Federal post-disaster housing programs come under fire

What did officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency know and when did they know it? That was the crux of the questioning at a contentious hearing Tuesday of the House Homeland Security Committee. The committee faulted the responsiveness of federal agencies to concerns about the health consequences of high formaldehyde levels in travel trailers provided by FEMA to temporarily house victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the fall of 2005.

Concerns about formaldehyde were first raised publicly in April 2006, Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said. "However, it was not until Dec. 21, 2007, that the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] actually began testing formaldehyde levels in travel trailers and mobile homes -- over a year and a half after the first reports of high formaldehyde surfaced."

Even more troubling, said Thompson, was the "recent discovery that FEMA directed the CDC to not investigate, or communicate, the health effects associated with prolonged exposure to formaldehyde."

Thompson released internal e-mails among CDC officials that suggest FEMA officials tried to limit the scope of a CDC analysis of the effects of formaldehyde exposure. In a series of exchanges in February and March 2007, Christopher De Rosa, then director of CDC's division of toxicology and environmental medicine, wrote that FEMA initially contacted him in June 2006 about the formaldehyde issue, and he told agency officials then that any statement about the health effects of formaldehyde would need to address long-term risks, including cancer.

De Rosa was concerned that information FEMA released, based on CDC input, was "incomplete and perhaps misleading" as to the cancer risks associated with formaldehyde.

Later, in June 2007, another e-mail from De Rosa to colleagues at CDC expressed frustration that FEMA was again requesting the CDC weigh in on the risks of formaldehyde exposure, but that the risks were not being accurately portrayed: "To my knowledge, this represents the third time that FEMA has approached [CDC] requesting that we specify safe levels of exposure to formaldehyde. In two instances, they specifically requested that we limit the scope of our response to short-term exposures."

"Since [formaldehyde] is a carcinogen, it is a matter of science policy that there is no 'safe' level of exposure," De Rosa wrote, noting that the Environmental Protection Agency, the Health and Human Services Department, of which CDC is a component, and the International Agency for Research and Cancer all determined that formaldehyde was "probably" or "reasonably anticipated" to be a human carcinogen.

Carlos Castillo, FEMA's assistant administrator for disaster assistance since July 2007, told the committee that any allegations that FEMA manipulated findings about formaldehyde were wrong.

"FEMA did not and would not attempt to influence the outcome of a report or manipulate scientific data," Castillo said.

Henry Falk, director of CDC's Coordinating Center for Environmental Health and Injury Prevention, said many, including some CDC officials responding to FEMA's requests, failed to anticipate the length of time people would be spending in the trailers, and considered its request for information too narrowly.

More than 43,000 people continue to live in the FEMA-provided travel trailers two and a half years after the hurricanes, far longer than anyone expected when the agency first purchased the trailers to deal with the housing crisis created by the storm.

Pediatricians in Mississippi and Louisiana first raised the possibility that there were health consequences to living in FEMA trailers when they began observing respiratory and skin problem in their patients, said Falk.

As a result, CDC is undertaking two children's health investigations to determine the effects of living in the trailers. The first, well under way and expected to be completed in February, involves a review and analysis of the medical records of several hundred children in Hancock County, Miss. A second and much larger study now in development will examine the longer-term health effects on children who lived in trailers in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. That study will follow those children for a period of five years, Falk said.

"While we can't turn back the clock to prevent this debacle, we can make certain that this problem will not be encountered during future disasters," said Thompson.