AFP: Trailers Given to US Disaster Victims Unsafe: CDC
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Printable FormatWASHINGTON (AFP) -- Tens of thousands of trailers that the US government provided people left homeless after Hurricane Katrina contain unsafe levels of cancer-causing formaldehyde, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Thursday.
Average formaldehyde levels in the units provided Katrina and other disaster victims by the Federal Emergency Management Agency were about five times higher than normal, high enough to raise the risk of cancer, according to CDC tests.
"We're making the recommendation that all of the people in these situations be relocated to safer, permanent housing as quickly as possible," CDC director Julie Gerberding said at a press conference.
FEMA bought some 145,000 trailers to be used as temporary housing following Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the US Gulf Coast in August of 2005.
Recovery in the region has been slow and some 38,000 families are still living in those temporary homes.
Many have complained of health problems and Congress began investigating reports that the building materials in the trailers and mobile home were leeching unsafe levels of formaldehyde last year.
Gerberding also warned that it is also important "that people not smoke inside their trailer or anywhere for that matter, because tobacco not only contains formaldehyde but it also increases airway irritation and this makes people more susceptible to the effects of formaldehyde."
FEMA, which was blasted for its poor response to the Katrina disaster, had insisted the trailers were safe and has continued to deploy them to disaster sites elsewhere in the country.
Last month, FEMA issued a statement denying allegations that it had suppressed or tried to influence reports on formaldehyde levels and insisted that every person who had contacted its formaldehyde call centers was offered an immediate move to a hotel or motel.
"As a result these preliminary findings, FEMA's going to continue our aggressive action to provide for the safety and well being of the residents of these travel trailers by finding them alternative housing," FEMA administrator David Paulison said Thursday.
Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama used the CDC report to lash out at the administration of President George W. Bush.
"Every day we learn more and more about the Bush administration's catastrophic failure to respond to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina," Obama said in a statement.
"Instead of deploying the resources required to save lives and rebuild communities, the administration consistently cut corners and buried the truth."