Sun, Mar. 16, 2008

Scientists take exception to report

By SCOTT STREATER

Star-Telegram staff writer

http://www.star-telegram.com/state_news/story/531348.html

A public health consultation that played down the risks of air pollution in Midlothian is misleading, biased and riddled with technical flaws and inaccuracies, according to reviews of the report by four scientists.

The comments were submitted this week to the Texas Department of State Health Services, which conducted the Midlothian health consultation in partnership with federal health officials.

Midlothian health consultation The report

Released in December, the consultation found dangerous chemicals such as benzene, arsenic and lead at levels exceeding the most conservative health-screening limits. But it concluded that more study is needed to determine “the extent of the public health hazard.”

The reviews

Four scientists who reviewed the 131-page report for Sal and Grace Mier, the Midlothian couple who organized a petition drive and persuaded the federal government to study pollution there, suggested that the study’s conclusions were vague for a reason.

“It appears that [state health officials] set out to prove that there were no health issues in Midlothian, Texas,” Dennis Cesarotti, an engineering technology expert at Northern Illinois University, wrote in a six-page critique.

Stuart Batterman, chairman of environmental health sciences at the University of Michigan, was even more direct in a four-page critique.

“The health consultation is biased,” wrote Batterman, who conducted research in the mid-1990s on the health effects of industrial pollution in Midlothian. “It contains overarching statements that discount all indications that emissions from local industry and environmental conditions might or do pose a health concern in the community.”

Debra Morris, a toxicologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, faulted the study for estimating exposure risks to people based on air-monitoring data instead of studying health effects in the population.

Peter deFur, an environmental consultant in Richmond, Va., said the report “attempts to marginalize or disregard data that indicate that compounds produce human health risks.”

What’s next

Federal and state health officials are working on the second part of the consultation, which will deal with the health effects from ozone, lead, particulate matter and other pollutants. That report is not expected until this year, at the earliest.

State/federal reaction

The Texas Department of State Health Services declined to answer specific criticisms, saying only that the evaluation was “intended to be an initial look at existing air-monitoring data for Midlothian,” agency spokeswoman Emily Palmer said. Jennifer Lyke, a regional representative in the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry’s Dallas office, also declined to address specific comments. But Lyke said the agency will review all the comments and consider revisions before the report is released in its final form this year.

On the Web

A copy of the consultation is available at: www.dshs.state.tx.us/epitox/midlothian/midlothian.shtml.

sstreater@star-telegram.com
SCOTT STREATER, 817-390-7657