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Great Lakes Region A Potential Graveyard

Report: Government blocking study that could save millions

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ConsumerAffairs.Com

February 7, 2008

If you live in any of the eight Great Lakes states, you may be facing

serious health risks.

The Center for Public Integrity, a non-profit Washington, D.C.

investigative organization, says it has access to explosive

government research, hitherto unknown, that more than nine million

people who live in the more than two dozen Great Lakes states —

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.

The group cites a 400-plus-page study, Public Health Implications of

Hazardous Substances in the Twenty-Six U.S. Great Lakes Areas of

Concern, which 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 center claims that for more than seven months, the nation's top

public health agency blocked the publication of the exhaustive

federal study, reportedly because it contains such

potentially " alarming information " as evidence of elevated infant

mortality and cancer rates.

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).

Increased mortality

In many of the geographic areas studied, researchers are said to have

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. "

'Appearance of censorship'

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. "