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On Friday, June 26, 2009, ATSDR hosted a kick-off meeting to launch its National Conversation on Public Health and Chemical Exposures. Here’s how ATSDR describes the initiative:
The National Conversation on Public Health and Chemical Exposures is a collaborative initiative to identify and prioritize actions for strengthening the public health approach to chemical exposures. CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (NCEH/ATSDR) are sponsoring this project.
A day-long meeting was held on June 26, 2009 in Washington, DC for a day-long meeting to launch this exciting stakeholder and public involvement initiative. Keynote speakers will include U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Director Dr. Linda Birnbaum. Breakout sessions allowed for discussion of specific issues related to public health and chemical exposures.
The 18 month long National Conversation will offer many opportunities for involvement, including: expert working groups, regional and local face-to-face public meetings, and web-based discussions. The resulting action agenda will outline steps for NCEH/ATSDR and other institutions to take to better protect public health from harmful chemical exposures.
Due to scheduling conflicts, we were unable to attend the kick-off meeting but we’re very interested in this initiative and will try to keep readers posted on developments here.
Did you participate in the kick-off of this “conversation?” If so, we’d like to hear from you. Please share your thoughts in the comments or privately at tceblog[at]gmail.com.
This just in. We’re getting more details, will have update next week:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — LAWSUIT TO BE FILED REGARDING CAMP LEJEUNE WATER CONTAMINATION
The law offices of Anderson Pangia & Associates, PLLC (offices in Washington, D.C. and Winston Salem, North Carolina) and Smorto, Persio, Webb & McGill (of Ebensburg, Pennsylvania), will file on Monday July 6 a lawsuit arising from the toxic drinking water contamination at Camp Lejeune. The lawsuit alleges that the United States Government, through agents within the Department of Defense, knowingly exposed hundreds of thousands of Marines, sailors, their family members, and civilian employees to highly contaminated drinking water on the base at Camp Lejeune, while at the same time actively disseminating disinformation to those exposed in an effort to minimize the significance of the exposure.
The complaint, to be filed in federal court in the Eastern District of North Carolina, attaches numerous documentary exhibits in support of its allegations that the government knowingly, recklessly and/or negligently violated its own standards, rules and regulations by permitting the exposure to continue after the government was specifically warned the drinking water was “highly contaminated with . . . solvents!” and advised that “these appear[] to be at high levels and hence more important from a health standpoint. . . ” The lawsuit will allege that the Department of the Navy had regulations in place as early as 1963 which prohibited the contamination and which would have averted it had those regulations been obeyed; subsequently in 1974 the Commanding General of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina put in place additional regulations governing the proper disposal of the very same chemicals which were discovered later to be contaminating the drinking water; had these regulations been obeyed, the contamination likewise would have been prevented. This same 1974 base order declared these “organic solvents” to be hazardous, the lawsuit states.
Many scientists have called the drinking water contamination at Camp Lejeune the worst in the nation’s history. The contaminated drinking water was consumed by an estimated one million people.
The lawsuit will allege that exposure to the toxins caused numerous health problems including cancers, reproductive disorders and birth defects, among other maladies.
Joseph Anderson, Michael Pangia and Kevin Persio, the lawyers responsible for filing the suit, will answer questions of the media at a press conference to be held in front of the North Carolina State Capitol building, 1 East Edenton St. Raleigh, NC 27601 at 1:30 p.m. on Monday July 6, 2009. Call (336) 414-7958 for more information.
A report by the National Research Council, Contaminated Water Supplies at Camp Lejeune – Assessing Potential Health Effects, was released yesterday. Money quote:
The available scientific information does not provide a sufficient basis for determining whether the population at Camp Lejeune has, in fact, suffered adverse health effects as a result of exposure to contaminants in the water supplies.
[...]
[T]hese limitations cannot be overcome with additional study. Thus, the committee concludes that there is no scientific justification for the Navy and Marine Corps to wait for the results of additional health studies before making decisions about how to follow up on the evident solvent exposures on the base and their possible health consequences.
Though we’re not yet through the whole thing, the report appears to raise more questions than it answers — not so much about the exposed poisoned population at CL, but about the mindset, approach and conclusions of the NRC.
Andrea over at The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten has posted the the full report (PDF), as well as the report brief (PDF) and the executive summary (PDF).
We’ll be back with thoughts and questions once we trudge through the full report…stay tuned.
Last week’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune (FL) reports:
During the last 20 years, Tallevast residents say dozens of their neighbors have died prematurely. Others are still fighting cancer and beryllium-related health issues.
But a draft Florida Department of Health report on the community blighted by more than 200 acres of polluted ground water found just four cases of cancer.
The report could hardly be more different from a survey by residents that showed about 90 cases of cancer or beryllium-related diseases in the mainly black community.
DOH officials who met with the neighborhood group FOCUS on Monday agreed that their numbers, based on a state database and figures from a local hospital, were wildly off the mark. They also admitted they had studied the wrong ZIP code.
Although Tallevast has a post office, most Tallevast residents live in a Sarasota ZIP code.
“That’s one of the problems of dealing with a statewide database,” said Randy Merchant, a DOH administrator. “It’s hard to get a handle on what is happening in so small an area.”
The results left community leaders upset that state officials had not worked more closely with them to ensure errors like this did not happen.
“We’re angry,” said Wanda Washington, vice president of FOCUS. “We’re just not sure what road to take. No one ever came into the community to do a study. If you are doing it from behind a desk, you’re going to miss a lot.”
FOCUS’ figures on incidences of cancer came from a door-to-door survey quizzing families about their medical histories.
The community of about 80 homes sits above more than 200 acres of polluted ground water left behind by the former American Beryllium Co., which built parts for nuclear warheads for the federal government for nearly 40 years.
State officials said they will likely get an epidemiologist to conduct a similar door-to-door survey.
The cost would be about $125,000, they said.
State Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, said if the DOH cannot fund it he will look for other funding sources.
“I’ve committed myself to help see that that happens so that the question can be answered and a more accurate picture developed,” Galvano said.
Residents in Tallevast have asked Lockheed Martin, the company responsible for the cleanup of the site, to pay for them to move. They have also filed several lawsuits against Lockheed and other companies that operated at the site seeking damages for health issues and falling property values.
Lockheed became the owner of the Tallevast site after the company acquired the former Loral company in 1996. It shut down the plant and sold the property, but not before discovering soil and ground-water pollution on and around the site.
In 2000, Lockheed notified county and state officials of the pollution, which included trichloroethylene, or TCE, a compound linked to liver and kidney cancer and other ailments.
Residents, who were not informed for almost four more years, continued to use well water. Their homes were switched to the county drinking water system in 2004.
FOCUS leaders said they would welcome state officials’ repeating their survey.
“We think the state will be better at it,” Washington said. “You need to put your feet on the ground and come out here and collect that information.”
Mike Partain is a breast cancer survivor. He was diagnosed years after his exposure to toxins at Camp Lejeune, NC. Tallahassee.com tells his story:
Poisoned at Camp LeJeune, snookered by Uncle Sam
Bill Berlow
Associate Editor
Mike Partain, son and grandson of Marine Corps veterans, grew up steeped in traditional American values — a rock-solid Reagan Republican whose life, even before birth, began among the few, the proud, at Camp LeJeune, N.C.
But for the past year, the 40-year-old Tallahassee insurance claims adjuster’s faith in his government has been shaken to its core.
He’d always assumed that Uncle Sam, first and foremost, had the health and welfare of U.S. citizens at the top of his priority list — especially if they’d worn the uniform.
Now he’s much less sure.
Partain’s crisis of doubt began a year ago, when his wife gave him “a hug that changed my life.” She found a lump, which turned out to be a cancerous tumor. A 14-inch surgical scar where Partain’s right breast used to be is the physical evidence of his breast cancer.
Less obvious is the psychological scar — both as a cancer survivor still undergoing treatment and as one who feels his government betrayed a trust.
Not long after he learned he had cancer, Partain found out that his recurring rash since birth and his breast cancer — rare among men, particularly those with no family history of the illness — probably stemmed from his exposure during fetal development and the first year of his life to water contaminated with tetrachloroethylene, a solvent used in dry cleaning.
Just two months after Partain’s wife felt the lump, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry acknowledged that Marines and their families who between 1957 and 1987 lived in the LeJeune neighborhood where his family lived, drank water contaminated with extremely high levels of the carcinogenic chemical.
Partain and a network of former LeJeune residents who believe their serious health problems are due to the poisoning point out, however, that the government first knew of the contamination in the early 1980s — but did little or nothing to let the former Marines and their families know they were at risk.
“At this time last year, I was dying and I didn’t know,” Partain said. “The government knew I was dying and didn’t tell me. That burns me up.”
The LeJeune families can’t sue the feds, since the government hasn’t waived its sovereign-immunity protection. The military, meanwhile, is protected by the Ferris Doctrine, a 1950s-era ruling that protects the armed services from legal action by the men and women who serve — the idea being that if a soldier was wounded in battle because of a commanding officer’s dumb decision, the country would be worse off if the government had to battle personal-injury lawyers as well as foreign enemies.
I first met Partain in the fall of 2006, several months before his diagnosis. He was the adjuster for an insurance claim we filed. A former teacher from Winter Haven, where he grew up, he and I talked of his deep regret about having to give up teaching to support his wife and four children. That conversation even helped inspire a column about ex-teachers in November of that year.
Last year, after he told me his illness motivated his involvement in a crusade to reveal the truth behind the LeJeune environmental debacle, the Tallahassee Democrat reported his story on July 9, a few weeks after a congressional hearing on the LeJeune families.
A congressional investigation is still under way, and Partain has gotten help from U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Monticello, who called Partain’s story and that of other LeJeune families “deeply troubling, to say the least.”
Boyd’s office, which has tried to navigate the federal and military bureaucracies for Partain, said he is one of seven constituents in the congressman’s North Florida district who are seeking more information related to the LeJeune contamination.
Now Partain reluctantly acknowledges that he’s an activist, a word he’s still not comfortable with because of his conservative upbringing and beliefs.
When I likened the experience of the LeJeune Marine families to military victims of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, Partain agreed.
“Defend, deny and delay,” he said, describing the government’s strategy in the face of claims that Agent Orange was responsible for a slew of veterans’ illnesses. “And that’s what they’re doing to us.”
Partain (strashni@comcast.net) was to share his story last night with vets at the American Legion post on Lake Ella. Even though he doesn’t realistically expect compensation from the government, it’s part of his personal commitment to spread the word about those exposed to the poison, estimated to number upwards of a million Americans.
It’s one more example of a government’s betrayal — always shocking, but, sadly, no longer surprising and, as Partain says, quickly forgotten.
This is hardly breaking news, but we’re still catching up on things we missed. Since receiving this press release, we have also obtained a copy of the complaint or, as it’s known in Canada, the statement of claim. The facts are just enraging (e.g. TCE levels in the air inside the Vitez’s home were discovered above 200 ug/m3). We’re still deciding how to make these available on the blog since they are lengthy. In the meantime, if you’d like a digital copy, feel free to contact us.
For now, here’s the official press release:
Toxic air and contaminated groundwater blamed for chronic illnesses in multi-million dollar lawsuit
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – MARCH 14, 2008
CAMBRIDGE, ON – Northstar Aerospace, GE Canada and Rozell Inc., are amongst the Cambridge-based businesses named in a multi-million dollar environmental lawsuit. Spearheaded by Denis and Deborah Vitez, the suit points to these businesses as being responsible for groundwater contamination and toxic air in local residents’ homes, and in the case of the Vitez family, resulting in chronic breathing problems, Parkinson’s Syndrome and neurological damages which have escalated over the past five years. The suit claims that the companies were aware that toxic levels of the human carcinogens Trichloroethylene (TCE) and Chromium were seeping into the groundwater in the vicinity of their Bishop Street plants.
The Vitez family is seeking punitive and general damages, citing negligence, failure to disclose information, misconduct, and failure to comply with the Environmental Protection Act, among other claims against the defendants. TCE, a solvent used for degreasing metal parts, is considered a toxic substance and probable human carcinogen under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Chromium is also classified by health organizations as a human carcinogen. Due to the companies’ failure to properly handle, store and dispose of the substances, the Vitez family has suffered through years of discomfort and pain, culminating in the diagnoses of asthma and severe sinus infection in Mrs. Vitez, and symptoms indicating Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinsonism – a group of nervous disorders with symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease – in the case of Mr. Vitez.
Paul Mann, Counsel for the Vitez family, and one of Canada’s top litigators in health-related matters, explains, “These companies knew they were contaminating the water and air with toxic chemicals, failed to warn homeowners that levels were in excess of Ministry of Environment (MOE) standards, and failed to prevent further release of the chemicals after they first learned of the leakage and discharge. Denis and Deborah Vitez may never get their health back as a result and it is time for justice to be served.”
Denis and Deborah Vitez married in November 2003, and she moved into the house that the widower had shared with his first wife Donna since 2000. Donna had often complained about a strange odour in their house before she died in 2002 from brain cancer that had mysteriously resurfaced after three years in remission. Additionally in late 2003, Northstar Aerospace conducted tests on their Bishop Street property and concluded it was contaminated with TCE and Chromium at levels that exceeded MOE standards (a reading of over 230). Testing was expanded to include a wider area, but it took the company over a year to publicly state that the property was severely contaminated, that TCE had migrated through the groundwater and that TCE vapours had seeped into some of the buildings and properties in the area.
The company promised to take measures to resolve contamination issues in affected homes, including gutting and resealing basements, and removing toxic vapours through the installation of Heppa filters and air exchangers. Work at the Vitez residence commenced in December 2005 with a promise of completion within two months. Just days into the process, the Vitez family was forced to vacate for 11 days due to a noxious odour. Then, in early 2006 their recently resealed basement was torn up for plumbing modifications by Northstar’s contractors. During the three weeks of this construction, the Vitezes remained in their house, assured by company PR representatives that the toxicity levels were nothing to worry about. However, no air quality tests were conducted during this time period. Work was still underway well into May 2006.
Denis Vitez’s first tremors appeared in late autumn 2005. He was also waking nightly for months due to tingling and pain in his extremities. Deborah Vitez subsequently began having breathing problems and embarked upon an exhausting and frustrating course of treatment for what would be diagnosed as severe asthma, throat and sinus infections. For the next two years both would see various doctors and specialists, including a neurologist for Denis, who ordered numerous tests, blood work and brain scans. The ultimate diagnosis was Parkinsonism, with additional symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis.
“We were devastated by this news,” says Denis. “We were both feeling unwell and dealing with so much stress. Then in August 2006, Northstar began digging on our property without our consent. Two weeks later, we learned the contamination under our home was dangerously high. We moved out immediately on our own expense, and haven’t returned since. It’s too much of a risk. We want the responsible parties to own up to their negligence and irresponsibility.”
Paul Mann is a sole practitioner who operates his practice in the City of Cambridge, Ontario. He has been litigating complex medical malpractice issues, for plaintiffs only, for approximately 30 years. Mr. Mann has won the Bruce Hillyer Award for litigation and the advancement of justice on two separate occasions. He was also honoured by the Ontario Trial Lawyers Association with the “Celebration of the Personal Injury Bar” award as a leader in his profession for the year 2007. Ron Culley, co-council on this case, has extensive experience with health-related matters as a trial lawyer and practises in Waterloo, Ontario.
For further information or to arrange an interview with Paul Mann, Denis or Deborah Vitez, contact: Sandra Perron or Pat Hayward at 519-623-0700.
Update: Since many folks have arrived here looking for it, you can now download the Statement of Claim here .
We learn this by way of the Environment News Service:
The Natural Resources Defense Council and two residents of Dickson, Tennessee have filed a lawsuit against the Dickson County and city governments. They allege that trichloroethylene, TCE, an industrial chemical disposed at the Dickson Landfill that has been linked to neurological and developmental harm and cancer, poses an imminent and substantial endangerment to human health and the environment.
Dickson, a town of some 12,000 people is located about 35 miles west of Nashville. [map]
The Dickson County Landfill, 74 acres off Eno Road, sits within 500 to 2,000 feet of approximately 40 homes, most owned by blacks.
This community group is fighting to rid their area of contamination from the Dickson County landfill.
One African American family in particular, the Holts, a family of black landowners, has been especially harmed by the chemical. Many Holt family members are struggling with cancer and other illnesses, and two of its members are plaintiffs in this lawsuit.
The environmental group and Sheila Holt-Orsted and Beatrice Holt allege that TCE pollution has seeped beneath the landfill to underlying groundwater and has spread through a large area of Dickson County.
TCE contamination has rendered water from wells and springs as far as two to three miles from the landfill unfit for human consumption, the plaintiffs claim.
Polluted spring water is flowing directly into the West Piney River, a fishing stream and a major source of drinking water for the Water Authority of Dickson County. Several square miles of Dickson County have been recognized as an ‘imminent threat’ area by the county.
TCE contamination above drinking water limits, and orders of magnitude above U.S. Environmental Protection Agency screening levels for drinking water, has been found in at least one well even beyond that threat area.
In some areas, this TCE contamination may be growing worse, the plaintiffs claim, but the city and county have not done anything to remove the contamination.
“Some two decades after TCE was first detected in nearby drinking water sources, those responsible have not even fully characterized the present extent and likely future spread of the contamination. Defendants have, in effect, surrendered the ground and surface water of Dickson County to the slow spread of an invisible and toxic chemical,” the complainants said in a statement.
The complaint asks the Court to require the defendants to investigate the present extent and future spread of TCE contamination from the landfill in the soil, surface water, and groundwater of Dickson County; to remediate and abate TCE contamination.
Holt-Orsted has undergone six surgeries and chemotherapy for breast cancer. The Holts originally filed lawsuits in 2003 and 2004, naming the city and county of Dickson and the state of Tennessee, and claiming the family was a victim of negligence that resulted in their cancers and other health problems.
Attorneys for the county and state deny the claims in the earlier lawsuits.
An article [entitled Deadly Tenessee Two-Step Pushes Leaky Landfill Away from Officials' Homes] by Robert Bullard, director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia, gives background and detailed water test information.
The following opinion piece by Donna Jackson Nakazawa originally appeared in the Washington Post as an article entitled “Diseases Like Mine Are a Growing Hazard” on Sunday, March 16, 2008.
Autoimmune diseases — a group of about 100 conditions in which the body’s immune system turns on the body itself — are reaching epidemic proportions. In the past decade, 15 top medical journals have reported rising rates of lupus, multiple sclerosis, scleroderma, Crohn’s disease, Addison’s disease and polymyositis in industrialized countries around the world. Over the past 40 years, rates of Type 1 diabetes have increased fivefold; in children 4 and under, it’s increasing 6 percent a year.
If I wanted to make a movie about my life, I’d pitch it to Hollywood as “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” meets “An Inconvenient Truth,” the Academy Award-winning Al Gore documentary about global warming. Rising levels of autoimmune disease may well prove to be the next environmental disaster — only in this case, the changes taking place degree by degree are in the interior landscapes of our bodies.
[...]
I’ve spent the past two years interviewing leading experts at top medical institutions nationwide to find out why cases of autoimmune disease are skyrocketing. In recent years, many allergists and immunologists have been attributing the rise to the “hygiene hypothesis” — the theory that our germ-free homes and childhood vaccinations have eliminated challenges to our immune systems so that they don’t learn how to defend us properly when we’re young. The scientists I interviewed tended to discard the idea that this alone is responsible. They agreed almost to a person that our day-to-day exposure to environmental toxins — through the air we breathe and the chemicals we absorb through our skin — is a major trigger of autoimmune disease. “Exposures from our environment are a significant contributor to today’s rising rates,” says Douglas Kerr, director of the Johns Hopkins Transverse Myelitis Center and a top clinician at the Johns Hopkins Multiple Sclerosis Center.
In 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sampled 2,500 people nationwide looking for the “body burden,” or amount of chemicals and pollutants each individual carried. They found traces of all 116 chemicals and pollutants they tested for, including PCBs, insecticides, dioxin, mercury, cadmium and benzene, all highly toxic in higher doses. Then, in 2005, researchers from the Environmental Working Group found something more alarming: a cocktail of 287 pollutants — pesticides, dioxins, flame retardants — in the fetal-cord blood of 10 newborn infants from around the country. [Ed. Note: More on these can be found in the following PDF: National Learning and Developmental Disabilities Advocacy
Groups Analyze Body Burden Studies]
Because most toxins are found in only trace amounts, it has been difficult to gauge what effect they might be having on our health. Yet studies of both lab animals and people provide disturbing insights into how even low exposures can cause our immune systems to go haywire. Mice exposed to pesticides at levels four times lower than the level the Environmental Protection Agency sets as acceptable for humans are more susceptible to getting lupus than control mice. Mice that absorb low doses of trichloroethylene — a chemical used in dry cleaning, household paint thinners, glues and adhesives — at levels the EPA deems safe and equal to what a factory worker might encounter today, quickly develop autoimmune hepatitis. And low doses of perfluorooctanoic acid, a breakdown chemical of Teflon found in 96 percent of humans tested for it, impair rats’ development of a proper immune system.
Read the full Washington Post piece here.
Meanwhile, we should point out that permanent, quantitative immune system changes have been documented in workers (not just mice) exposed to low levels of TCE.
Toxic TCE vapors are entering homes in Dayton. Though EPA is on the case, they’ve run into a few complications:
Efforts to make homes safe from contaminated groundwater fumes near the Behr Dayton Thermal Products plant, 1600 Webster St., have run into problems at as many as 10 homes.
And the effort to clean indoor air contamination at a nearby school is ongoing, authorities have said.
TCE fumes have migrated from the soil into the homes, businesses and schools, creating potentially hazardous vapors.
In homes that have dirt basement floors, those floors must be sealed for the air evacuation systems to work properly, said Mark Case, director of environmental health for Public Health Dayton & Montgomery County.
Levels of contamination in the problematic homes have reportedly dropped below 10 ppb. That’s still 25 times the Ohio Department of Health’s exposure limit of .4 ppb.
Read the full article in the Dayton Daily News.
This news is not good:
ScienceDaily (Feb. 21, 2008) — The consequence of maternal exposure to a variety of potentially toxic agents during pregnancy remains the prime focus of concern in scientific endeavors and in society at large.
However, there is now mounting evidence that paternal exposure can also adversely affect fetal and postnatal development of offspring and that this imprint can be expressed in subsequent generations.
[...]
The reported impact on offspring outcome includes low birth weight; increase in childhood cancers; developmental, behavioral, endocrine abnormalities and cross-generational effects.
We already know that TCE-exposure, even at low levels, can cause permanent genetic damage. The notion that this damage is passed along by TCE-exposed fathers to subsequent generations has staggering public health implications for millions of Americans.
To be fair, we should mention this news came in the form of a symposium announcement rather than as a breaking investigative story. The symposium is being organized by Gladys Friedler, Ph.D., of Boston University School of Medicine and is entitled The Father and Fetus Revisited. You can read more about it here.
A UCLA study recently linked increased physical activity at work with a decreased chance of developing prostate cancer. In addition, it linked exposure to TCE (amongst a handful of other chemicals) with increased rates of prostate cancer. According to UCLA’s Johnson Cancer Center:
Researchers studied more than 2,100 men who worked at the Rocketdyne facility in the San Fernando Valley, many of whom were exposed to radiation and chemicals that may have increased their risk for certain cancers. The research team identified 362 men who developed prostate cancer and compared them to 1,805 men of similar age and socioeconomic status who did not get prostate cancer.
The study, done in conjunction with researchers at the Olive View-UCLA Education and Research Institute and the University of Michigan, appears in the February issue of the journal Cancer Causes Control.
“The message from this study for today is that if you’re more active, you may be able to prevent this cancer from happening,” said Beate Ritz, a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher, an associate professor of epidemiology in the UCLA School of Public Health and the study’s senior author. “If you have a desk job, do something physically active to counterbalance it.”
[...]
The study found that the men who developed prostate cancer were less likely to hold the more physically active jobs. Those that got cancer also were more likely than the control group to be highly exposed to the chemicals that were evaluated, including hydrazine, benzene, mineral oil, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and trichloroethylene (TCE), which are known or suspected carcinogens.
Though the focus on physical activity appears to be the main thrust of this research, we think the TCE-related finding is worth highlighting.
Read the news about the study here. For the study itself (”Nested case–control study of occupational physical activity and prostate cancer among workers using a job exposure matrix”), see here.
The ATSDR has delivered yet another report concluding that a contamination site poses “no apparent public health risk.” Just toss it in the pile. Feel free to roll your eyes. (For those who don’t know, ATSDR is notorious for producing these reports)
There is “no apparent public health risk” at the North Brunswick Township High School and its surrounding areas associated with the soil contamination found in 2003, according to a preliminary public health assessment.
Last Thursday, township officials and representatives from the New Jersey State Department of Health and Senior Services and the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry held a meeting to discuss the remediation project that resulted from the expansion of the high school in 2003. The primary concern for the school, Veterans Park, Judd Elementary School, a PSE&G easement and six nearby residences was arsenic in surface soil, lead in settled dust and tetrachloroethylene (TCE) [sic] in groundwater.
In July 2003, waste material consisting of pharmaceutical and laboratory wastes, glass vials, bottles and an unidentified dark brown material were uncovered near and within the Oval area of the high school, which is where the current auditorium sits. It is believed that the site was used as a municipal dump between the 1940s and 1960s. Approximately 9,200 cubic yards of waste materials and soil were excavated and removed, according to the report.
Since that time, officials said 54 soil samples and 18 interior surface samples were taken from the high school, and 10 interior surface samples were collected from Judd, with follow-up tests conducted. The high school perimeter and football field, as well as the neighboring park and residences at block 143, lots 94.01 and 95.01 were also examined.
Although remediation is still needed at Veterans Park and efforts will continue to oversee and limit any possible groundwater and vapor contamination, the report states that there are no cancer or noncancer health risks associated with the project.
We note that the story seems to confuse TCE and PCE. It is not clear which of these is the contaminant of concern referenced above. No matter which it is, residents were reportedly suspicious of the report’s findings:
One parent claimed his son “lived in the dirt” for 18 years as an athlete and developed a brain tumor, although he is not positive there is a correlation. A student noted that the epidemiology report is only calculated through 2001, but statistics may have changed through 2008. Another person mentioned that the cancer rates should be evaluated specific to the area surrounding the high school and not broadened out to the general population, since any health effects will involve North Brunswick.
Also, residents are concerned that there could have been inhalation of chemicals since the investigation and remediation phase began, and that sites that have not been remediated, such as the high school perimeter, the overused football field and Judd school, could have contaminants in the soil that become disturbed and loosened as time goes on. One parent is concerned that no additional testing was done at Judd before the current expansion and renovation project began.
Read the full story in the North Brunswick Sentinel (NJ).
Update: Strangely, the report above fails to mention that ATSDR conducted a separate public health assessment re: exposure to Arsenic and TCE at 3 nearby residences in 2005 (yeah, we confirmed the contaminant is TCE and not PCE). They reported TCE contamination in groundwater at levels up to 140 ppb, TCE in indoor air in homes at levels of 12μg/m3, and arsenic dust that coated indoor air surfaces. They concluded that past exposure posed a public health hazard and, at the time, ongoing exposure posed an indeterminate public health hazard.
We suspect we’re going to be hearing more on this story. As always, we’ll try to keep you psted.
According to the Press & Sun-Bulletin (NY):
A second wave of legal claims seeking damages from IBM Corp. related to pollution in Endicott has been filed in state Supreme Court in Binghamton, bringing the total to more than 240 plaintiffs, with more on the way.
The 82-page document representing 151 property owners and residents was filed electronically late Friday afternoon by Philip Johnson, an attorney with the Vestal law firm of Levene Gouldin & Thompson. Johnson is part of a team of seven law firms representing more than 1,000 clients in the massive toxic tort case against IBM seeking more than $100 million in damages for a range of hardships related to the pollution. They include cancer and other illnesses, property devaluation, loss of business, medical expenses and related monitoring, and hassles of dealing with the pollution.
The first wave of claims, representing 94 plaintiffs, was filed early last month.
Read the full story here.
To better protect people from TCE , we must (amongst other things) eliminate the difference between the standard of protection for our workplaces and the standard of protection for our homes. The standard of protection for TCE in the air is an example where the difference between protection at work and home is intolerable.
For those who don’t know, the safety of the air in your workplace is governed by standards set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The air in your home is governed by guidelines established by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In too many cases, OSHA’s standards for the workplace are drastically less protective than EPA’s guidelines for homes.
Just how much more TCE does OSHA allow in workers’ air? At least several hundred thousand times more than EPA allows in their homes.
The result? Workers are being poisoned…and OSHA is allowing it.
In a March 2007 paper entitled “Regulating Vapor Intrusion: What Standards Should Apply,” the authors highlight this disparity in a handy table:
TCE Standards or Guidance Levels for Indoor Vapor Concentration
For those who don’t know, the OSHA standard above was set based on 1967 standards and has remained the same to this day. With all we have learned about TCE’s dangers since 1967 – including that it causes cancer and other significant diseases/health problems – workers remain as exposed and at as much risk of TCE-induced disease as workers of nearly 40 years ago.
Why is the air at work hundreds of thousands of times less safe than the air at home? How many people are poisoned by TCE at work to this day because of this disparity?
Of course, TCE is just one example of a chemical where workplace protection standards are outdated. Over at The Pump Handle, a blog that bills itself as a water cooler for the public health crowd, we learn that Beryllium is another example.
In a post entitled “Why do OSHA Standards Remain the Same, Even When the Science Changes?” David Michaels describes his look at outdated workplace exposure standards for Beryllium. Any of this sound familiar?
In a 1947 report, entitled Public Relations Problems in Connection with Occupational Diseases in the Beryllium Industry, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) asserted that the ability of the US government to produce nuclear weapons was threatened by the high incidence of severe health effects associated with exposure to beryllium, a metal vital to weapons production. In response, the AEC established a workplace exposure limit that dramatically reduced beryllium disease incidence. This limit is known as the “taxicab standard” since it was determined by two AEC scientists working in the back seat of a taxi on their way to a meeting.
Over the next several decades, however, increasingly powerful evidence accumulated that Chronic Beryllium Disease (CBD), a progressive and irreversible inflammatory lung disease, was associated with exposure to levels below the “taxicab standard,” and by the 1990s, scores of workers employed in the production of nuclear weapons had been diagnosed with CBD.
Attempting to prevent strengthened government regulation, and to avoid negative publicity that would discourage use of the metal, the beryllium industry waged a concerted effort over decades to counter the accumulating scientific evidence of beryllium’s toxicity. The industry relied on expert services provided by a major public relations company and a leading ‘product defense’ firm. Eventually, when the scientific evidence became so great that it was no longer credible to deny that workers developed CBD at levels permitted by an out-dated standard, the industry responded with a new rationale for delay: that more research was needed to determine the best standard.
The industry’s efforts have been, for the most part, successful. While each year brings new studies linking CBD with beryllium exposures below the current standard, the “taxicab standard” remains the limit enforced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in private sector workplaces. New CBD cases have been reported recently in metal recycling facilities. US civilian nuclear weapons workers have greater protection than private sector workers; in 1999 the Department of Energy issued strengthened beryllium regulations, reducing the workplace exposure level that triggers protective action by a factor of 10.
The lessons from this case study for public health policymakers include:
- The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. The lack of CBD cases in the 1950s should not have been seen as proof the standard was adequate.
- The interpretation of scientific data by those with financial incentives must be discounted. Industry scientists defended the “taxicab standard” long after it was correctly recognized as inadequate by independent scientists.
- In particular, work by scientists employed by firms specializing in product defense and litigation support must be seen for what it is: advocacy, rather than science. This study illuminates the practice of “manufacturing uncertainty,” the strategy used by some polluters and manufacturers of hazardous products to prevent or delay regulation or victim compensation.
- To best protect public health, we must consider the hazards associated with a toxic material through the entire life cycle of the product.
President Bush recently signed the Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. In doing so, he approved a provision requiring notification to marines, families, and employees who may have been exposed to contamination at the base. The language of the bill provides:
SEC. 315. NOTIFICATION
OF CERTAIN RESIDENTS AND CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES AT
w:st=”on”>CAMP LEJEUNE, NORTH CAROLINA,
OF EXPOSURE TO DRINKING WATER CONTAMINATION.
(a) Notification of Individuals Served by Tarawa
Terrace Water Distribution System, Including Knox Trailer Park- Not later than
1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Navy
shall make reasonable efforts to identify and notify directly individuals who
were served by the Tarawa Terrace Water Distribution System, including Knox
Trailer Park, at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, during
the years 1958 through 1987 that they may have been exposed to drinking water
contaminated with tetrachloroethylene (PCE).
(b) Notification of Individuals Served by
class=SpellE>Hadnot Point Water Distribution System- Not later than 1
year after the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)
completes its water modeling study of the Hadnot
Point water distribution system, the Secretary of the Navy shall make
reasonable efforts to identify and notify directly individuals who were served
by the system during the period identified in the study of the drinking water
contamination to which they may have been exposed.
(c) Notification of Former Civilian Employees at
Camp Lejeune- Not later than 1 year after the date of
the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Navy shall make reasonable
efforts to identify and notify directly civilian employees who worked at Camp
class=SpellE>Lejeune during the period identified in the ATSDR drinking
water study of the drinking water contamination to which they may have been
exposed.
(d) Circulation of Health Survey-
(1) FINDINGS- Congress makes the following findings:
(A) Notification and survey efforts related to the
drinking water contamination described in this section are necessary due to the
potential negative health impacts of these contaminants.
(B) The Secretary of the Navy will not be able to
identify or contact all former residents and former employees due to the
condition, non-existence, or accessibility of records.
(C) It is the intent of Congress that the
Secretary of the Navy contact as many former residents and former employees as
quickly as possible.
(2) ATSDR HEALTH SURVEY-
(A) DEVELOPMENT-
(i) IN GENERAL- Not
later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the ATSDR, in
consultation with a well-qualified contractor selected by the ATSDR, shall
develop a health survey that would voluntarily request of individuals described
in subsections (a), (b), and (c) personal health information that may lead to
scientifically useful health information associated with exposure to
trichloroethylene (TCE), PCE, vinyl chloride, and the other contaminants
identified in the ATSDR studies that may provide a basis for further reliable
scientific studies of potentially adverse health impacts of exposure to
contaminated water at Camp Lejeune.
(ii) FUNDING- The Secretary of the Navy is
authorized to provide from available funds the necessary funding for the ATSDR
to develop the health survey.
(B) INCLUSION WITH NOTIFICATION- The survey
developed under subparagraph (A) shall be distributed by the Secretary of the
Navy concurrently with the direct notification required under subsections (a),
(b), and (c).
(e) Use of Media To Supplement
Notification- The Secretary of the Navy may use media notification as a
supplement to direct notification of individuals described under subsections
(a), (b), and (c). Media notification may reach those individuals not
identifiable via remaining records. Once individuals respond to media
notifications, the Secretary will add them to the contact list to be included
in future information updates.
Congratulations to all of those who helped make this happen.
The Northwest Herald (IL) has created an outstanding multimedia presentation that tells the story of the McCullom Lake cancer lawsuits. And boy, what a way to tell the story!
They include video interviews with plaintiffs and with attorneys for both sides, map of the contamination area, documents associated with the lawsuit (including an important expert report from Redpath’s Dr. Sidney Finkelstein that we will highlight at another time) and more.
For those interested in McCullom Lake, the causal connection between brain cancers and TCE/vinyl chloride/chlorinated solvent exposure, and legal actions for personal injuries caused by chlorinated ethylenes, we highly recommend you check it out.
Warning: The title of the presentation is “Coincidence or Cluster?” We believe this is a poorly-chosen title and it does not properly reflect the main issue in these suits. The main issue, as we understand it, is whether or not the defendants’ chemicals caused the individual plaintiffs’ cancers. Whether McCullom Lake’s cancers can be considered a cancer cluster is a red herring. So please ignore the overly simplistic title, but do check out the presentation.
The Northwest Herald (McHenry County, IL) reports:
Modine Manufacturing tentatively has settled out of court in the McCullom Lake brain-cancer cases, agreeing to pay an undisclosed sum to the 22 plaintiffs and $2 million to settle a class-action lawsuit.
If approved by a U.S. District Court judge, the settlement announced Friday would end Modine’s financial liability in the lawsuits, which tied pollution from its Ringwood manufacturing plant to brain-, nerve- and pituitary-cancer victims. That would leave Rohm and Haas, which operates a plant just north of Modine’s, and subsidiary Morton International as the only remaining defendants.
Modine does not, in any way, admit liability with the settlement, said James Rulseh, vice president of the company’s American operations. The lawsuits alleged that Modine contaminated groundwater and air with trichloroethylene, a chemical used as an industrial-strength degreaser, which in turn broke down into carcinogenic vinyl chloride.
[...]
The class-action lawsuit and the first three individual lawsuits were filed in April 2006. Three former McCullom Lake next-door neighbors, about a mile to the south of the factories, were diagnosed with brain cancer within eight months of one another.
Of the $2 million class-action settlement, Modine will pay $1.4 million toward a medical monitoring program to reimburse current or former village residents who want an MRI. Another $100,000 will establish a fund to reimburse property owners seeking property value relief, and the remaining $500,000 will pay for court-approved attorney’s fees and settlement costs.
Payments to the 22 individual plaintiffs will remain confidential under the settlement, attorney Aaron Freiwald said. The damage cases were filed in state court in Philadelphia, home to Freiwald’s law office and Rohm and Haas’ world headquarters.
Of the plaintiffs, 18 have brain or nerve cancer, three have pituitary cancer, and one has cirrhosis of the liver of unknown origin. Eight of the plaintiffs have died, all but one from glioblastoma multiforme, a deadly brain cancer that occurs in just more than 3 people per 100,000.
[...]
Freiwald said Friday that the settlement allowed him to focus all of his scrutiny on Rohm and Haas, which he said by far was the major contributor to contamination. The factory, owned at the time by Morton, dumped wastes into an 8-acre landfill/lagoon between 1960 and 1977. Rohm and Haas assumed control of the factory in 2005, six years after acquiring Morton for $5 billion.
[...]
The medical-monitoring class includes anyone who lived in village limits for at least one cumulative year between Jan. 1, 1968, and Dec. 31, 2002. The property damage class includes anyone who owned property in the village between April 25, 2006 – the date the class-action lawsuit was filed – and Jan. 18, 2008.
Read the full story here.
The East Valley Tribune (AZ) has just called bullsh*t on American Arizona Water company for suggesting that all customers had been warned about its recent TCE leak. In response to customer complaints about their failure to notify and their failure to be truthful about it, AAW’s spokesperson fessed up:
Todd Walker, Arizona American spokesman, acknowledged the company’s reverse 911 notification system, which sends automated alert messages to customers, only reaches about 65 percent of those households.
“We apologize that we were unable to reach every single customer individually,” Walker said. “We recognized that it was an imperfect system going into it. No system is able to contact 100 percent of the people 100 percent of the time.”
Read the full story.
Over the past few days, news reports coming out of Scottsdale and Paradise Valley have suggested that all Arizona American Water customers were notified of the failure that caused elevated levels of TCE to pour through their taps.
According to EPA (emphasis added),
AZ American Water and the PCs went into response mode and notified all customers who would have gotten that water;
According to news reports (emphasis added):
Private water utility Arizona American Water Co. advised its nearly 5,000 customers in Scottsdale and Paradise Valley Wednesday to drink bottled water after discovering a malfunction that may have allowed a suspected cancer-causing chemical into their tap water.
The TCE Blog has learned that these statements simply are not true. As we have learned from residents, many were not notified by the water company. Two examples of the comments and emails we have received follow below:
I am a customer of AZ-american water, and I was not informed of the risk today. I have lived in the same house since 1986, and have had the same phone number, so I question whether everyone was informed. I did not learn about it until the 10 o’clock news.
Please update your blog so that it accurately reflects that AW did NOT notify “all consumers through its automated-feature call” as they told the media. In fact, Kiva Elementary School and all the residents [we] have spoken with in our neighborhood…did not learn about the TCE contaminated water supply from American Water, but from our local evening news. Many of our neighbors were still unaware of the situation the next day until we informed them. Moreover, there are likely many elderly individuals who to this day are not aware that they should not be consuming the TCE-contaminated water.
American Water has been far less than candid with its consumers and the public. This company has a poor track record when it comes to accurately reporting TCE contamination. Please don’t give AW credit for notifying customers when in fact it did not.
Meantime, a number of folks have written to us asking about the safety of using TCE-contaminated water for bathing or washing clothes (or other uses not explicitly warned against by the water company). Since TCE can be absorbed through the skin and since TCE can vaporize and get into the air people breathe, the TCE Blog recommends against any use of water that is contaminated above the federal MCL (5ppb). Sadly, it’s no surprise to us that locals aren’t hearing this from the water company…
As always, we’ll try to keep you posted as more develops.
Recently we received the following email/question from a blog reader:
Have there been any reports about workers exposed to TCE and B cell Lymphoma in the Teleco work group?
My job was DCO Repairman – Dial Central Office Repairman – but we used TCE almost every day to clean the electronic and moving parts. So much was used our hands were white from lack of oil, and our shirts always were wet right above the belt line.
Yes, there have been reports of TCE exposure and related disease among telecommunications workers. Amongst others, workers from Lake Mary, FL were exposed to TCE through work at Stromberg-Carlson/Siemens and have
experienced health problems (including cancers) as a result. Their website can be found at http://www.exposed2tce.com.
If other readers are looking for information or have a question you’d like answered, please do not hesitate to contact us.
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