Did The CDC Try To Cover Up Unsafe FEMA Trailers

February 14th, 2008

First of all, once again, it appears that FEMA can do no right. This institution is the height of bureaucratic incompetence; and a prime example of why many of us are weary of having to send our tax dollar to the govenment.

    CDC: Gulf Coast trailers have toxic air
    By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer

    ATLANTA - U.S. health officials are urging that Gulf Coast hurricane victims be moved out of their government-issued trailers as quickly as possible after tests found toxic levels of formaldehyde fumes.

    Fema Trailers

    Fumes from 519 trailer and mobile homes in Louisiana and Mississippi were — on average — about five times what people are exposed to in most modern homes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In some trailers, the levels were nearly 40 times customary exposure levels, raising fears that residents could contract respiratory problems.

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency — which supplied the trailers — should move people out quickly, with priority given to families with children, elderly people or anyone with asthma or other chronic conditions, said Mike McGeehin, director of a CDC division that focuses on environmental hazards.

    “We do not want people exposed to this for very much longer,” McGeehin said.

    While there are no federal safety standard for formaldehyde fumes in homes, the levels found in the trailers are high enough to cause burning eyes and breathing problems for people who have asthma or sensitivity to air pollutants, said McGeehin…

    Commonly used in manufactured homes, formaldehyde can cause respiratory problems and has been classified as a carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and as a probable carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

    Last May, FEMA officials dismissed findings by environmentalists that the trailers posed serious health risks. They said the trailers conformed to industry standards.

    Legislators also said the CDC ignored research from — and then demoted — one of its own experts, who concluded any level of exposure to formaldehyde may pose a cancer risk. A CDC spokesman has denied the allegations.

On that subject, an Atlanta Journal Constitution article goes on to say

A congressional committee is investigating “disturbing allegations” that officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suppressed critical information about cancer dangers posed by trailers housing Hurricane Katrina victims.

The committee also is looking into whether the Atlanta scientist who sought to make the risks public has been the subject of retaliation by the agency.

In a letter this week to CDC Director Julie Gerberding, committee members warned that they expect her to protect the scientist, Christopher De Rosa.

“The agency’s conduct has called into question its ability to investigate public health hazards accurately and appropriately in the future,” wrote the chairman and two subcommittee chairmen from the House Committee on Science and Technology in a letter Wednesday to Gerberding.

“Apparently in retaliation, Dr. De Rosa was removed from his post and given a job … that appears to include no real responsibilities,” the letter said.

This seems not to be the only cover up of health hazards that the CDC is engaged in.

    Now Public has The Report that was Too Hot For the Public to Handle

    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.

    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…

    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.

And the corruption administration just keeps on going!

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