CARF (Cancer Assistance Research Foundation), which has been tireless in its efforts to find a cure for the devastating disease, presented Dr. Jamie Bacon with a $400 cheque to help fund research.Latest findings from ongoing research revealed that more than 35 per cent of adult toads had abnormal ovaries and intestinal tracts.

"That is very concerning and we are trying to see what contaminants are in their tissues," Dr. Bacon said.

Dr. Bacon, a research associate with the Bermuda, Aquarium, Museum & Zoo, says she is taking a closer look at pesticides, petroleum hydrocarbons and heavy metals as the source of the toad and toadlet malformations.

"We are not sure what the source is, but it relates to human activity," she said.

Dr. Bacon said American experts on toad deformities had expressed concern about the frequency of amphibian malformation in Bermuda.

"Again, there needs to be more research before this question can be answered," she said.

In Minnesota after frog malformations were linked to impaired thyroid function, it was found that humans had a higher than expected incidence of thyroid cancer.

CARF was founded because of an alarming rate of a variety of cancers that claim the lives of individuals locally.

Frogs and toads are more vulnerable than many other creatures. Amphibians are considered the proverbial "canary in the coal mine" for environmental damage. The canary was used for detecting toxic or explosive gases in coal mines before there was a better way to do it.

More sensitive to such gases than humans, they would collapse long before the miners were affected, and a collapsed canary was therefore a signal to the miners to get out immediately, and to management to address the problem and clean up the site.

Amphibians are good "indicators" of significant environmental changes that may initially go undetected by humans. Humans breathe through lungs, which are inside our bodies and thus protected from direct contact with air and water.

Amphibians, however, breathe partially (and in some species, completely), through their skin, which is constantly exposed to the environment. Their bodies are much more vulnerable and sensitive to factors such as disease, pollution, toxic chemicals, radiation and habitat destruction.

The world-wide occurrences of amphibian declines and deformities could be an early warning to us of serious ecosystem imbalances.

CARF was founded in December 2002 as a new Bermuda cancer charity.

According to Dr. Bacon, CARF will provide assistance in three ways: Financially, educationally and spiritually by instilling various methods of the "I can beat cancer" approach.