Reversal Haunts Federal Health Agency

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Earlier this month, a federal health agency backed away from its earlier findings that decades of explosive detonations by the Navy on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques posed no health hazards to residents.

It was the second time this year that the agency, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, changed its mind in a highly publicized case. Last April the agency, charged with analyzing public health risks from environmental contamination, rescinded its conclusion that contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune, N.C., posed no increased risk of cancer to adults.

Now the agency, part of the Health and Human Services Department, is facing tough scrutiny from Congress and the threat of reform legislation, with some lawmakers accusing it of cursory evaluations that often get the science wrong and ignore independent studies and community complaints.

A report last March by the staff of the House Science and Technology Committee’s Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight found that the agency produced “deeply flawed” scientific reports. The Government Accountability Office, the Congressional investigative arm, is looking into how the agency reviews and validates its public health assessments in an evaluation expected to be completed by next spring.

“It seems to have gotten into their culture to do quick and dirty studies and to be too willing to say there are no public health consequences,” said Representative Brad Miller, Democrat of North Carolina and the subcommittee chairman. “People should be able to count on the government to tell them the truth.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/science/earth/30agency.html?_r=1&th&emc=th