White House Covering Up Military Industrial Poisoning of Americans with Perchlorate Rocket Fuel

From <www.commondreams.org>
http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0303-08.htm

PRESS RELEASE
MARCH 3, 2006

CONTACT: Environmental Working Group
Bill Walker or Renee Sharp, (510) 444-0973
EWG Public Affairs, (202) 667-6982

White House Delays Release of Study Showing Toxic Rocket Fuel in Most
Americans

WASHINGTON - March 3 - Following a published report that the Bush
Administration is holding up a study that shows most Americans carry a toxic
rocket fuel chemical in their bodies at levels close to federal safety
limits, Environmental Working Group (EWG) is calling for the immediate
release of the study so EPA and state agencies can take steps to protect the
public.

Risk Policy Report, an independent newsletter, reported Feb. 28 that the
White House Office of Science & Technology Policy is pressuring the Centers
for Disease Control to delay the release of a study that tested for
perchlorate in human blood samples from the National Health and Nutrition
Examination Survey (NHANES). An EPA source told the newsletter that CDC has
found levels of perchlorate that "leave no margin of safety" for the public,
compared to EPA's current risk limit.

Perchlorate, the explosive ingredient in solid rocket fuel, has contaminated
drinking water and soil in at least 35 states, with most of the known
contamination coming from military bases and defense contractors. Tests by
EWG, academic scientists in Texas and Arizona, state officials in California
and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have found perchlorate in milk,
produce and many other foods and animal feed crops from coast to coast.
Perchlorate is a thyroid toxin, and animal tests show that even small
amounts can disrupt normal growth and development in fetuses, infants and
children.

The NHANES study is a follow up to a CDC study last year that found
perchlorate in the urine of every one of 61 Atlanta residents tested, even
though concentrations of perchlorate in the cityÕs drinking water are very
low. Last year, scientists at Texas Tech University also found perchlorate
in every sample of human milk from 36 mothers.

In a letter to Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the CDC, EWG Senior Vice
President Richard Wiles said the results of the study of Atlanta residents
"indicate that food is likely a major source of perchlorate exposure, and
that perchlorate exposure is likely to be widespread in the general
population."

Although the EPA has no timetable for developing a national drinking water
standard for perchlorate, both Massachusetts and California are moving
forward with their own safety standards. The proposed standards ‹ 1 part per
billion in Massachusetts and 6 ppb in California ‹ are far below EPA's
recently adopted risk limit of 24.5 ppb, which is a level used as a guidance
for cleaning up perchlorate- contaminated sites. When the EPA announced the
risk limit, it acknowledged the need for "national guidance on relative
source contribution" ‹ exactly the information the NHANES data could
provide.

"In the absence of national safety standards, the CDC should not be sitting
on data so clearly needed to protect the public from a chemical that appears
to be widespread in drinking water and food," wrote Wiles. "The NHANES
perchlorate data should be released immediately."
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