ATSDR Charged With Suppressing Report on Great Lakes Toxic Risks

"CHICAGO -- The lead author and peer reviewers of a government report raising the possibility of public health threats from industrial contamination throughout the Great Lakes region are charging that the report is being suppressed because of the questions it raises. The author also alleges that he was demoted because of the report. Chris De Rosa, former director of the division of toxicology and environmental medicine at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), charges that the report he wrote was a significant factor in his reassignment to a non-supervisory 'special assistant' position last year. The House Committee on Science and Technology is investigating De Rosa's reassignment, in light of allegations that it was related to the Great Lakes report and his push to publicize the possibility of a cancer risk from formaldehyde fumes in Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers housing victims of Hurricane Katrina." Kari Lydersen reports for the Washington Post Feb. 18, 2008. The story was originally reported Feb. 7, 2008 by Sheila Kaplan of the Center for Public Integrity.

 

Read it at: washingtonpost