FEMA Creates Its Own Disaster

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


frog.jpg

Remember FEMAvilles? They were those thousands of trailers sitting in a cow pasture while victims of Katrina and other storms remained homeless. In 2006, the empty trailers were just one more insult to the already-battered citizens of the Gulf Coast. Yet amazingly, it gets worse. Not only did FEMA put off distributing the trailers, it also put off testing those trailers for toxic chemicals. Now, new documents reveal that once public outcry finally forced the agency to conduct the tests, it squelched the results of its own report—that the chemicals in question may cause cancer.

Salon reports that in 2006, following reports of a rash of medical problems experienced by trailer residents, the agency asked scientists at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) to prepare a “health consultation” regarding toxins in the trailers. When chief of toxicology Christopher De Rosa insisted that the report address the long-term cancer risks associated with formaldehyde (a chemical used for embalming which, in addition to its other health effects, may trigger spontaneous abortions), FEMA went around him and had two of his associates prepare the report instead. When De Rosa discovered the deceit and complained to both his boss and FEMA’s attorney, he was removed from his job.

Though the report, initially released at the beginning of 2007, was finally revised to include the cancer risk last October, the damage has likely already been done. Salon reminds us that the people the agency actually did manage to place in trailers “almost immediately…called FEMA to complain of illnesses, from breathing difficulties, bloody noses and rashes to more serious problems, and even deaths, possibly connected to high levels of formaldehyde gas permeating the trailers.” And as the victims of Katrina continue to move out of the region, their long-term heath problems will go with them. What’s most shocking, though, is the amount of effort the agency continues to devote to obscuring its own mistakes. When the next Katrina strikes, will FEMA have done anything to learn from them?

—Casey Miner

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate