WASHINGTON, April 1, 2008
Did CDC Stifle Toxic FEMA Trailer Alerts?
Top Scientist Says CDC Bosses Ignored Pleas To Warn Residents In Trailers About Health Risks
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Dr. Heidi Sinclair, an assistant professor of Pediatrics at Louisiana State University, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 1, 2008, before the House Science and Technology subcommittee hearing on Hearing on FEMA's toxic trailers and how well the CDC has protected public health. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke)
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Christopher De Rosa testifies at the House Committee on Science and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke)
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Photo Essay Toxic Trailers Possibly high levels of formaldehyde contamination in more than 35,000 FEMA trailers used by hurricane victims.
Christopher De Rosa, who until recently was one of the government's top toxicologists, told a congressional panel that he repeatedly raised concerns early last year that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was not adequately informing the public of the hazard, even as symptoms of dangerous exposure were surfacing.
As a result, tens of thousands of families displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita remained in the trailers without full knowledge of the risks, he said.
"I stated that such clinical signs were a 'harbinger of a pending public health catastrophe,"' De Rosa said in written testimony, quoting one series of e-mails he wrote to superiors last summer. "I stressed the importance of alerting the trailer residents to the potential reproductive, developmental and carcinogenic effects ... (but) the only response I received was that such matters should not be discussed in e-mails since they might be 'misinterpreted."'
De Rosa's comments came Tuesday at a House Science and Technology subcommittee hearing on how the CDC and its sister agencies handled complaints about trailers issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Committee Democrats accuse FEMA of manipulating scientific research to downplay the dangers. They say the CDC and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, where De Rosa worked, went along with the effort.
"Your agency failed to protect public health," said Nick Lampson, D-Texas.
Last May, CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian broke the story of the nearly 86,000 families with rising health problems still living in FEMA trailers across the Gulf.
When complaints of possible formaldehyde poisoning surfaced, FEMA officials insisted in early 2006 that the trailers were safe. But after coming under increasing pressure, FEMA enlisted the CDC's help to test them.
Formaldehyde, well known as a preservative and embalming fluid, is commonly used in building materials. Prolonged exposure can lead to breathing problems and is also believed to cause cancer.
The CDC initially said in February 2007 that, with proper ventilation, formaldehyde levels were safe in the short-term. FEMA immediately began citing the advisory as evidence that the trailers were safe.
De Rosa said he protested immediately that the CDC should more aggressively address the matter and that the advisory didn't include broader warnings about longer-term health risks, including for cancer.
But it wasn't until February 2008 that the CDC released preliminary results from additional testing showing that FEMA trailers and mobile homes had formaldehyde levels that were, on average, about five times higher than in most modern homes.
The CDC urged people to move out of the trailers as quickly as possible, prompting FEMA to say it would rush to find new housing for some 35,000 families still living in the trailers.
As they have done previously, De Rosa's bosses at the toxic substances agency, director Howard Frumkin and deputy director Thomas Sinks, acknowledged that the agency took too long to address the formaldehyde hazard, in part because little is known about its risks and in part because it was busy tackling other environmental problems resulting from the hurricane.
But they said there was never any effort to silence De Rosa or mislead the public.
"I regret that our initial work on formaldehyde in trailers did not meet our own expectations," Frumkin said. "In some respects, we could and should have done better."
The agency is reviewing its procedures, he said, and is planning a five-year study of children who lived in the trailers in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
Subcommittee Chairman Brad Miller, D-N.C., called De Rosa a whistleblower, noting that the nearly 30-year employee was recently reassigned from his job as head of the division of toxicology to another position.
Frumkin said De Rosa's transfer was an internal personnel matter and not the result of his work on the trailers.
De Rosa also is the lead author of a controversial draft report that suggested pollution is causing health problems in parts of the Great Lakes region.
The report was temporarily withheld and later released after allegations of a coverup. CDC administrators have distanced themselves from the research and asked an independent scientific advisory organization to review it.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The secrets of tennis legend 
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See all 25 CommentsPosted by Jonesforch at 11:03 PM : Apr 01, 2008
To point out the eternal pettiness of the right to complain about helping their fellow Americans but these same people will sit back and not say a word about a multi hundred million or billion dollar bail out for a company. It points to hypocrisy practiced by Republicans: they are taught to revere and be okay with helping a billion dollar corp that screws up but to be angry and disrespect helping when an ordinary American''s life gets screwed up.
This failure to see the big picture--means that if/when YOU need help, your fellow Americans will either step up to the plate (if they are Dems or liberals) or revile you and despise you and NOT help or be angry if they have to help you--- if they are Republicans.
How bizarre. Katrina victims represent the first time the government has failed to resolve an emergency after a large crisis. When people lose all of their belongings, their work info, their SS cards, etc and the depts in that region are closed down or not operating, they lack the ability to get jobs. This becomes even more difficult when the government elects to hire illegals instead of the local people to help rebuild their towns. ON top of that, living in a shelter, often with no transportation, and far away from a safety net means that people have a very hard time of orienting or even being given a chance to recuperate from the disaster. It is very easy to criticize how, when or why the Katrina victims have had such a hard time, but if you have never been in similar straits, you know neither how you would fare or what it is like. Empathy--if we had it, we would not invade other countries and kill based on lies, and we would not feel the need to judge others by our own standards and situation. Empathy is the ability to put yourself totally in another person''s place and try to see things from their perspective--NOT your own. Just so you get a clue on how others may think and react --and so you don''t do to others things you would not want done to you.
Growing up requires growing UP.
Personaly I''m sick of people not getting what they think the deserve. Grow up and work..be proud of what you have and take care of it.
At least the Nazis had the courtesy to place their victims in death-camps, and to kill them personally.
The Bush regime seems to outsource and/or hide most of their murders.
Bush regime officials arguably have less integrity than the WWII era Fuhrer.
Are these Trailers made in China?
What bone-head designed these trailers with poisonous materials? What happened to wood and aluminum?
How stupid can we be?
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