<<<Back to News Center 2010

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Pierluisi Disappointed with Federal Report’s Conclusions Regarding the Health of the People of Vieques

Resident Commissioner formally requests congressional oversight hearing to examine this issue and other challenges facing residents of Vieques

WASHINGTON, DC- Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi raised questions about the findings of a draft federal report released today that recognizes that residents of Vieques are experiencing higher rates of cancer and other chronic diseases compared to residents of the main island of Puerto Rico, but that finds there is insufficient scientific data from which to conclude that environmental contamination in Vieques is at high enough levels to cause those health problems, or from which to conclude that contamination was linked to past military training activities on the island.

The draft report—which is over 350 pages long—was released today by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This report is a re-evaluation of the conclusions reached by ATSDR in a series of public health assessments that the federal agency conducted in Vieques between 2001 and 2003, which were subject to criticism in Vieques, in sectors of the scientific community, and in Congress.

ATSDR examines the four pathways through which residents of Vieques could potentially have been exposed to contaminants harmful to their health: air, soil, consumption of fish, and groundwater. The draft report released today states that the available data with regards to these pathways is inadequate and incomplete, and it recommends that agencies within HHS work with the Puerto Rico Department of Health, the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to conduct additional soil sampling and human biomonitoring, which entails assessing health indicators, such as blood, hair and urine samples, of individuals living in Vieques.

“In my view, it is unacceptable that the report, despite acknowledging that there is a higher rate of certain chronic diseases in Vieques, also concedes that data collection efforts to date have not been adequate. Residents of Vieques have sacrificed for our national security and national defense, and it is the federal government’s responsibility to perform or fund the research necessary to fill in the data gaps that exist,” said Pierluisi.

“A decade has passed since ATSDR first conducted a public health assessment on Vieques, and one has to question why the federal government has not undertaken the steps to obtain the data necessary to arrive at sound, well-informed conclusions,” added the Resident Commissioner.

Since his arrival in Congress, Pierluisi has met five times with the various directors of ATSDR to discuss the status of this report. Yesterday, he received the report personally from the agency’s current director, Dr. Christopher Portier, and used that meeting to express his concerns about the report.

“The health problems being experienced by the people of Vieques have been extensively documented, even in the report released earlier this year by the White House Task Force. That report also explicitly recognizes that the federal government can do much more to improve the quality of life for the people of Vieques, a point that is beyond dispute,” said Pierluisi.

“I am concerned that the ATSDR report does not recommend comprehensive, systematic biomonitoring, but rather recommends a more limited investigation. In a comparable situation where residents of the Marine Corps Base, Camp Lejeune, in North Carolina, claimed that they were exposed to contamination, ATSDR determined that an epidemiological study of these individuals was necessary to better understand the potential health effects, and the Navy was required to assume the costs of the study pursuant to federal law. It is not clear why a similar study would not be appropriate for the people of Vieques,” said Pierluisi.

Now that the report has been released in draft form, a 90-day public comment period will begin. Once any comments are received and assessed by ATSDR, the agency may modify its draft, and then issue a final report. The Resident Commissioner urged residents of Vieques, the scientific community, and the general public to utilize this public comment period.

Resident Commissioner Seeks Congressional Hearing

In an effort to continue focusing on the issues facing the people of Vieques, particularly in the area of public health, environmental impact, and land use, Pierluisi has requested an oversight hearing be held in the House Committee on Natural Resources, of which he is a member. It is likely that the Committee’s Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans, and Insular Affairs will conduct the hearing.

“I have called for this hearing in order to provide Congress with an opportunity to assess the federal response to the challenges in Vieques, including the status of the clean-up of unexploded ordnance and military munitions and the impact of the decades-long weapons training on the health of island residents,” said Pierluisi.

This hearing would be the first time since the closure of the Navy’s training range that a congressional committee has held an oversight hearing exclusively on Vieques. The Resident Commissioner will formally request that the Committee invite the Director of the ATSDR as one of the witnesses at the hearing.

“The principal question that ATSDR has been asked to answer is whether the bombing and other military exercises that were conducted in Vieques for over six decades has had an adverse impact, direct or indirect, on the health of island residents. This question has not yet received a definitive answer and I reiterate that, from my perspective, this is not acceptable,” said Pierluisi.