CDC Lied to DC Residents About Dangers of Lead in Water

A story in today's Washington Post highlights an epic failure on the part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), America's foremost public health agency. A House science and technology subcommittee announced today that an investigation revealed that the CDC knowingly misled Washington, D.C. residents about the dangers of lead in their drinking water. Investigators found that the agency relied on incomplete and flawed data in 2004 to say that high lead levels in water were not posing a public health risk. In reality, lead contamination caused extremely high lead levels in residents' blood, and may continue to cause problems today.

To really understand just how evil and conniving the CDC acted, you'll need some background. Back in 2004, the Washington Post published an article showing how lead levels in DC's drinking water had spiked. Naturally, this news angered the affected area's one million residents, who demanded an explanation of why this was happening and the damage it could cause. Lead can cause brain damage and developmental delays in fetuses and children, so it's especially toxic for kids and pregnant women.

While the CDC conducted a study, the agency totally and completely lied about what the data showed. First off, the agency published its report before collecting all the blood samples from the DC Health Department, meaning it relied on incomplete data to make an assessment.  In another part of the report, the agency analyzed blood from adults and children whose tap water contained elevated lead levels. The CDC claimed these subjects showed no heightened lead levels in their blood. Those results aren't surprising considering that most of those tested drank bottled and filtered water, which the CDC knew about but failed to mention. And in an earlier report, the agency misrepresented the number of children showing elevated lead levels—the real figure was about three times higher than the one reported.

As if all this weren't bad enough, subsequent research by the CDC in 2007 showed a clear link between the public water problem and lead poisoning in DC's children. The agency knew this, but failed to inform the public. The agency also knew that children living in homes with partial lead pipes were four times as likely to show elevated lead levels than those in homes without lead pipes. That's a pretty big deal considering 9,100 homes have these kinds of pipes right now.

The fact that a government agency knowingly covered up a public health crisis is both literally and figuratively sickening. Mary Jean Brown, lead author of this bunk study, needs to resign, and the CDC should retract its findings instead of standing behind them. Sign our petition and tell the CDC it can't get away with knowingly misleading the public about poison in our drinking water.

Photo credit: Prawdapunk via Wikimedia Commons