CDC Suppressed Toxic Trailer Warnings

FILE In this June 16, 2008 file photo Russian tycoon Mikhail Fridman speaks at a news conference in Moscow. Russian tycoon Mikhail Fridman on Monday May 28, 2012 unexpectedly announced his resignation as chief executive of TNK-BP, the Russian venture of British oil company BP. TNK-BP said in a statement that Fridman has submitted a letter of resignation as CEO and chairman of the management board and is due to step down in 30 days. It did not specify the reason, but BP's representative in Russia, Vladimir Buyanov, said Fridman left the company for "personal reasons." (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko) / Alexander Zemlianichenko

As CBS News first reported last spring, FEMA has been under heavy fire for failing to acknowledge then adequately address health problems like respiratory illness associated with the toxic chemical formaldehyde found in travel trailers that became home for hundreds of thousands of survivors of Hurricane Katrina. More than 143,000 families have lived in the toxic trailers, and more than 40,000 still do.

Now, CBS News has learned, the public health fiasco reaches beyond FEMA - into the one of the nation's most respected agencies.

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CBS News has learned that the Centers for Disease Control, the nation's top public health agency, suppressed repeated warnings from one of its top scientists, raising questions about whether the CDC bowed to pressure from FEMA to conceal the long-term health risks of formaldehyde in the trailers it distributed to hurricane victims - health risks like cancer and birth defects, CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports.

A string of internal documents obtained exclusively by CBS News reveal that Dr. Christopher De Rosa, director of the CDC's Division of Toxicology and Environmental Medicine, told his superiors "there is no safe level of exposure" to formaldehyde in trailers. That warning never made its way into any public report about the trailers.

In addition, Dr. De Rosa wrote in an email that two of his staff members had been directed by FEMA officials to not "address longer term health effects" of formaldehyde in this February 2007 report.

"To not do its due diligence on this issue borders on malfeasance," said Rep. Bernie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

In fact, it wasn't until October 2007 - after eight months and pressure from congressional investigators that the CDC revised its February report and finally issued warnings about cancer and other long-term health risks of formaldehyde.

"For them to punt on this issue does not speak well for them as an agency," Thompson said.

De Rosa refused an on-camera interview with CBS News. The CDC did not comment on the documents, but said it changed the report after it realized there was a problem.

[Rich Murray]

formaldehyde in FEMA trailers and other sources (aspartame, dark wines and
liquors, tobacco smoke): Murray 2008.01.30
rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.htm
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1508


The FEMA trailers give about the same amount of formaldehyde daily as from a
quart of dark wine or liquor, or two quarts (6 12-oz cans) of aspartame diet
soda, from their over 1 tenth gram methanol impurity (one part in 10,000),
which the body quickly makes into formaldehyde -- enough to be the major
cause of "morning after" alcohol hangovers.

Methanol and formaldehyde also result from many fruits and vegetables,
tobacco and wood smoke, heater and vehicle exhaust, household chemicals and
cleaners, cosmetics, and new cars, drapes, carpets, furniture,
particleboard, mobile homes, buildings, leather... so all these sources add
up and interact with many other toxic chemicals.

[erasmus6]

No one should have been allowed to live in New Orleans to begin with. When you have to have huge walls to keep the water out, there is a problem. And for years people have been warned that the walls would not hold in a severe storm. Why would people live there to begin with??

There is no way that New Orleans should be rebuilt. If it is, there are some truly stupid people in this world.

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[angela27610]

i can''t believe the lack of humanity here. it seems so many people live with their blinders on. if it doesn''t affect them, they don''t care. no wonder our country is so screwed up. noone wants to take time out of their busy, important lives to see the whole picture. when everything is yanked out from under you, what can you do? you don''t have a car to go anywhere, you don''t have a job anymore, the livlihood is gone. some of these victims have no family, nowhere to go. we pay taxes, our gov''t should help us out when tragedy strikes. when you live in a place that poor, how are you going to evacuate if you have no transportation? and then on top of that, your government places you in trailers that are known to be toxic. keep the people sick, depressed, uneducated so they can''t threaten your control. as crescentrose stated, i hope you never have to endure anything that devastating. since being a state empl, laid off in 2003, losing my health coverage, constantly having to fight for my medications, becoming disabled...
i have seen a lot. open your eyes, please.

[runner117]

Hardly an exclusive...this story was all over the wires and cable television well before your story hit.

[garbosmed]

The point is not that the trailers have formaldehyde, it''s that the CDC knew that the formaldehyde posed health threats and covered up that fact instead of telling the people the truth and letting them make their own decisions about whether or not to stay. Our tax money funds the CDC; if they have information about health risks, that information belongs to all of us and nobody should be able to keep it under wraps for political reasons. The bigger crime is that formaldehyde is also an FDA approved ingredient in vaccines. I wish someone at the CDC or FDA would explain that one to me.

[erasmus6]

I don''t think it is right that these trailers or anything for that matter, should by made with anything toxic but let''s face it, these people wouldn''t be in them now if they had listened in the first place and evacuated. It is that simple. Because they didn''t listen, they should be very thankful they had somewhere to go because without them they would be on the street.

Now all they need to do is get their sh-t together. You would think with all the health issues they would have done it by now. I wouldn''t care what I had to do, I would not stay there and put my childrens health at risk.

[erasmus6]

"You Neocon''''s know it all don''''t you?" posted by MCVet

You Americans are funny with all your nicknames for everything. What the **** is a neocon? Forget it I don''t really care.

Because your government is a bunch of idiots, these people should consider themselves lucky they got a trailer. It was meant for TEMPORARY use! I don''t think anyone expected that there would be people still in them! At least no one with any "get-up-and-go"!

There is formaldehyde in anything that has glue and there are millions of people living with it everyday without problems. If you have a problem, MOVE OUT!

[gjyaffe]

If we''re truly concerned about the toxicity of formaldehyde and government''s failure to address this as a health issue, we should also raise the alarm about the articifial sweetener aspartame (Nutrasweet). One of aspartame''s products in the body is methanol (wood alcohol) which is metabolized into formaldehyde. As it produces this likely carcinogen in the body, why is this product approved by the FDA?
I am not a specialist in this, but I urge people to Google "aspartame toxicity" or get a hold of the documentary film "Sweet Misery". Take a look and see what you think.