John Jackson
Great Lakes United
jjackson@glu.org

In early February, the Center for Public Integrity released a government report on public health conditions and exposure to toxics in the U.S. toxic hotspots. This report had been blocked from release for seven months because, according to the Center for Public Integrity, the U.S. government thought it was “too hot for the public to handle.” Almost ten years earlier similar reports were hidden from the Canadian public for eleven months for similar reasons.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) report found that there were “over 15,000 instances where contaminants of concern were found at levels above health-screening values in a variety of media (i.e., water, air, and soil).”

The report concludes, “While no causal inferences or associations are made in this report, of the 26 AOCs [Areas of Concern], elevated rates were observed for infant mortality in 21 AOCs, low birth weight in 6 AOCs, and premature births in 4 AOCs. Elevated cancer mortality was also seen for breast cancer in 17 AOCs, colon cancer in 16 AOCs, and lung cancer in 12 AOCs.”

The report also found that over nine million people live in the AOC areas where these toxic releases are occurring. They estimated that almost a quarter million “vulnerable populations” live within one mile of hazardous waste sites in these communities. ATSDR defines children less than six years old, reproductive-age women, and older adults as the vulnerable.

Upon the request of the International Joint Commission in 2001, the ATSDR put together this report on the public health implications of hazardous substances found in the twenty-six AOCs on the U.S. side of the Great Lakes. For each of these AOCs, the ATSDR gathered data on public health assessments for hazardous waste sites, on releases of hazardous materials as reported in the Toxics Release Inventory and as allowed under discharge permits, and on health incidences as reported by county health departments.

This data was summarized in a 400-page report entitled Public Health Implications of Hazardous Substances in the Twenty-Six U.S. Great Lakes Areas of Concern. After extensive review by outside experts, the report was scheduled for release in July 2007, but at the last minute the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention withheld the report. Dr. Christopher De Rosa, then director of the agency’s toxicology and environmental health division, pressed for the immediate release of the report stating that the delay would give “the appearance of censorship of science and distribution of factual information regarding the health status of vulnerable communities.” Dr. De Rosa has subsequently been demoted. Seven months later the Center for Public Integrity managed to obtain a copy of the report and released it.

Déjà Vu

Almost ten years ago a similar burying of public health information in toxic hotspots occurred on the Canadian side of the Great Lakes. Health Canada’s Great Lakes Health Effects Program prepared an analysis of health statistics for each of the Canadian AOCs that “may be linked to exposure to environmental contaminants.” This statement was in the introduction of the report for each of the seventeen AOCs. While not directly making a cause and effect link, each report stated what kinds of chemicals are known to result in each kind of health problem. For example, in seven of the Ontario AOCs, they found early labour or threatened pregnancy. They noted that this may be affected by PCBs and DDT body burden.

The Health Canada reports were all printed and ready for release by November 1998. The government, however, withheld them and they weren’t released until almost a year later in October 1999. This was only because the government was forced to after community activists gained access to them and gave them to a news reporter. The Health Canada release was brief, however, and they were quickly removed from their website and buried again. Shortly thereafter, Health Canada closed down its ground-breaking Great Lakes Health Effects Program.

The human health aspect in Great Lakes toxic hotspots has always been a controversial aspect of the remedial action planning process, which is usually dealt with by simply not acknowledging it. It is important, however, that, despite the difficulty of making direct cause-effect linkages, the public be given access to data such as that in the U.S. and Canadian studies. The fear that it will create unreasonable responses by the public is an insult to those who are working so hard to clean up and protect their communities. Instead they should be given as much information as possible so they can make informed decisions about what further explorations and clean-up actions are needed.