in 2019 found no link to ill health.
The complex was reopened to staff and pupils that August.
Jeana, from Newarthill near Motherwell, said: “The Academy sits just in front of Buchanan High and two teachers have been diagnosed with terminal cancer in just a few short years. I’m one of them – I have brain cancer.
“When the blue water came to light, it also emerged that four teachers from Buchanan High who worked in the same corridor had all been diagnosed with bladder cancer – something that the report said was ‘coincidental’.
“I don’t believe in coincidences. I was previously fit and healthy but fell ill with different things about a year after I started there. I was then diagnosed with cancer.
“I believe my cancer is linked to the blue water and ground contamination. We all drank the water, washed our hands and ate the food from the high school.”
The campus was built on the former landfill site used by Gartsherrie Ironworks for industrial waste, including lead and arsenic, between 1945 and 1972.
Steps were taken to make the grounds safe before the campus opened in 2012, including bringing in fresh top soil.
Despite concluding the site was safe, the 2019 report highlighted an elevated level of banned chemical polychlorinated biphenyls on the campus periphery. Jeana now wants a second independent probe.
A Scottish Government spokesperson defended the findings of the 2019 probe, saying: “It concluded the school and site were safe and there were no links between ill health and the campus.”
A spokeswoman for North Lanarkshire Council added: “Any claim to the contrary is simply untrue. At no time has this staff member brought these claims to the attention of her employer.”
And John Logan, a public health consultant, insisted: “There is no causal link between the school or site and any ill health in those who work or are taught on the site.”
Jeana is now fundraising to receive specialist immuno-oncological (IO) therapy in Cologne, Germany, at a cost of £250,000.
