Editorial

Village Park Concerns Demand Further Investigation

Consider this: Barely three in a hundred requests for suspected cancer cluster investigations ever result in the kind of in-depth studies needed to determine whether the suspicions have any scientific basis.

The likelihood that suspected birth defect clusters will receive all due attention is far less than that, since governments and health researchers have generally invested much more energy into monitoring cancer than birth defects.

What this means for Village Park is that the people living there can expect little more in the way of government assistance than the little they have received to date.

This is not heartening. While the gross statistics of births and disease in Village Park may resemble those of the state at large, the unanswered question is whether the specific types of defects showing up in that community — Down’s Syndrome, testicular malformations, and certain learning disabilities — are occurring at levels that roughly match statewide averages. The specificity of the issue cannot be overlooked, since exposure to the kinds of chemicals that have in the past contaminated the community’s drinking water are known to be associated with such defects.

In fact, what is occurring in Village Park should be of concern to all residents of Hawai`i, especially those whose drinking water is contaminated with any pineapple pesticides, regardless of whether that contamination is at levels deemed acceptable by the Department of Health. In 1983, the Department of Health was advised that pregnant women should be warned against drinking water that had any level of DBCP contamination, out of concern for possible birth defects. With that proving to be impractical at the time, the suggestion was apparently dismissed.

Today, tens of thousands of residents in Hawai`i are exposed daily to drinking water where pesticides are present at levels below the state’s maximum limits. There is no scientific study justifying the belief that exposure to such chemicals at any level is safe. Until one is produced, the state Department of Health should give priority to investigating fully any and all reports of suspected birth-defect or cancer clusters in areas where populations have been or continue to be exposed to pesticides in their drinking water.

Disease clusters are by their nature extremely difficult to confirm. More difficult yet is the effort to pin down conclusively a causal link between a cluster and an environmental factor. Such difficulties should not, however, cause the Department of Health to cease investigating such reports. For it to do so is to relegate the people of Village Park — indeed, the people of the entire state — to the status of guinea pigs while we await the long-term results of exposure on a broad scale to low levels of chemical contaminants.

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Season’s Greetings

Environment Hawai`i wishes to acknowledge the many generous gifts we have received recently from the following friends:

Thorunn Bathelt; Lauren and Pelle Bjorkman; Mr. and Mrs. Philip Bogetto; Pamela Bunn; Gale Carswell; CH2M Hill; D. Chang; Ray Chuan; Alice Clark; Ian and Janet Cooke; Mary M. Cooke; the Cotsen Family Foundation; Dorothe Curtis; Sandra Demourelle; Leo Drey; Anne Earhart; Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund; Ruby Edwards; Marjorie Erway; Donald and Jean Evans;

Mr. & Mrs. Justin Faggioli; Mary Miho Finley; Shannon Fitzgerald; J.M. Fitzsimons; Karen Freeman and Steve Knowlton; Winona Freitas; Michael Frome;

Karol Gagliano; Deborah Goebert; Gretchen Gould; W.R. Halliday; Lorna Jean Harrison; Skippy Hau; Carolyn Heinrich; Christina Heliker; Lou Huntley; Casey Jarman and Bill Gilmartin; Colleen Kelly and Cha Smith; Eve and Dennis Kiehm; Celeste King; Christine Kobayashi;

Henry Lawrence; Don and Pam Lichty; S. Joyce Loo; Cathy Lowder; Felicia Marcus; Caroline Marshall; Martha Martin; Creighton and Cathy Mattoon; Sherwood Maynard; T.J. McAniff and Roz Wright; Holly McEldowney; Paula and William Merwin; Susan Elliott Miller; Cindy Moeckel; Val and Art Mori; Mike Morton; Ruth Moser; Dieter Mueller-Dombois;

Joan Packer; Kellcy Parker; The People’s Fund; Norman and Nancy Piianaia; E.F. Porter; Thane and Linda Pratt; Mary Prothroe;

Robert and Ursula Retherford; Alison Rieser; Bill Rodgers; Edward Rogoff; The Sacharuna Foundation; Jonathan Scheuer; Miguel Schwabe; Glenn Shepherd; Janette Sherman; Edna Shoup; Ray Simpson; John Spierling; Jonathan Starr and Helen Nielsen; D.L. and Priscilla Swerdfeger; R.E. Thiel; Peter Thompson; Phyllis Turnbull;

Marion Vaught; Sally and Jim Wang; William Watson; Elaine Wender; Wendy Wiltse; S. Yamada; and Hayato Yamanaka.

Volume 8, Number 7 January 1998