The New Brunswick government has quietly abandoned plans for an independent study that would look for a connection between high cancer rates in the Belledune area and pollution from the nearby Xtrata Zinc Canada Brunswick lead smelter. The province said last week it would not follow through on a study announced last year that would have had researchers at Memorial University of Newfoundland follow up on a 2005 study...which found the region to have a higher rate of certain cancers and other diseases than the rest of the province...the Memorial researchers would have studied whether lead pollution was to blame.