Interesting parrallel CDC mindset

[Guest guest]

This is a very good article that outlines the CDC

methodology

http://www.publicintegrity.org/GreatLakes

Here’s the report that top officials of the Centers

for Disease Control and Prevention thought was too hot

for the public to handle—and the story behind it.

By Sheila Kaplan

For more than seven months, the nation’s top public

health agency has blocked the publication of an

exhaustive federal study of environmental hazards in

the eight Great Lakes states, reportedly because it

contains such potentially “alarming information” as

evidence of elevated infant mortality and cancer

rates.

Researchers found low birth weights, elevated

rates of infant mortality and premature births, and

elevated death rates from breast cancer, colon cancer,

and lung cancer.

The 400-plus-page study, Public Health Implications of

Hazardous Substances in the Twenty-Six U.S. Great

Lakes Areas of Concern, was undertaken by a division

of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at

the request of the International Joint Commission, an

independent bilateral organization that advises the

U.S. and Canadian governments on the use and quality

of boundary waters between the two countries. The

study was originally scheduled for release in July

2007 by the IJC and the CDC’s Agency for Toxic

Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).

The Center for Public Integrity has obtained the

study, which warns that more than nine million people

who live in the more than two dozen “areas of

concern”—including such major metropolitan areas as

Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee—may face

elevated health risks from being exposed to dioxin,

PCBs, pesticides, lead, mercury, or six other

hazardous pollutants.

In many of the geographic areas studied, researchers

found low birth weights, elevated rates of infant

mortality and premature births, and elevated death

rates from breast cancer, colon cancer, and lung

cancer.

Since 2004, dozens of experts have reviewed various

drafts of the study, including senior scientists at

the CDC, Environmental Protection Agency, and other

federal agencies, as well as scientists from

universities and state governments, according to

sources familiar with the history of the project.

“It raises very important questions,” Dr. Orris,

a professor at the University of Illinois School of

Public Health in Chicago and one of three experts who

reviewed the study for ATSDR, told the Center. While

Orris acknowledged that the study does not determine

cause and effect—a point the study itself

emphasizes—its release, he said, is crucial to

pointing the way for further research. “Communities

could demand that those questions be answered in a

more systematic way,” he said. “Not to release it is

putting your head under the sand.”

In a December 2007 letter to ATSDR in which he called

for the release of the study, Orris wrote: “This

report, which has taken years in production, was

subjected to independent expert review by the IJC’s

Health Professionals Task Force and other boards, over

20 EPA scientists, state agency scientists from New

York and Minnesota, three academics (including

myself), and multiple reviews within ATSDR. As such,

this is perhaps the most extensively critiqued report,

internally and externally, that I have heard of.”

Last July, several days before the study was to be

released, ATSDR suddenly withdrew it, saying that it

needed further review. In a letter to De

, then the director of the agency’s division of

toxicology and environmental medicine, Dr.

Frumkin, ATSDR’s chief, wrote that the quality of the

study was “well below expectations.” When the Center

contacted Frumkin’s office, a spokesman said that he

was not available for comment and that the study was

“still under review.”

De , who oversaw the study and has pressed for its

release, referred the Center’s requests for an

interview to ATSDR’s public affairs office, which,

over a period of two weeks, has declined to make him

available for comment. In an e-mail obtained by the

Center, De wrote to Frumkin that the delay in

publishing the study has had “the appearance of

censorship of science and distribution of factual

information regarding the health status of vulnerable

communities.”

Some members of Congress seem to agree. In a February

6, 2008, letter to CDC director Dr. Gerberding,

who’s also administrator of ATSDR, a trio of powerful

congressional Democrats—including Rep. Bart Gordon of

Tennessee, chairman of the Committee on Science and

Technology—complained about the delay in releasing the

report. The Center for Public Integrity obtained a

copy of the letter to Gerberding, which notes that the

full committee is reviewing “disturbing allegations

about interference with the work of government

scientists” at ATSDR. “You and Dr. Frumkin were made

aware of the Committee’s concerns on this matter last

December,” the letter adds, “but we have still not

heard any explanation for the decision to cancel the

release of the report.”

Canadian biologist Gilbertson, a former IJC

staffer and another of the three peer reviewers, told

the Center that the study has been suppressed because

it suggests that vulnerable populations have been

harmed by industrial pollutants. “It’s not good

because it’s inconvenient,” Gilbertson said. “The

whole problem with all this kind of work is wrapped up

in that word ‘injury.’ If you have injury, that

implies liability. Liability, of course, implies

damages, legal processes, and costs of remedial

action. The governments, frankly, in both countries

are so heavily aligned with, particularly, the

chemical industry, that the word amongst the

bureaucracies is that they really do not want any

evidence of effect or injury to be allowed out there.”

The IJC requested the study in 2001. Researchers

selected by the ATSDR not only reviewed data from

hazardous waste sites, toxic releases, and discharges

of pollutants but also, for the first time, mapped the

locations of schools, hospitals, and other facilities

to assess the proximity of vulnerable populations to

the sources of environmental contaminants. In March

2004, an official of the IJC wrote to De to thank

him for his role in the study, saying that he was

“enthusiastic about sharing this information with

Great Lakes Basin stakeholders and governments,” and

adding, “You are to be commended for your

extraordinary efforts.”

Unlike his Canadian counterpart, however, the ATSDR’s

Frumkin seems anything but thankful. De , a highly

respected scientist with a strong international

reputation from his 15 years in charge of ATSDR’s

division of toxicology and environmental medicine, was

demoted after he pushed Frumkin to publish the Great

Lakes report and other studies. De is seeking

reinstatement to his former position, claiming that

Frumkin illegally retaliated against him. Phone calls

to ATSDR seeking comment about the pending personnel

dispute were not returned.

“I think this is really pretty outrageous, both to

personally and to the report,” Dr.

Carpenter, a professor of public health at the State

University of New York at Albany and another of

ATSDR’s peer reviewers, told the Center for Public

Integrity.

Some members of Congress have also taken De ’s

side. That same February 6 letter to Gerberding, which

was co-signed by Rep. Brad of North Carolina,

chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations and

Oversight of the Science and Technology Committee, and

Rep. Nick Lampson of Texas, chairman of the

Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, expressed

concern that “management may have retaliated against”

De for blowing the whistle on ATSDR’s conduct

related to this investigation and another involving

work on formaldehyde in trailers supplied by the

Federal Emergency Management Agency to victims of

hurricanes Katrina and Rita. “The public is well

served by federal employees willing to speak up when

federal agencies act improperly, and Congress depends

upon whistle blowers for effective oversight,” the

letter states. “We will not tolerate retaliation

against any whistle blowers.”

Barry , a retired rear admiral in the U.S.

Public Health Service and a former assistant

administrator of ATSDR, told the Center that before he

left in 1999 he recommended that the agency

investigate the dangers that chemical contaminants

might pose to residents of the Great Lakes states.

“This research is quite important to the public health

of people who reside in that area,” said of

the study. “It was done with the full knowledge and

support of IJC, and many local health departments went

through this in various reviews. I don’t understand

why this work has not been released; it should be and

it must be released. In 37 years of public service,

I’ve never run into a situation like this.”

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