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Nearly 100 people who attended the same Woodbridge, New Jersey high school have developed an extremely rare malignant brain tumor.
Al Lupiano, 50, who is among the 94 alumni of Colonia High School that have been diagnosed with the disease in recent years, told NJ.com that he's on a mission to solve this mystery.
“I will not rest until I have answers,” Lupiano said during an exclusive interview last week. “I will uncover the truth.”
Lupiano said he was diagnosed with a brain tumor at the age of 27 and has since recovered from the disease.
Last year, Lupiano's wife, Michelle, was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor last year on the same day as his younger sister, Angela DeCillis, both of whom attended the school as well.
Following Angela's death in February, Lupiano vowed to find the link between the Colonia campus and the disease that he, his sister and his wife all experienced.
The 50-year-old started a Facebook group asking local residents in Woodbridge if they'd heard of similar diagnoses among alumni of Colonia High School.
Lupiano told NJ.com that he's gathered 94 names of people who have developed brain tumors since inquiring less than six weeks ago.
The disturbing link between the disease and alumni of the high school was chronicled by CBS News and featured in a subsequent viral TikTok, which had more than 2.2 million views in a 24-hour span.
The majority of Colonia alumni who developed the brain tumors are reported to have "graduated between 1975 and 2000," though there are also reports of "outliers" that graduated as recently as 2014 and diagnoses include “several types of primary brain tumors, including cancerous forms like glioblastoma and noncancerous yet debilitating masses such as acoustic neuromas, haemangioblastomas and meningiomas.”