Fallon, NV: Deadly Oasis
Residents of a quiet ranching community and “Top Gun” naval air base struggle to discover why the children of their town are diagnosed with leukemia at 44 times the national average.
Sixty-miles east of Reno, in the small military and ranching town of Fallon, Nevada, an unfathomable mystery is unfolding. In the span of just two years, 14 children have been diagnosed with acute-lymphocytic leukemia, and no one seems to know why. As the film unfolds, two children die and two more cases are discovered. Families square off with scientists, government bureaucrats, and media opportunists who are occupied with everything, it seems, but the welfare of the children.
Due to recent medical advances, for the first time in history, the town of Fallon may be able to provide much-needed answers about the impact of environmental hazards on health. While kids undergo excruciating spinal taps and parents break down, the community is stretched to the breaking point.
As the country gears up for war, military exercises at the Fallon naval air base increase, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention arrive to canvas the population. Is this the ultimate testing ground that will prove once and for all that environmental and human health are inextricably linked, or will it be the ultimate cover-up? Fallon, NV: Deadly Oasis leads the viewer into a charged landscape of questions that we as a nation must have the courage to answer.