Department of Dawdling

The Right to Health in Vieques

A study in bureaucratic delays

By Myrna Veda Pagán

On March 24, Puerto Rico Secretary of Health Johnny Rullán gave his support and voice to the very important health protection services of the Poison Control Center and its Director, Dr. Andrés Britt. Why has the P.R. Department of Health, which recognizes the devastating effects of poisons on the health of humans, been so neglectful in dealing with the exposure of the Vieques population to decades of contamination and the devastating effects this has had on the health of our community?

According to the Puerto Rico Medical Association:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has determined that since 1994 the U.S. Navy has contaminated the coastal waters of Vieques with: mercury, lead, cadmium, chromium, iron, manganese, selenium, silver, phenols, grease, oil, zinc and sulphates.  We know Vieques has been bombed with uranium.  Studies sponsored by our Association show that Vieques residents are already contaminated with various metals the Navy uses in massive amounts on Vieques. 

45% of those studied have toxic levels of mercury, 14% are contaminated with lead, 4% with cadmium, 73% with aluminum. Mercury causes heart disease, high blood pressure, kidney damage and mental disease in adults.  In small children and embryos mercury can cause brain defects and death.  Cadmium causes cancer.  Lead causes high blood pressure, anemia, mental retardation and fetal death. Aluminum produces lung and kidney disease.

Heavy metals are poisons and should not be in the human body, and children are the most vulnerable to the noxious effects.   Yet, heavy metals testing for the children of Vieques has  been stalled. Years ago hundreds of these children wrote to Dr. Johnny Rullán asking for testing and treatment because they were sick. A health commission of Viequenses, recruited and enrolled by Dr. Rullán, has been meeting with him since July 2003, at which time he spoke of the Vieques Project as a priority for his Department.  He said then that he intended to put testing for heavy metals of Vieques children from the ages of 5 to 19 on the fast track.  This was, he said, his response to the community’s legitimate concern and to the letters he had received from the children of Vieques asking for testing and treatment. “You have my word... this will be carried out by my Department, and by the end of December (2003) we will have completed the Vieques study”.

We expected this project to have been completed by now, but - as usual - the Puerto Rico Health Department has disappointed us.  Concurrent with the delay is the receipt by the Vieques community of a new slick and colorful document produced by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) announcing their findings of no significant contamination and no danger to the health of the Vieques community caused by the U.S. Navy during its sixty-plus years of bombing.

What reasons has the Department presented to our community for the delay?

1. The Epidemiologist in charge, Dr. José Carlos Orengo,  has resigned from the Health Department and is now teaching at the Ponce Medical School.  However, our intention is to contract him to supervise the project under the aegis of the Ponce school. We haven’t contracted him yet.  Dr. Orengo had given us his word and spoken of resigning if there was any undue influence on the project by any federal agency...

2. The project coordinator for the Health Department had to be appointed. Elvia Tirado, the daughter of Deputy Vieques Commissioner, Radames Tirado, was named. There has been no contact from the Office of the Vieques Commissioner’s office, the official representatives designated by the Governor of Puerto Rico to defend the rights of our community. There has been only silence regarding the delays and lack of communication by the Department of Health.

3. The Department has no expertise in this field, so contact must be established with Dr. Andrés Britt, a toxicologist working as Director of the Poison Control Center at San Jorge Children’s Hospital. We have had this information since July and confided in the Department’s having already set up a working arrangement with Dr. Britt for assessment and collaboration.

4. The protocol for the study was not accepted by the Internal Review Board of the University of Puerto Rico, a prerequisite, because no plan for treatment was presented... but the Department can get around that (!).   And why, we ask, was there no plan for treatment presented? One Department official said, “No treatment exists”.  There may not be a cure for cancer but there is treatment for the sick person. Our people are sick and must be treated for the conditions which they are suffering.

5. The Health Department must have written permission by the parents/guardians/subjects for participation in the study and this is time consuming. (Really!)  

What are the real reasons that the testing of our children is neglected and excuse after excuse is presented to the anxious Vieques families who have been waiting for years for an effective response to our health situation?

I personally believe that the Department refuses to accept responsibility for treating this community.  We are facing a situation which comes down to the proverbial bottom line... Too costly, so let it drag on... No fast track... Back burner!

And let us not forget the ATSDR propaganda which every household on the island has just received. Vieques has now been bombarded by that exemplary defender of the health of the people which has time and again found no cause for concern from dangerous contamination in many affected American communities.  According to the ATSDR, there is no health problem in Vieques.  Let us ignore the highest cancer rate in all of Puerto Rico, let us ignore the high incidence of diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney problems. And let us dawdle about while the effects of heavy metal poisons decimate the health of the Vieques children. For shame!

Can this neglect be a response to the class action suit against the U.S. Navy for damages to the health of this community, in which some 7,000 Viequenses are represented?  Are the children of Vieques to be sacrificed to absolve the U.S. Navy of its blame and responsibility?

Law suit be damned: the problem is public health. The children of Vieques have an inalienable right to good health, as does every citizen of this community.  Our primary concern at this time is healing the sick, not placing the blame on the culprit: whether the heavy metals came from the Navy or Mars, the fact is they are here in us and we are sick. The people of Vieques demand action on the part of the Health Department... no more delays, no more excuses... DETOXIFICATION NOW.

Myrna Veda Pagán: Member of the Vieques Health Commission. Member of the Technical Review Committee for the Navy cleanup program.  She will speak at the FOR National Conference in Los Angeles, August 5-9.