Gulfport Agent Orange health study

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

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Agent Orange report criticized

By GREG HARMAN
Sun Herald (MS)
August 18, 2004

GULFPORT - Some Gulfport residents who have fought for years for
information about Agent Orange contamination in neighborhood canals and
drainage ditches aren't happy with the draft report released this week
by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

The federal agency found no public health risk from low-level dioxin
contamination around the Naval Construction Battalion Center, resulting
from leaking drums of the herbicide that were stored on base from 1968
to 1976.

The report, though admitting a lack of good data from years past, casts
doubt on the belief of many residents that the defoliant was a public
health risk. But it does call on the Mississippi Department of Health to
investigate concerns about high cancer rates and illness in the
neighborhoods around the base.

"Due to gaps in critical information, ATSDR considers past exposures to
dioxins from consuming fish collected from drainage ditches, canals, and
other surface water bodies near NCBC to pose an indeterminate public
health hazard," the report reads.

Residents, frustrated by the few and limited investigations through the
years, complain that the ATSDR, which is performing the study in
response to community concerns, didn't collect enough soil samples and
refused to test the blood of residents.

...

for the entire article, see
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/local/9427917.htm

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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