Investigators: Agency failed to protect victims from fumes

By ALISON YOUNG
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/01/08

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention failed in "almost every respect" to protect Hurricane Katrina's victims from dangerous formaldehyde fumes, despite knowing the trailers the government gave them were contaminated, according to a new report by congressional investigators.

Photo by Danny Johnston/Associated Press

Residents of FEMA trailers were exposed to health risks from formaldehyde, according to congressional critics. A hearing on the CDC's role is scheduled Tuesday in Washington.

Citing what they called "fundamental failings," confusion and poor science at CDC's environmental health arm, the House Committee on Science and Technology's investigations subcommittee today will hold a hearing to examine the Atlanta agency's response.

"They certainly didn't act with any urgency when they knew that people living in those trailers were exposed to a pretty serious health risk," U.S. Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), the subcommittee chairman, said Monday.

In February —more than a year and a half after CDC was first asked about formaldehyde dangers inside Katrina victims' trailers — the agency announced that thousands must move as soon as possible because of the threat.

CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said Monday the agency's staff did a lot of good work responding to Hurricane Katrina. "Unfortunately, there were also some opportunities missed testing these trailers," said Skinner. The agency has changed some procedures as a result, he said, and welcomes today's hearing as a way to learn more.

The subcommittee's report is especially critical of the performance of Dr. Howard Frumkin, director of CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. It portrays Frumkin as doing little to respond to the concerns of a top agency toxicologist, Christopher De Rosa. Records show De Rosa repeatedly pushed for actions to protect people living in the trailers. Frumkin and De Rosa are scheduled to testify at the hearing.

Photo by Danny Johnston/Associated Press

A sign taped to a traffic cone warns people away from a lot at the Hope Municipal Airport near Hope, Ark., where some of about 7,500 mobile homes owned by the Federal Emergency Management Agency are being tested for formaldehyde.

In February 2007, after bypassing a review by De Rosa, ATSDR gave Federal Emergency Management Agency a report examining only the risks of short-term exposure to formaldehyde — when risks of long-term exposure are well known to the agency, investigators said. Based on the report, the investigators said, FEMA officials told Congress and the public there was no health risk if residents opened windows and vents.

When De Rosa became aware of the report, he pushed top agency officials to correct its misleading nature.

Last fall, De Rosa was removed from his job as director of ATSDR's division of toxicology and environmental medicine.

Among the key questions the hearing will explore, according to the report: "How can the public and Congress trust an agency ... that treated one of the most important public health issues of the agency's recent past so wantonly, with so little urgency, insight, sound scientific [advice] or concern?"