Dealing with disease and death, a community fights PCB contamination

By Dana Drugmand

PITTSFIELD, Mass — For more than two decades, Nina McDermott was a fixture at Allendale Elementary School in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, teaching third grade to young students. Even after being diagnosed with breast cancer and then kidney cancer McDermott kept working, fighting for her life as well as her job – until it became clear that her battle to beat the disease could not be won.