State Hasn't Followed Through With Studies of Health Impacts

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Have people exposed to agricultural chemicals in Hawai`i suffered as a result? No study purporting to be definitive has been done. Nor is there any real likelihood that it ever will be.

In 1979 and 1980, researchers at the University of Hawai`i studied pineapple workers on Moloka`i, to determine if they were experiencing any adverse health effects as a result of their occupational exposure to DBCP. Studies of agricultural workers elsewhere had found depressed sperm counts among those exposed to the chemical. The Moloka`i study, sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency, looked at 20 men exposed to DBCP in their work and 20 control men. Diminished sperm counts were found among the pineapple workers, but the study was generally agreed to be inconclusive, given the small population base.

In 1985, the state Department of Health published statistics that seemed to show a high rate of birth defects on Moloka`i, Lana`i, and the O`ahu town of Waialua. From 1968 to 1972, for example, Lana`i experienced a birth-defect rate of 40.9 per 1,000 live births. In the next five-year period, the rate was 85.4 per 1,000 live births — compared to a statewide average of 9.9 birth defects per 1,000 live births during the 15-year reporting period. The Senate Health Committee considered a resolution calling on the Department of Health to look further into the matter, but it was not adopted by the Legislature.

When the contamination of the Kunia well on O`ahu was discovered, the University of Hawai`i began investigating possible health effects among people exposed to high levels of EDB and DBCP in their drinking water. Researchers compared the health of people living at Kunia with that of two groups: the population of Poamoho, a similarly sized plantation camp, and people working at Kunia but living elsewhere.

That study, “Health Assessment of a Community with Pesticide Contaminated Drinking Water,” published by the state Department of Health, found “those who had been exposed to the contaminated drinking water had significantly higher rates of benign, unspecified or malignant neoplasms.” In addition, the number of neoplasms had grown strikingly in the period after EDB was accidentally spilled into the Kunia well.

“During the 18 years prior to the pesticide spill there was one cancer diagnosed in the Kunia residents, one in the Poamoho residents, and two in the Kunia employees,” the study found. “During the four years since the spill, there were two in Kunia residents, one in Poamoho residents, and three in Kunia employees. This represents a 400 to 800 percent increase in the average annual incidence of cancer.”

Still, the study concluded: “The incidence of cancer during the four years after the pesticide spill in 1977 was not significantly greater in residents and employees of Kunia who were exposed to the pesticide contaminated water than in residents of Poamoho who were not so exposed or to the state population as a whole.” The study went on to recommend that the three population groups “should be followed for a minimum of ten years after the spill to ascertain if the differences become significant.” This was not done.

The next time the health of Kunia residents was examined occurred in 1994, when the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry assessed the possible health effects of the contaminated water in association with the Environmental Protection Agency’s listing of the Del Monte Plantation as a Superfund site. That study discounted the probability of adverse health impacts to the public.

Residents of Village Park, about five miles downslope of the Kunia well, have been concerned about what they regard as a high incidence of learning disabilities in children, miscarriages, and infertility, among other problems, in their community of about 1,800 homes. The ATSDR’s representative, Sven Rodenbeck, dismissed their concerns, noting that EDB and DBCP “are not associated with learning disabilities or birth defects.” The health problems of Village Park continue to be a mystery.

By its very nature, epidemiology — the study of the incidence of diseases in populations, as opposed to individuals — requires large aggregations of people in its studies. The larger the population studied, the more precise the results. And the smaller the population, the more difficult it is to ascribe significance or draw meaningful conclusions. Epidemiologic studies of such small populations as make up Kunia Camp, Moloka`i pineapple workers, or Village Park can probably never be conclusive.

If epidemiologic studies involving small populations are difficult, proving a link between exposure and disease at the individual level is all but impossible. Still, a few have tried.

At least four lawsuits were filed in the early 1980s by families of cancer victims who alleged the victims’ diseases — and in three cases, their deaths — resulted from exposure to pesticides used in pineapple fields. None prevailed in the lawsuits against the chemical manufacturers.

— Patricia Tummons

Volume 6, Number 12 June 1996

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