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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 26, 1984)
Jim Moore strains. . .tugs.. .grunts. . .but to no avail as his team failed to place in Thursday’s Homecoming tug of war. Photos by Steve Crowell Geraldine Ferraro comes to lunch See Page 3A Oregon daily emerald Friday, October 26, 1984 Eugene, Oregon Volume 86, Number 41 Coalition charges EPA with cover-up By Paul Ertelt Of the Emerald The federal Environmental Protection Agency has covered up evidence of the effects of dioxin on human health and has suppressed its studies of toxic her bicides used in the Oregon coast range, charge plain tiffs in a lawsuit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Eugene. The suit seeks, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the release of all documents relating to the EPA's studies of the impact of herbicides on human health in the Siuslaw National Forest. The lawsuit names William Ruckelshaus, ad ministrator of the EPA, as defendant. Plaintiffs in the case are Carol Van Strum, Paul Merrell and the Nor thwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP). Merrell, a student at the University's law school, and Van Strum are residents of the Five Rivers area of the Alsea River drainage in western Oregon. Merrell and Van Strum have been active in the bat tle to ban dangerous herbicides since the 1970s. Van Strum is the author of “A Bitter Fog: Herbicides and Human Rights," a book which recounts her experience with herbicide spraying near her home. Merrell is a Vietnam veteran who was exposed to agent orange, a defoliant containing dioxins. In a news conference Thursday. Merrell charged that the EPA is withholding information that refutes its claim that samples taken in the region show no traces of dioxin. The dioxin group of chemicals consists of about 75 similar substances that have been linked to genetic defects and cancer. "We’ve got to get this straightened out,” Merrell said. “We may have a public health emergency on the Oregon coast range.” The lawsuit outlines what Merrell considers an at tempt by the EPA to cover up its knowledge of amounts of dioxins in the environment and their effects on human health. Paul Merrell Between 1975 and 1977, an Alsea-area woman suf fered four spontaneous abortions. Her doctor, suspec ting a link to herbicide spraying, contacted the EPA, which took blood, animal and soil samples from the woman’s yard. Dr. Michael Watson, who conducted the tests for the EPA, told the woman there were no traces of dioxin in the samples. But later Watson told a biologist that their were traces of dioxin in the soil, the lawsuit charges. The EPA conducted further tests in 1978 when eight Alsea-area women reported spontaneous abor tions. That study was expanded to study rates of spon taneous abortions in a 1,600 square mile area. Results of the study showed 130 spontaneous abortions per 1,000 compared to 46 per 1,000 in a control group. Based on this data, the EPA issued an emergency suspension order for 2,4,5-T and 2,4,5-TP (Silvex), two herbicides. But the EPA allowed the Dow Chemical Co. to edit out references to the Alsea studies from a report on dioxin in the United States. The lawsuit includes transcripts of telephone negotiations between the EPA and the chemical com pany, which Merrell said he received through an FOIA request. “EPA officials suppressed the evidence Vietnam veterans needed to win their class-action lawsuit over agent orange,” he said. Representatives of neither EPA nor Dow Chemical Co. were available for comment. In July, 1983, Michael Axline, Merrell’s attorney and a University law professor, obtained part of the results of the Alsea study from a University of Nebraska professor. These results show high levels of dioxin in Western Oregon water, wildlife and tissue samples, in cluding a tissue sample of a baby born without a brain in Lincoln County, Merrell said. • c But when confronted by Merrell, the EPA claimed there had been a mixup in samples and the samples with the highest levels of dioxin came from a Dow plant in Michigan. Merrell then requested that the EPA provide all in formation on its studies of the Alsea area, whether com pleted or not. That request was denied, so Merrell and Van Strum decided to file the lawsuit. “We are very disturbed by this conduct,” said Nor ma Grier, director of NCAP. “We think it undermines the integrity of EPA’s entire regulatory process.” Kight-to-liie groups battle proposed clinic By Cynthia Whitfield Of the Emerald A proposed outpatient surgery clinic has Lane County medical organizations, right-to life groups, religious organiza tions and area physicians clashing over the desirability of the project. The conflict arose when the physicians brought their re quest for the new clinic to a hearing before the Western Oregon Health Systems Agency. An estimated 100 to 200 peo ple showed up at the Oct. 10 hearing to oppose the opening of the proposed Eugene Day Surgery, to be located near Sacred Heart Hospital. The op fill ponents of the facility fear most surgeries performed at the clinic will be abortions. Finally, at a standing-room only meeting Thursday night, WOHSA voted against the pro posed clinic. WOHSA is only link in the chain of groups that decide whether or not to ap prove construction of the facility. “They say abortion is only one of the procedures they in tend to perform, but the language in their application does not mention these others. Verbally they speak of full scope surgery but the applica tion only speaks of gynecological surgery,” said the Rev. Kurt Mach, spokesper son at the meeting for various right-to-life and religious groups. “Of the 10 doctors, eight are gynecologists. It doesn’t seem reasonable to me (that) gynecologists would be perfor ming ear, nose, and throat operations. The majority of them are practicing abor tionists,” said Mach, pastor of Community Christian Fellowship. However, Dr. Paul Kaplan, a prospective Eugene Day Surgery physician, says the physicians involved in the group consist of eight physi cians, seven OB-gynecologists, and one general surgeon. “Most of them do some pregnancy termination, but that's not the main thing,” he said. Kapian says eye surgery, knee surgery and plastic surgery are all procedures the clinic hopes to do as more physicians join the staff. In the meantime WOHSA’s function is to review the physi cians’ application and deter mine whether it conforms to its review criteria. WOHSA is a non-profit organization developed through an act of Congress in the 1970s to main tain health services at the lowest costs and highest quality levels, said Karl Eysenbach, WOHSA planning and review manager. On Nov. 9, the agency’s board of directors will vote on WOHSA’s decision and make a recommendation to the State Health Planning and Develop ment Agency, which will ultimately decide the fate of the clinic. “We are recommending against this clinic,” Eysenbach said. “Eugene already has a high rate of outpatient surgery... 35 percent of the simple surgery performed in Lane County is outpatient surgery; 40 percent is the highest that could realistically be performed.” Eysenbach also said Eugene Day Surgery will cost more than Continued on Page 6A > 1 t > t