Friday, February 29, 2008

Cancerous ignorance is bliss.

From the Society of Environmental Journalists:

GREAT LAKES STUDY SUPPRESSED


"For more than seven months, the nation's top public health agency has blocked the publication of an exhaustive federal study of environmental hazards in the eight Great Lakes states, reportedly because it contains such potentially 'alarming information' as evidence of elevated infant mortality and cancer rates," reports the Center for Public Integrity.

Chris De Rosa, former director of the division of toxicology and environmental medicine at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), has charged that he was demoted for writing the report.

That claim may be harder to evaluate, because it seems ATSDR (housed at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta) may have demoted De Rosa for writing another report — the one saying formaldehyde in FEMA trailers distributed after Hurricane Katrina was a health risk. CDC has been accused of suppressing that information also.

The original peer reviewers of the study reportedly had no major problems with it and still want it published.

The House Science Committee has begun an investigation into the matter.

Thanks to a friend on LJ for sharing this report.

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