The soil is good, the water's fine and the overall health of youth in Newberry, Laurens and Union counties isn't that different from youth in adjacent counties.

So why youth gallbladder surgeries tripled in the Whitmire area where those counties converge is still under investigation.

The number of gallbladder surgeries jumped from just three to six surgeries per year from 1996-2000 to 22 annual surgeries in 2001 to 2006.

“It's still a mystery at this point,” said State Epidemiologist Bureau of Disease Control Director Dr. Jerry Gibson of the Department of Health and Environmental Control.

What DHEC researchers do know from the tests and studies conducted, representatives will share in Whitmire during the town's Monday council meeting at the Community Hall at 6 p.m.

THE TIMELINE

A Whitmire physician and concerned parents alerted DHEC of the gallbladder issue in 2005.

In 2006, DHEC compared the health of 32 area youth to 26 youths in adjacent counties.

They compared metabolic factors like weight, body mass index, diet and insurance coverage without finding significant differences between the two groups.

DHEC also looked for toxins in Whitmire's water, soil, landfill and now defunct mill area and found nothing of concern.

“There hasn't been any environmental cause for this,” said Gibson.

Starting in May, DHEC began yet another study.

The agency sent a dozen gallbladder samples from recent youth surgeries to an expert panel of Columbia pathologists.

DHEC is still hoping to collect more gallbladder samples for the research.