Some Say Agency Is Unhealthy

The second annual International Congress on Hazardous Waste earlier this year wasn’t expected to generate controversy.

But it did.

The gathering of 600 scientists in June illustrated a problem with a federal agency charged with protecting public health. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry studied polluted communities nationwide, leaving residents with unanswered questions about their health and no game plan for their treatment.

At the Atlanta conference, observers say, scientists shared papers on toxic waste and human health without having adequately informed the people they had studied.

Those people say they had to crash the conference in a frustrated effort to get information themselves.

As the agency’s assistant administrator, David Satcher, launched into opening remarks, a door at the rear of the conference room opened. About 20 people from across the country filed in. They marched to the front of the room, carrying signs demanding the right to attend the proceedings.

Among them was Kellogg activist Barbara Miller of the People’s Action Coalition. She said it was clear that community residents were not welcome - that’s why they weren’t invited.

Some decided to go anyway, so they could hear about the results of the studies for themselves.

“We were scared. We knew there was a strong possibility we’d be arrested,” Miller said.

“We were just praying to get recognized. Finally one of the people in the audience said, ‘I think these people have something they need to say to us,”’ she recalled.

Linda Price King is director and founder of the Environmental Health Network, a national grass-roots organization that helps communities with severe exposure to toxins.

“Virtually none of the sites being studied were invited to the conference,” said King, whose Washington, D.C.based group organized the demonstration in Atlanta. Residents of Jacksonville, Ark., where Agent Orange was manufactured, were told they couldn’t see results of their study because it hadn’t yet been reviewed by other physicians, King said.

“I don’t think anybody would say the people at ATSDR have done a good job, been responsible, in their community studies,” said Dr. Marvin Legator, director of the Division of Environmental Toxicology at the University of Texas Medical School in Galveston.”It’s an amazing situation when an agency that’s supposed to protect public health draws more animosity than the toxic waste generators,” he said. “That agency is so bad … it’s just really bad news.”

Agency spokesman Mike Greenwell said community representatives weren’t deliberately excluded from the conference. “If they had talked to us about participating, we certainly would have worked with them about getting them here,” he said.

Formed in 1980 under the same law that created Superfund, the Agency of Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is hamstrung by its own mission.

“ATSDR’s main priority is to stop exposure from happening,” Greenwell said. “Our next priority is research designed to provide information that will help health-care providers deal with patients harmed by hazardous waste. But the law is not set up to allow ATSDR to provide actual medical care.

Miller’s group for years has lobbied for health care for those affected by heavy metals at the Bunker Hill Superfund Site. After the conference, the health research agency assigned a representative to help the group find ways to achieve its goals.

Little has been done so far.

Miller is frustrated by the uncertainty of getting health care for people affected by Bunker Hill.

“ATSDR’s presence tells you something is wrong with the health here,” she said. “If so, they should be willing to fix it. If not them, then who?”