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.

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.

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.

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.

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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."

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

SEC. 315. NOTIFICATION OF CERTAIN RESIDENTS AND CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES AT 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 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 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.

 

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.

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.”

AZ American Water and the PCs went into response mode and notified all customers who would have gotten that water;

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.

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.

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.

Bottled Water: This alternative provides for the Department to furnish commercial bottled water to the impacted residences. Bottled water would be delivered regularly to each residence that has a water supply contaminated in excess of the Maximim Contaminant Level (MCL) of 5 ppb for TCE. This would effectively remove the risk posed by ingestion, but would not remove the risk posed by inhalation and dermal contact.

Point-Of-Entry Water Treatment Units: This alternative provides for the Department to install carbon treatment systems on the supply line of private wells that are contaminated. The carbon treatment systems would effectively remove the risk posed by ingestion, inhalation and dermal contact. [TCE Blog note: Not entirely true, see below]

Bottled Water, was initiated on January 1, 2007, for residences with water supply contamination levels greater than 5 ppb of TCE but less than 25 ppb.

Point-of-Entry Water Treatment Systems will be provided for residences that have TCE levels greater than 25 ppb TCE in their water supply. The Department has determined by risk analysis that this level presents an unacceptable inhalation threat in addition to the ingestion threat.

The articles that you have posted on your blog are accurate. The state is investigating groundwater contamination and the state is supplying bottled water or installing carbon filtration on wells. A vapor intrusion study will be done when the contamination plume has been identified.

The exposure that needs more exposure
Thursday, June 14, 2007

In 1998, high levels of the organic solvent trichloroethylene -- known as TCE -- were discovered in the drinking water of the View-Master plant in Beaverton. The levels were 300 times the maximum established as safe at that time by the Environmental Protection Agency. It's estimated that as many as 25,000 workers were exposed, some of them to high levels of TCE for 30 years or more.

TCE is a probable carcinogen and is known to produce health effects besides cancer with high enough exposures. It was a commonly used degreaser and dry-cleaning fluid from 1950 to 1980, and there are more than 3,000 sites around the country where it is present in groundwater. But very few of these sites have produced levels of exposure anywhere near those at View-Master.

Since discovery of the contamination, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has implemented a remediation plan for cleaning up the groundwater beneath the site. This cleanup is ongoing and will take at least 20 more years to complete.

The Oregon State Public Health Division completed a limited mortality study of the site in 2004, designed to determine whether a more thorough study was called for, and it more than met that goal. It showed death rates for kidney cancer in women workers at the plant were roughly six times higher than the rates for other Oregon residents of similar age. It also found high rates for a few other cancers.

Since then, however, efforts to conduct a more thorough study have been stymied by a lack of money. It's been almost 10 years since the initial discovery of the TCE contamination, and nothing definitive has been done.

In the meantime, former View-Master workers are left in a fog regarding what health problems they might face and what they should do about it. Some of these workers clearly face an increased risk of cancer and other ill effects. The number potentially harmed is large. Some have already died.

The irony is that the View-Master workers represent an ideal population to gain better knowledge of the effects of exposure to TCE, a national problem. These workers were exposed at high levels to essentially a single contaminant over a long period of time. And their numbers are large enough to provide reliable statistics. In other words, studying them has a high probability of producing definitive results that will be useful in assessing the effects of TCE exposure at other sites.

So why has such a study not been funded? It's a complicated story, but the problem lies, at least in part, with bureaucratic buck-passing among the federal agencies that could provide the money to pursue it. No one in the vast alphabet soup of federal agencies seems to have a clear mission to fund epidemiology research of this nature.

But the state of Oregon is not blameless either. The Public Health Division has no direct funds allocated for such research. The state scientists in the epidemiology department must find external money through grants to get anything accomplished.

Those charged with protecting our health and safety need to step up and see that the appropriate scientific work is done at View-Master. Otherwise, the funds already spent will have been wasted and the former View-Master workers will be left with no good information. Just as importantly, our nation will have missed an opportunity to learn something definitive about a national concern.

So who will step up as the buck passes along? The View-Master workers aren't getting any younger.

Occupational trichloroethylene exposure as a cause of idiosyncratic generalized skin disorders and accompanying hepatitis similar to drug hypersensitivities [View abstract or purchase]

Authors: Kamijima, Michihiro1; Hisanaga, Naomi; Wang, Hailan; Nakajima, Tamie
Source: International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health, Volume 80, Number 5, April 2007 , pp. 357-370(14)
Publisher: Springer

• Exfoliative Dermatitis (widespread scaling of the skin, often with itching (pruritus), skin redness (erythroderma), and hair loss.)
• Erythema Multiforme (multiple skin lesions; can be accompanied by itching, fever, and general ill-feeling)
• Stevens-Johnson syndrome (a much more severe condition than erythema multiforme. SJS typically involves multiple areas of the body and extensive lesion formation. The lesions can extend to the mucous membranes, thus affecting the lungs, eyes, mouth, stomach, intestines and virtually every major organ.)
• Epidermolysis Bullosa (a group of blistering skin conditions. The skin is so fragile in people with EB that even minor rubbing may cause blistering. At times, the person with EB may not be aware of rubbing or injuring the skin even though blisters develop. In severe EB, blisters are not confined to the outer skin. They may develop inside the body, in such places as the linings of the mouth, esophagus, stomach, intestines, upper airway, bladder, and the genitals.)

“Those of us who were developing children in the NIBW [the North Indian Bend Wash Superfund site] would like to know definitively if there is a higher rate of cancer among our population,” Oberlender wrote in a request to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

The petition, submitted in January, is being reviewed to determine if more evidence is needed, said Charles Green, a disease registry spokesman. A response is expected in early April.

The Superfund site is 13-square-mile area in Scottsdale and Tempe. It is bounded roughly by the Salt River on the south, Chaparral Road on the north, Scottsdale Road on the west and Loop 101 on the east.

TCE, or trichloroethylene, was used to clean circuit boards beginning in the 1950s. It was dumped down dry wells, sewers and into leaching beds for three decades until it was discovered in 1981 in five drinking water wells that serve Scottsdale.

The wells, three of which were owned by Phoenix until Scottsdale purchased them in 1987, were closed immediately, but concentrations of TCE were as high as 390 parts per billion near the time they were shut, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The federal standard for drinking water is less than 5 parts per billion.

Four companies — Motorola, GlaxoSmithKline, Salt River Project and SMI Holding, formerly Siemens — have claimed the lion’s share of the more than $100 million in cleanup costs. Between 1981 and June 2006, an estimated 61.3 billion gallons of groundwater from the site were pumped and treated to remove an estimated 56,800 pounds of TCE.

It is expected to take 20 more years to clean up 90 percent of all the TCE in the groundwater, said Dennis Shirley, project coordinator for the companies.

[...]

Oberlender, who lives in Blacksburg, Va., particularly takes issue with a Superfund fact sheet Scottsdale posts online that says “trace” amounts of industrial chemicals, primarily TCE, were found in two of Scottsdale’s drinking water wells. Three wells owned by Phoenix that supplied water to Scottsdale residents for decades were some of the most contaminated. But the city does not reference those in its fact sheet, Oberlender said.

“Some Scottsdale residents are under the false impression that they did not drink the contaminated water because they paid their water bills to the city of Phoenix,” she said.

Federal health officials are proposing a $3.1 million study delving into IBM personnel records to determine the cancer rate among 28,000 employees who might have been exposed to chemicals at the Endicott plant since the 1960s.

Lynne Pinkterton, an official with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, said the agency could combine information from personnel and industrial hygiene records kept for decades at the plant to determine cancer rates of people working in manufacturing and in various departments.

The information would address a long-standing question about whether IBM workers who faced exposure to chemicals, including trichloroethylene (TCE), were more likely than other people to become ill.

The interest in chemical exposure became more intense in the Southern Tier after the 2003 discovery that a subterranean plume of trichloroethylene and similar chemicals was flowing from the micro electronics plant on North Street and forming gases that pushed into hundreds of basements through a process called vapor intrusion. IBM sold the plant to Huron Real Estate Associates in 2002.

When health officials found that a polluted area in the village had a disproportionately high rate of premature births and certain cancers, it raised more questions than answers.

Was pollution making people sick?

Were factors other than pollution -- such as smoking or occupational exposure -- responsible?

Were women living in the area more prone to miscarriages?

Tuesday night, scientists working on the problem with federal and state agencies are scheduled to release their latest findings regarding these and other questions to a citizens group -- called the Western Broome Environmental Stakeholders Coalition -- and discuss future plans.

Presenters will include representatives from the federal Agency of Toxic Substances & Disease Registry, the state Department of Health and the federal National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health.

Radioactive emissions from a 1959 nuclear accident at a research lab near Simi Valley appear to have been much greater than previously suspected and could have resulted in hundreds of cancers in surrounding communities, according to a study released Thursday.

Chemical contamination from rocket engine testing at the site continues to threaten soil and groundwater in the area around Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Laboratory, the study also found.

The nuclear meltdown, which remained virtually unknown to the public until 1979, could have caused between 260 and 1,800 cases of cancer "over a period of many decades," the study concluded.

But the advisory panel that oversaw the five-year study, conducted by an independent team of scientists and health experts, said it could not offer more specifics about potential exposure to carcinogens because the Department of Energy and Rocketdyne's owner, Boeing Co., did not provide key information.

"This lack of candor … makes characterization of the potential health impacts of past accidents and releases extremely difficult," the panel concluded.

The lab's former owner, Rocketdyne, has said for years that no significant radiation was released. But the independent advisory panel said the incident released nearly 459 times more radiation than a similar one at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island in 1979.

[...]

The Energy Department, Boeing [the site's current owner] and the state have been involved in efforts to decontaminate the site. The state has estimated that more than 1.73 million gallons of toxic trichloroethylene was dumped on the grounds and that 500,000 gallons have saturated the bedrock beneath the lab.

The panel concluded local soil and groundwater also may have been contaminated. The rocket fuel additive perchlorate has been found in a well, but Boeing has disputed assertions it came from the lab. Long-term exposure to high levels of perchlorate can cause thyroid problems.

Firefighters were going door-to-door in a northeast neighborhood late Thursday asking residents if they were experiencing any ill effects from a nearby chemical fire.

A furnace overheated at Canton Plating at 930 Ninth St. NE just before 7 p.m., said acting Chief Gary Kimble. He said 17 firefighters were taken to area hospitals after five or six reported symptoms while responding to the call.

“Some of our people started experiencing sore throats, metallic tastes in their mouths,” he said.

All of the firefighters who reported problems were outside the building and were not wearing oxygen masks.

Battalion Chief Gary Boone, who did not complain of symptoms, was among the firefighters taken to the hospital as a precaution. Aultman Hospital was examining eight firefighters while nine others were taken to Mercy Medical Center.

Kimble said four firefighters were being observed for up to six hours by poison control specialists for any additional symptoms. He said firefighters who were sent to a hospital went through a series of decontamination showers because their clothing was contaminated. Those treated also had their blood tested for the presence of chemicals.

Kimble said one chemical that was suspected of being present was trichloroethylene — a toxic solvent used in dry cleaning. But it was not known late Thursday all of the chemicals that may have been in the fumes.

WORKED TO DEATH ANNUAL MEETING NOTICE

BRAIN TUMOR CLUSTER STUDY


WHEN: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2006, 7:00 PM TO 10:00 PM

WHERE: THE CROWNE PLAZA HOTEL, 100 BERLIN ROAD,

CROMWELL CT (860-635-2000)

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC PLEASE ATTEND

Hi, let us introduce ourselves, we are Carol Shea and Kate Greco, wives of John Shea and John Greco. Our husbands were friends and co-workers for over 30 years at Prattt and Whitney Aircraft. They both lost their lives within one month of each other to a VERY RARE form of brain cancer, GLIOBLASTOMA MULTIFORME.

The Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) primary brain tumor is one of the most malignant and difficult brain tumors to treat. It is also a very rare type of tumor. According to the Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States, www.cbtrus.org, GBM's strike an average of 2.96 people per 100,000 - less than .003 percent - every year. The State Health Department, in consultation with federal health and safety experts, is investigating the possibility of a brain tumor cluster at Pratt & Whitney's Connecticut plants. We have, with the help of local newspapers and TV stations running our story, compiled a list of over 87 confirmed Glioblastoma cases, we have an additional 41 confirmed cases with other forms of brain tumors at Pratt & Whitney. THIS IS WELL BEYOND THE PERCENTAGES!!!!!!!

We hope to inform you and engage your support for our efforts to help clean up this toxicity which we feel caused our husbands and many other deaths. We hope you will read on to see what our efforts have uncovered. We are involved in the largest study of its type in history which is being undertaken by the Universities of Pittsburgh and Chicago, under the direction of Dr. Gary Marsh, Dr. Frank S. Lieberman, both of the University of Pittsburgh and Dr. N.A. Esmen of the University of Illinois at Chicago with the cooperation of the State of Connecticut Department of Public Health through William Gerrish its Director of Public Health Communications.

A Hamilton County Circuit Court jury has returned a $5 million verdict for a former CSX Railroad employee.

The jury in the courtroom of Judge Jackie Schulten deliberated two and a half hours before bringing in the verdict in favor of Thurston Hensley, 67.

The jury found that Mr. Hensley had contracted both asbestosis and toxic encephalopathy through his work for 33 years as an electrician at the railroad yards at Corbin, Ky.

It was claimed that he had to handle both asbestos and was around dangerous solvents during his time with the railroad.

The plaintiff said he suffered lung damage from the asbestos and brain damage from the solvents.

He was represented by attorney Doug Nichol of Knoxville and attorney Joe Satterley of Louisville, Ky. The case was originally filed by attorneys from St. Louis, Mo.

The case was filed in January 2002.

Attorney Nichol said it was brought under the Federal Employees Liability Act, which allows for compensatory damages but not punitive damages.

He said that type suit can be brought either in federal or state court and in any place where the defendant railroad has a railyard.

Trial of the case lasted three weeks.

Researchers studying railroad workers have documented that cleaning solvents used in their jobs caused brain damage, shrinking the vital bridge that helps one side of the brain communicate with the other.

The results of the study by researchers from West Virginia University, the University of Pittsburgh and Johns Hopkins University, which was funded by the federal government, bolster evidence that powerful degreasers can damage the brain.

[...]

"We were able to identify a change to the structure of the brain," said lead author Marc Haut, a professor in the departments of behavioral medicine and psychiatry, neurology and radiology at the West Virginia University School of Medicine in Morgantown.

He said they found a correlation between brain loss and workers' performance on tests that evaluate such mental performance as processing speed, attention and concentration.

(show extended view of article)

The new report is the first connected with the nation's first large, independently funded study that seeks to explain how railroad workers may have been affected by solvents like 1,1,1-trichloroethane, trichloroethylene and perchlorethylene. Workers who participated in the study came from railroad shops in Cumberland, Md., and Huntington, W.Va.

"It is no surprise to me," Deanna Bowerman said of the study's findings.

Her late husband, Dale, was a CSX railroad machinist in Louisville and Corbin, Ky., and was diagnosed with toxic encephalopathy — characterized by chronic depression, loss of short-term memory and hair-trigger temper.

[...]

In a 10-month investigation in 2000 and 2001, The Courier-Journal learned that Bowerman and more than 600 other U.S. railroad employees had been diagnosed with toxic encephalopathy after spending years in workplaces where solvents were widely used with little or no protection.

The newspaper found that the debate within the medical community about whether exposure to solvents in the workplace caused brain damage had diminished in the 1990s.

But studies of railroad workers were less common, and some that were funded by CSX Transportation had found no link between solvent exposure and the illness. The newspaper found that CSX, the railroad company with the largest number of claims, had paid out nearly $35 million to more than 460 current or former workers diagnosed with the illness.

Railroads began phasing the chemicals out of their shops in the early 1990s.

CSX has both won and lost jury verdicts in chemical exposure cases that have gone to trial. It has argued that its workers' problems could be explained by other factors, such as drinking alcohol, side effects from prescribed medication, or illnesses such as depression or diabetes.

Gary Sease, a spokesman for CSX, said the company continues to believe there is no credible and conclusive scientific basis to support claims that solvent exposure harmed company workers.

Joe Satterley, a Louisville attorney who represents railroad workers, said he's aware of at least 100 pending lawsuits in Kentucky and elsewhere that were filed in the last few years.

The study, he said, "substantiates everything we've been saying all along."

The findings of eight researchers were published in June in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. They are based on comparing images of the brains of 31 railroad workers who were exposed to solvents over a period of at least 10 years to 31 people who were not.

Any workers involved in pending litigation with the railroad were excluded, as were those with current substance abuse, a history of serious medical illness, or a diagnosis of mental illness before solvent exposure, Haut said. The researchers also factored out potential effects from high blood pressure and diabetes, which can cause the brain to shrink.

With funding from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the researchers found that the size of the corpus callosum — a bridge between the left and right hemispheres of the brain that allows communication between the sides — was significantly smaller in the railroad workers.

And the part most affected, they found, was the genu, a section of the corpus callosum that connects the frontal lobes, which are associated with decision making, problem solving and emotions.

The researchers also concluded that psychiatric conditions, such as depression, could not have caused the physical changes in workers' brains.

(hide extended view)

• Countless railroad workers across the country have been severely injured by exposure to toxins on the job. Hundreds, if not thousands, of these injured workers have filed personal injury lawsuits alleging that on-the-job solvent-exposure caused their injuries. This study helps support many of these claims.


• Though CSX spokesperson Gary Sease seems to have a copy of the polluter handbook for denying responsibility and manufacturing uncertainty, CSX has been the subject of at least one previously-published paper about TCE-exposed railroad workers entitled Building Toys and Working on the Railroad. In that paper, the author, Elle McKay, refers to the finding that "Over 600 railroaders across the southeastern United States have been diagnosed with toxic encephalopathy- a form of permanent brain damage caused by long-term exposure to toxic degreasing solvents such as TCE." She tells us:

  Many railroad lines in the [southeastern U.S.], including those under CSX, used TCE as a locomotive cleanser from the 1960’s through the mid-1980’s. Diesel locomotive repairmen were the primary users of the solvent. Other workers, such as electricians, pipefitters, machinists and general laborers used TCE by the 55-gallon drum to remove oil and grease from engines and other locomotive parts. Some soaked rags directly in the drums, while others used pressurized tanks to spray the chemical. In order to clean large parts, they would be lowered into vats of heated solvent vapors. When workers got filthy maintaining and rebuilding the diesel locomotives, it wasn’t unheard of for them to wash their hands, arms, and clothing in the same solvent they used to clean the parts.
  
  [...]
  
  Dr. Douglas Linz, medical director for TriHealth Corporate Health Services in Cincinnati, Ohio, who has twenty years of experience treating workers exposed to industrial solvents, stated, 'The [railroad] workers clearly show the fingerprint of solvent toxicity. These individuals have…emotional or physical issues…irritability, short-term memory loss, depression. And they have neuropsychological problems: difficulties with ordered reasoning, with higher-level cognitive functioning, with memory, with following directions



• Other TCE exposed populations, like the citizens in Cheshire, CT and the workers at UTC/Pratt and Whitney in CT (to name just two), have suffered from elevated rates of brain cancer. We believe the damage to the brain described above must bear some relationship to cancers suffered by these and other TCE- and solvent-exposed populations.


• Since there are literally thousands of TCE-contaminated sites across the country and, according to EPA's Walter Mugdan, "human exposures at potentially dangerous levels may have occurred for years or decades, even after a [TCE contaminated] site was recognized and (as we thought), satisfactorily addressed," we can assume that exposure to TCE may have caused and may still be causing significant brain damage to exposed children, residents, and workers across the country. Something more needs to be done to stop this.

EPA Vindicated on Deadly Widespread Contaminant
Written by Mike Magner
Thursday, 27 July 2006

The National Research Council has vindicated victims of one of the Defense Department's worst environmental problems. An expert panel of NRC scientists reported that trichloroethylene, the most common water contaminant in America, is more dangerous than earlier thought.

Today's report warned that the powerful solvent is a serious public health threat that needs stronger regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency.

"We need a new drinking water standard now, with no more delays," said Jerry Ensminger, a retired Marine drill instructor whose 9-year-old daughter Janey [pictured in original article] died of leukemia in 1985 after exposure to TCE in the water at Camp Lejeune.

[...]

The question now is whether the EPA will adopt the NRC recommendations and issue a final risk assessment for TCE, the first step toward tightening the drinking water limit for the chemical.

"I am skeptical about what this administration will do with these recommendations," said retired Marine Ensminger.

He told the NRC panel last year that it made no sense that the DOD, with more than 1,400 sites tainted by TCE, was allowed by the White House to challenge EPA's risk assessment.

"Here we have the EPA that was created by the government to protect our environment and our citizens from pollution being second-guessed by the world's largest polluter, the U.S. Department of Defense!" he told the panel.

Study: Water Contaminant Can Cause Cancer

By JOHN HEILPRIN
The Associated Press
Thursday, July 27, 2006; 8:42 PM

WASHINGTON -- Growing scientific evidence suggests the most widespread industrial contaminant in drinking water - a solvent used in adhesives, paint and spot removers - can cause cancer in people.

The National Academy of Sciences reported Thursday that a lot more is known about the cancer risks and other health hazards from exposure to trichloroethylene than there was five years ago when the Environmental Protection Agency took steps to regulate it more strictly.

"Armed with the results from the NAS review, EPA will aggressively move forward" on a new risk assessment of TCE, spokeswoman Jennifer Wood said Thursday. "EPA will determine whether or not to address the drinking water standard once the risk assessment is complete."

After a detailed study of the most widespread industrial contaminant in U.S. drinking water, the National Research Council will report today that evidence is growing stronger that the chemical causes cancer and other human health problems.

The 379-page report clears a path for federal regulators to formally raise the risk assessment of trichloroethylene, known as TCE, a step that has been tied up by infighting between scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Defense Department.

The EPA attempted to issue a risk assessment in 2001 that found TCE to be two to 40 times more carcinogenic than previously thought, but that action was opposed by the Defense Department, the Energy Department and NASA. The Pentagon has 1,400 properties contaminated with TCE.

The Bush administration sent the matter to the National Research Council for study, based on military assertions that the EPA had overblown the risks. But the new report does not support that criticism.

"The committee found that the evidence on carcinogenic risk and other health hazards from exposure to trichloroethylene has strengthened since 2001," the report said.

The report urged federal agencies to complete their assessment of TCE risks as soon as possible "with currently available data," meaning they should not wait for additional basic research, as suggested by the Defense Department.

"It is the strongest report on TCE that we have had," said Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y.), whose district includes hundreds of homes that have air filtration systems to eliminate TCE vapors from the ground. "The fact that we have this TCE-laden drinking water used by millions of people is abominable."

"That is a very strong statement, a ringing endorsement of the EPA's 2001 draft risk assessment," said Solomon, an associate clinical professor of medicine at UC San Francisco and a staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Solomon said the report also rejected a key position of the chemical industry and Pentagon environmental experts that TCE was not dangerous at low levels of exposure.

"We can't afford any more delays," said Jerry Ensminger, a former Marine drill sergeant who served at Camp Lejuene, where drinking water supplies were tainted. His daughter died at age 9 in 1976 from leukemia, which Ensminger blamed on TCE exposure.

Ensminger said he was heartened by the report's conclusions, but remained concerned about whether the government would move quickly to deal with the chemical contamination.

"I want to know why the Bush administration does not err on the side of life when it comes to the environment," he said.