♪♪ >> From NJPBS Studios, this is "NJ Spotlight News" with Brianna Vannozzi.

>> Hello, and thanks for joining us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gagis.

Brianna Vannozzi is off.

Coming up, we get the latest on the suspected cancer cluster in Keyport and the results of new testing done at the site of the former landfill.

And later, teens are checking the UV and trying to tan when it's highest.

So just how dangerous is this practice?

We talked to one dermatologist about some safety facts you and your whole family need to know this summer.

But first, U.S.

Senator Senator Andy Kim joins us to explain his plan to provide universal health care for all kids.

That's next.

Funding for NJ Spotlight News provided by RWJBarnabas Health.

Learn more at RWJBH.org.

-Roughly 27 million Americans have no health insurance at all, and more than four and a half million of them are children.

New Jersey's junior U.S.

Senator Andy Kim calls those numbers unacceptable, and he's introduced a bill that he says could be revolutionary.

It's called Medicaid, and it's a plan to guarantee health coverage for every child in America from birth until age 26.

The Democratic Senator joins us now to talk about his proposal and whether it has any chance of becoming law in a Republican-controlled Congress.

Senator, thanks so much for taking some time to talk to us today.

You've drafted this plan for a program called MediKids that you say would be a bookend to Medicare, which covers seniors.

Can you explain the plan a bit further and how it would work?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, as you pointed out, 4.4 million kids without insurance in this country, many, many more that don't have the care that meets their needs.

That's unacceptable.

We should be a country, the richest, most powerful country should be able to guarantee care for every child.

I'm a father of a nine-year-old and a 10-year-old.

I've seen how important health care is for them as they're growing, their body's growing, their brain's developing, we need to make sure that that's available for every kid.

And frankly, healthy kids means healthy adults, which means a healthier society, lower overall health care costs.

So I wanna make a guarantee, enroll every child upon birth into MediKids.

Parents can opt out if they want, so it's not forcing anybody to do anything.

But it would be that guarantee that could drop that uninsured number from 4.4 million down to zero and make sure that we're pushing forward.

And it's something in the long run that's going to save our country money when it comes to just productivity, a healthy workforce.

And that's the guarantee that I think our country needs in this incredibly important moment when so many families are facing affordability problems.

Parents I'm talking to saying that they're worried about losing their job and how that might affect their kids' health insurance.

We shouldn't have that type of anxiety for parents in America.

So this would be for low-income and disabled kids up to the age of 26, yes?

Well this will actually be an enrollment for every single child into Medicaid.

It is built off of Medicaid, which does right now focus a lot on low-income and disabled children.

But it also just shows that this is something that is built for kids.

Medicaid was built for kids and it actually has the most comprehensive coverage of any health insurance program in America, including employer-based health care when it comes to kids.

So that's why I think this is a really good jumping off point for us to be able to make that universal guarantee.

Well, this comes at a time when the president and Republicans have rolled back health insurance coverage.

Even today, we're seeing that there's now a rollback of the Medicare Part D prescription drug subsidies that a lot of seniors rely on to help stabilize their insurance, their prescription drug costs.

How do you think a plan like this could gain any bipartisan support in this political moment?

Yeah, you raise the magic point here, which is that our country is moving in the wrong direction.

Because of what Trump did with the cuts to Medicaid, what we're seeing now is up upwards of 2 million fewer kids on CHIP and Medicaid now than just a year and a half ago when the Trump administration started.

So that's why actually why I'm introducing this now is because I think it's so important that we draw attention to the wrong trajectory that we're on.

But I have to make sure that I'm not just saying what I'm against.

I have to say what I'm for I have to say what I believe should happen.

Because even before the Trump came back into office, there were 4 million kids in this country without health insurance.

So it's not like things were just fine in January 19, 2025.

So I want to put forward a vision, because right now, so many parents are struggling with affordability, worried about whether they can pay for their health care costs for their kids.

And what I'm saying is, you know, no baby that is born that has problems and is in the NICU should ever have care prevented to give to them because of cost and coverage.

No parent of a kid in a NICU should ever have to worry.

Those are the guarantees that we need to be making.

And I think that that's a vision that the American people are hungry for.

They're very much wanting to hear the positive ideas.

What's the positive future agenda for what we're doing?

So that's why I'm putting this out here now.

I've been getting strong support across certainly the Democratic caucus, and I certainly hope that the Republicans also agree with this idea that kids should not be punished for any problems, any decisions of their parents.

They're kids, and we should try to make sure that all of them have the care they need.

Let me just ask you this.

There is no citizenship requirement as part of your plan.

Why do you believe that federal dollars should be spent on folks who are undocumented in this country at a time when clearly there's a huge focus on that?

And we're going to talk about some concerns happening here in New Jersey.

But why no citizenship requirement there?

Yeah, look, what I was just saying is, again, the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of the kids in this country that don't have health insurance are American citizens.

But I'm also, you know, look, a deep believer that, you know, they're kids.

And again, are we going to remove necessary care from them because of decisions that their parents made?

You know, we had this big debate as a country about, you know, DACA Dreamers, for instance, about whether or not we should be punishing, you know, young people in this country who were brought here by their parents.

And look, we're not just talking about, you know, undocumented, we're talking about families here, some of them legally here when it comes to green cards, work visas, others, again, their kids are going to school alongside ours.

We want to make sure that they are healthy.

We want to make sure that we understand that, you know, all kids are, should be given the care that they need.

And I think that that's just a sense of human decency.

As a father of kids, I want to make sure that every child can have the same kind of care that my kids do.

And I hope that that's something that others share.

Well, let's switch gears a bit here in New Jersey.

The talk has been about what's happened with our election.

6,600 people, as Governor Sherrill announced, who are non-citizens enrolled to vote in our elections.

Do you think that this is proof that we need to have voter identification at the polls when people go to vote?

Yeah, well, first of all, I'll just say like this is outrageous and something that certainly should anger a lot of us in terms of just the need to be able to fix this and why it is that we didn't hear about this sooner.

And I very much want to make sure that whatever investigation that the governor is pushing forward on ends with accountability.

And for us to know who was at fault, as well as how we're going to ensure that this doesn't happen again in the future.

So that's the primary push right now.

Look, you know, I think we absolutely want to make sure that we have integrity within our elections, within our voter rolls, and that's what we should be pushing for.

We also just need to make sure we're not putting overly burdensome and onerous restrictions on here because the right to vote is the most fundamental right of citizens in this country and I believe that we can do this in a way that is going to ensure that it's not preventing citizens from being able to get to the polls so that's really the push.

Do you see ID?

Do you see showing ID as onerous?

Well I think if we are allowing for you know other types of documentation you know whether it's about you know utility bills other types of certifications that can be provided you know I think we make so that wider arrangement that's good but what I will say is what we see the Republicans pushing in in Congress for instance right now with the Save America Act I mean they are saying they're making it sound like that's you know focus solely about voter ID but it's actually something that would tremendously restrict for instance vote by mail in this country it's something that takes these issues about voter integrity and weaponizes it in terms of making it much more difficult for people to be able to vote.

I think making every single person show up in person with a photo ID, make it requiring documentation that, for instance, would make it harder for women to be able to register to vote because a birth certificate is no longer valid because if they have changed their name due to marriage, like that is, you know, that is a problem.

And that would be something that would make it harder for millions of women to be in the register.

So that's moving very much in the direction.

Senator, yeah, just really quickly, because we don't have a lot of time left, I do want to ask about this $95 billion budget plan that the House passed that needs to pass the Senate 70 billion in funds for the war in Iran, 12 billion for farmers, and then 10 billion for the Save America Act that you were just talking about.

Where do you see this going in the Senate and do you support it?

Well, the American people don't support this because they don't support this war.

They don't support this war that's raising our costs has, you know, pulled tens of billions of dollars.

The American people paid over 75 billion more in gas and diesel since the start of this war, tens of billions more defense spending.

So I'm not going to support an illegal unconstitutional war that the American people don't want.

U.S.

Senator Andy Kim.

Thanks so much for taking some time today.

Thank you for having me.

It's a story we've been following for months in Keyport, where residents are concerned over a suspected cancer cluster after an alarming investigation was published by NJ.com earlier this year.

They first reported in April more than 40 cancer cases in the Keyport community, near the site of the former Aero Marine facility, which closed in 1979 and is now a dormant landfill.

Well, since then, the number has grown to more than 415 individuals reporting cancer cases in their families, expanding to both Keyport and the Union Beach area.

In June, new groundwater tests were conducted.

The journalist behind this investigation is here to bring us the latest on those test results.

She's Karin Price-Muller, investigative reporter for NJ.com.

Karin, it's great to see you.

You've been all over this developing story in Keyport.

I want to ask you about some of the additional testing that was done at the site of the air marine landfill.

Who conducted the test and what did they test for.

So there have been several different tests going on at the same time.

The results that we released in our story were taken by Pacer Partners which is the company that's buying the site and their engineers called SESI.

And so when they did the testing they did it side by side with DEP that took similar similar samples from the same spots.

But DEP has also done additional testing that we haven't seen the results from yet including water samples from the Rowden Bay and from the Chingarora Creek.

And then in addition to that the town hired another engineering company called XL and that's the company that had done a report on the site in 2010.

So they came back and just did testing in the industrial portion of the site which is what you're seeing on the screen right now.

Okay so just to break this down again for our up you know 40 cases spre who say that they've had their home from key port beach area.

Um Sessy is d on behalf of Pacer partne from them in terms of what discover and how they mig what's happening here befo of a contaminated property you need to know what's t not just Pacer but D. E. and the town as well.

The know, it's been 16 years was done on the site.

And all kinds of contaminants causing contaminants that the state's so called acc part of the question in d how they're going to cle what's there now.

And the if I can jump in here, Ca about what is there becau results that we've got ben that were found to be abo standards, although less in the 2010 testing, but standards.

And then I see some elevated heavy metals have shown up in some of the well tests.

Those range from lead cobalt arsenic aluminum iron as well as one for dioxin and some and some PFAS found in the groundwater.

Can you just explain where all of those found in one location.

Can you break that down a bit for us.

So the report said of each of the wells that they were testing and I believe there were 13 for this portion of the testing.

At least one metal was found above acceptable standards in each well.

Although some wells had multiple metals in them it's really a lot of information to take in.

And what I'm most interested in seeing is whether or not DEP tests exactly mirror what was found by these tests that happened so they can really have a better look at what all these higher levels are.

And then the big question is what it potentially means for the community.

OK so the DEP told us in a statement that at this point to date DEP's review of existing and new data does not indicate a pathway for human exposure to contamination.

They say they are still waiting to release the results of their test.

But as far as we know it doesn't reach DEP standards to require what's called a vapor intrusion investigation.

Can you just explain DEP's response here and what that means in terms of the vapor intrusion investigation.

Sure there are several different pieces to this actually.

I'll talk about the pathway part last if that's OK.

The vapor intrusion what happens is the gases that accumulate under the soil potentially under a building could then seep up into a building's basement or first floor if it's a slab.

But the testing that Pacer and SESI did found that the the amount of gas that was found was not high enough to do the further vapor intrusion investigation.

So it seems that at least on the Aero Marine property in that industrial spot they're not worried about vapor vapors going into those buildings.

But that doesn't mean that there aren't vapors in and around the community and this is where the residents are concerned and they really want to have testing at their houses.

But in terms of talking about a pathway for human exposure the challenge here when we contacted DEP for comment on the Pacer tests it directed us to the website which it updated.

It seemed in response to our inquiry saying that so far they're not seeing a pathway and the data may absolutely show by their standards that there is no pathway.

But we've spoken to several scientists who have great concern because the landfill we know has been leaching chemicals into the Raritan Bay and into the Chingarora Creek.

And when you look at a map of the landfill, you can see it's really surrounded by water on three sides.

That area is known for flooding.

Storms come in, tides change.

And the residents say that they have a lot of flooding in, you know, on their streets in their backyards.

So they question and some of the scientists we've spoken to say, well, how can you say definitively that the water is not a pathway?

And I don't have an answer to that question yet.

As far as I could read, there is testing being done at various water levels.

Do you know if there is specific testing done when floodwaters came in and reached residents' homes?

So I do know that DEP was testing the water in both the Bay and the Creek under different scenarios.

They did high tide, they did low tide.

They were doing it when the weather was good.

And supposedly, I don't know if the tests have been completed yet.

I don't think they have.

But also for when the weather is bad, because that might kick up different things within the water and the samples might show something else.

So I haven't seen any kinds of results like that DEP.

If they're even finished with the testing, they haven't done the analysis and they have not yet released it.

What do you know?

That's kind of my next question, Jan.

What do you know about their timing?

Yes, right?

So we don't know exactly when they're going to release it.

Initially, we thought it might have been already, but I understand that DEP told Pacer to release its results when it was ready.

The town has been told to release its results, but they haven't done that yet.

And then DEP will come last with the larger analysis that takes into account all the testing done by all the different parties.

They're all sharing their information with DEP.

So in September sometime we should have a town hall where DEP officials will explain what they found.

Okay, and I know you will be there and we will be following up.

Karin Price-Moller, great work.

Keep at it.

Investigative reporter for NJ.com and the Star-Ledger.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

The summer months mean more time at the beach, at the pool, and just generally more time outside.

But all that sun exposure can take a serious toll on your skin.

In fact, the Skin Cancer Foundation says that more cases of skin cancer are diagnosed each year in the United States than all other cancers combined.

And yet, some teens are out there checking the UV index, trying to tan when the rays are their strongest.

So just how dangerous is this, and how can you protect your skin and your families?

Well, Dr.

Bahar Dasgab is a dermatologist and oncologist at the Rutgers Cancer Institute, and she's here now with some advice.

Hi, Dr.

Bahar.

Great to have you on the show.

In these warmer months, we tend to spend so much more time outside.

I know I do.

What should we be doing to protect our skin?

Well, on top of the list is protecting from the UV radiation.

The most common method to protect UV radiation is sunscreen that everybody's familiar with.

There are two kinds of sunscreen or sun protection, the chemical and physical barriers.

The chemical ones are the sunscreen we buy over-the-counter.

What we need to be aware of that they need to be reapplied every couple of hours because the material that is interacting with the UV light to protect us is pretty much used up after a couple of hours.

And the name of the game in chemical sunscreen, more important than the number of sunscreen, is making sure that we reapply during the time that we are outside and exposed to sun exposure, particularly in the summer months.

A couple questions about how you apply.

I was told if you rub it in, you rub it away.

You're actually supposed to let lotion sit on the skin and soak in, much to my kids' chagrin.

Is that true?

- No, I mean, it's a nice layer to put.

It's important to put a nice layer because when these numbers are calculated in the lab, there is a generous amount that is put for these measurements in the lab.

So when they say rub it, what they're trying to say is the thinner the layer, naturally it's intuitive to assume that we have the less protection or less material we have there to interact with UV light and we need reapplication sooner.

So I'm not saying to empty the whole bottle, but until we know, like we have a really decent amount of a layer, a nice layer on our skin.

- What about sprays?

Because I know sprays can be a really easy way to get squirmy kids or to reach hard to reach places.

Are they as effective as lotion?

- They're as effective as lotion.

And I found personally that my male patients prefer them because for some reason it's easier to spray for men.

We women are very, in our growing up, very comfortable with applying cream to our face.

And that is very familiar for us to apply cream.

And sometimes it's more difficult for men.

So yes, it's as- - As effective.

Let me ask you this.

I have a teenager myself.

On social media, we're seeing all of these teens following the UV trends.

They're trying to get out in the sun when the UV is the highest.

What are your thoughts about this trend?

They call it sun maxing, I think, or max tanning.

I don't know, but what are any concerns there?

Yeah, very recently I heard of this and I tried to dig into it and ask a couple of Gen Z that what's up.

Dermatologists, we tell patients don't go out through the peak hours, which usually we designate as noon plus minus two hours, like 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock, where it's the highest UV index.

And that's when they're trying to get out.

That's when they're trying to get out.

Yes.

So is this a problem?

The opposite.

Yes, because this is where, you know, as the sun rises up, a time comes at noon when there is a direct exposure to sun and it's the highest UV index.

And the shortest amount of time for this UV index to make it to the surface of the earth and noon time is usually when there is a highest.

So plus minus two hours.

So the answer is yes.

It is exactly the period of time that dermatologists recommend to patients to avoid, to go out or be very cognizant of it or just make sure that they are very well protected.

And this is a time that is recommended to try to avoid.

And my understanding is that some of our teenagers and young ladies and gentlemen, they use that app on the cell phone and they get out.

And yes, this is a more spending 15 minutes at the peak of the UV index is more hazardous to the skin than spending the same amount of time at four o'clock in the afternoon or eight o'clock in the morning.

- Let me ask you this.

What are the signs of skin cancer or melanoma?

I have heard that sometimes it's the marks on your skin, the moles on your skin that have been there the longest.

What should we be looking for?

How do we know if something's wrong?

- There are methods that dermatologists follow and there are methods that general population is aware of and I'm gonna go through them.

But then I tell that I think what would be the best way to go for general population.

We are familiar with the ABCD criteria, which stands for the size of the lesion, if it's more than 6 millimeter, the coloration, if it's more than two color or multicolor, if there are irregular borders.

And these are the things that people are familiar.

It goes without saying there are other aspects of the shape and the color of the lesion that dermatologists are more aware of, which is a little bit beyond the scope of this discussion of what we see in a shape or the color or the texture, therefore texture of the lesion that concern us.

But what has been shown through the time to be the most reliable for the general population to trigger a appointment with a dermatologist to have a mole checked is the recent letter at the end, E, A, B, C, D, E, E standings for evolution, meaning interim change.

If you see a lesion getting bigger, a bigger lesion even getting smaller, it's a change.

- Any change.

- Yes, if you see a mole regressing and going back, a change is the most important factor.

That if you see something is changing in any... - We gotta leave it there.

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but it's great advice for all of us.

Dr.

Pahar Dasgab, dermatologist and oncologist at the Rutgers Cancer Institute.

Thank you so much.

- You're welcome.

That's going to do it for us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gaggis for the entire team here at NJ Spotlight News.

Thanks for being with us.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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