SAN MARTIN
– Federal legislation passed by Congress could provide funding
for studies into perchlorate’s effects on health – including
possibly some work in South County.
SAN MARTIN – Federal legislation passed by Congress could provide funding for studies into perchlorate’s effects on health – including possibly some work in South County.
Meanwhile, the county’s Public Health Department plans to review neonatal thyroid testing data to see what it suggests about the frequency of thyroid problems in areas here that are affected by perchlorate contamination.
The National Defense Authorization Act of 2004, a military spending bill that has passed both the House and Senate, includes an amendment on perchlorate testing added by U.S. Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nevada).
Studies have suggested perchlorate can disrupt thyroid hormone production, resulting in hypothyroidism and in rare cases, thyroid tumors. Porter’s provision in H.R. 1588 asks the Secretary of Defense to provide for an independent epidemiological study of perchlorate exposure in drinking water.
If the provision is approved as written, the resulting study would assess the incidence of thyroid disease and function in relation to perchlorate and would be conducted through a federal agency such as the Centers For Disease Control or the National Institutes of Health. The bill also asks for an independent review of the chemical’s effects on the endocrine system.
The government would be required to issue reports on both studies not later than June 2005.
News of the legislation was a bright spot at Thursday’s meeting of the Perchlorate Medical Advisory Group, a gathering of local doctors, citizens and public health officials formed to consider the chemical’s effects on human health and how best to address the issue here.
Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, the county’s public health officer, said Santa Clara County may want to try to influence the federal government to get involved in a post-H.R. 1588 study and bring funding here.
“This is kind of exciting,” he said. “I think it’s an opportunity to perhaps capture some funding from the federal government.”
Meanwhile, the county’s Public Health Department has gained permission to review data from standard thyroid tests conducted on newborn babies. Officials are now are awaiting response from a state disease registry office, but said some information may have arrived by press time.
While thyroid problems generally aren’t tracked as a reportable disease, they are screened in newborn infants. The so-called “heel stick” samples are done in hopes of catching thyroid problems early because certain thyroid-produced hormones are crucial to childhood neurological development.
Although specific details haven’t been hammered out, the idea of the review is to compare rates of thyroid problems among infants in perchlorate-affected ZIP codes here against statewide and even national data. The result could help officials determine if there is a distinction here that needs further probing.
Neonatal data is a sensitive indicator, Fenstersheib said.
“If it didn’t show up in the most fragile population – the newborns – then maybe there’s not even an issue clinically,” he said. “It’s very good data. Do we have more hypothyroid disease in our area compared to another area that doesn’t have exposure to (perchlorate)?”
Fenstersheib also cautioned about San Martin’s small population and how it could affect such an effort.
“The only problem is we’re looking at a very small area, and if you only had a few cases, one case either way is going to throw your statistics (off) very quickly,” he said. “If you have one of anything and you add one more, it’s a 100 percent increase. If you have 10,000 of something and add one more, there’s no effect at all.”
That issue is part of the larger debate about the worth of an epidemiological effort in South County. Because perchlorate exists in individualized private wells and is not entirely blended into public water systems, it could be easier here to determine who was exposed to the chemical. However, there is also doubt that the sample size here would be large enough to produce results of statistical significance.
The medical advisory group will eventually help the county and other agencies determine what their next steps – such as a survey or study here – should be.
