An Agency in Need of Change!
20 March 2009
by Peter L. deFur, Ph.D.
Last week the House Committee on Science and Technology, Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, held a hearing on the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, ATSDR, in response to members and constituents’ concerns over the Agency’s effectiveness. ATSDR is part of the Centers for Disease Control, and as such is one of our public health agencies. The Agency is charged with assessing health issues at Superfund sites and similar contaminated communities, and with maintaining information on the characteristics of chemicals found at contaminated sites. Citizens and House members were concerned that ATSDR was failing in its duty to protect the public health and welfare.
Among the community groups that I have the great pleasure and honor to work with, ATSDR has a reputation for not attending to community members, working slowly and getting the science and public health wrong. Basically, I have been told that the citizens know a place is badly contaminated when even ATSDR does not give it a clean bill of health ATSDR reports usually find no health concerns at contaminated sites. My experience largely supports the views of these communities- ATSDR is not doing a good job of assessing public health problems or communicating with the affected communities. Let me describe a few experiences to illustrate the point.
In one case, ATSDR staff gave a citizen the wrong scientific information about the toxicity of dioxin. The same staff member also said that the ATSDR report did not reflect current international scientific information because Agency policy had not accepted technical updates approved by the World Health Organization, EPA and the US National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences. At another site, an ATSDR report on smoke inhalation actually stated that exposure to smoke containing the chemical acrolein was not a problem because the acrid nature would cause people to flee and avoid the smoke. No mention was made of the acute and serious effects of inhaling fine particles from fires.
One state health department that has a cooperative agreement with ATSDR actually told the Agency to turn the work over to state health staff who would complete the health assessment. Basically, the state wanted ATSDR to go away because the Agency was doing the work so slowly and poorly.
On the other hand, I also know of two sites where ATSDR worked quickly and provided accurate information that reflected the current state of the science. One site is Spring Valley where the community is largely wealthy, includes American University and several residents are US Senators. The other site is in New Jersey and has the interest and attention of members of the US House and Senate. In both cases, ATSDR was receiving the attention of politicians inside and outside Washington DC and the reports were receiving great scrutiny.
ATSDR needs a new culture and new staff. The culture needs to be one of serving the communities by listening to them, staying in contact and letting the communities know how the assessments are progressing. Time matters, and citizens are hungry for accurate information on public health concerning the contamination in their communities. ATSDR needs to provide that information. ATSDR needs new staff who know the recent scientific literature, can stay up to date and are dedicated to serving the public needs. New staff are needed to make it possible to get the work done in a timely manner, lessening the work load so that reports are no longer delayed for months and years, as is often the case at present. New staff need to have a healthy dose of public health training and experience in serving the communities. A three month training in the offices of a community group would be a great starting point for every staff member.
Communities across the US facing the problems of contamination from whatever the cause have not received the attention or resources they need to move past the problem get on with solutions. Whether the problems stem from military practices, industrial carelessness or municipal shortsightedness, this nation needs to be far more serious about cleaning up the thousands of contaminated places across the US. ATSDR needs changing so it can be part of the solution.