Medical Association, have issued statements skeptical of MCS as a distinct disease, according to the draft report. Those who believe there is a potential link between low-level chemical exposure and human ailments are calling for the government to devise a research agenda directed toward MCS to fill the knowledge gaps. A 1992 report from a National Academy of Sciences workshop, which resulted in a 200-page report, could provide a framework for such an agenda, said Jonathan Samat, professor and chairman of the Department of Epidemiology's School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University Baltimore Md who chaired the workshop But MCS has fallen through the cracks since then Samat said Despite workshops and published papers the rhpmical in dustry wants to "keen information that might provide the
illness credibility, suggested Charles Hinshaw, president of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, in Wichita, Kan., and a workshop participant. ATSDR's 14-chapter draft report does not provide answers to these netdesome problems. Instead, it presents an overview of the current literature. The draft concludes that MCS is unlikely to receive extensive research support from the government because federal agencies now operate on tight personnel and financial budgets and are struggling to evaluate a variety of syndromes that "lack objective clinical or laboratory evidence of disease." MCS is one such syndrome as well Persian Gulf War-related illnesses the draft states The answer? The government should develop a comprehensive "strategic plan" for all of these syndromes according to the draft Plenty of well-known physicians believe patients are suffering from
DID YOU KNOW? Satellite radar shows that
Greenland's ice cap is thinning by about 2.5 centimeters a year. Source: Tomorrow March/April 1999.
symptoms that may be caused by low-level exposures. "I think what we have now is a very complex syndrome that has multiple underlying pathogenetic mechanisms, which perhaps in some cases is psychosocial in basis, and in some cases, you have a basis in chemical toxicity that we don't fully understand yet," Samat said. "I think that regardless of ideology, it is a problem." The draft ATSDR report can be found at http://web.health gov/ environment/ mcs / frwrd.htm CATHERINE M. COONEY
EPA puts MTBE water degradation before air quality benefits Just five years after the federal reformulated gasoline (RFG) program went into effect, EPA Administrator Carol Browner said the agency would work witii Congress to reduce the use of the oxygenate methyl terf-butyl ether (MTBE) in the national fuel supply. The announcement tails a decision by California Gov. Gray Davis (D) to ban MTBE fuel in his state and a movement by several New England states to drop the RFG program, all due to drinking water contamination. In 1994, EPA approved MTBE as one oxygenate additive that gas producers could sell to consumers in mostly urban areas that experience severe smog pollution during the summer months. Under the 1990 Clean Air Act, those cities must provide drivers with RFG containing 2% oxygen by weight. A number of states later opted into the RFG program, and now 30% of the national fuel supply consists of reformulated gas And most of that RFG contains MTBE Browner's announcement came just before EPAs Blue Ribbon Panel of Oxygenates in Gasoline released a summary of its six-month investigation into
MTBE phaseout is likely as a result of water contamination.
MTBE. The summary noted that the RFG program has made significant strides in reducing carbon monoxide emissions. But the panel advocated an MTBE phase-down over the next four years because it was rapidly degrading the quality of drinking water in wells throughout the country. The turn of events has left several researchers scratching their heads wondering whether government officials knew about the potential drinking water contamination from MTBE before the oxygenate was aDDtoved
The oil industry had been using MTBE since the late 1960s in much lower levels as a replacement for lead, according to a spokesperson for the Oxygenated Fuels Association, in Arlington, Va. Gas producers knew about MTBE's mobility and poor degradation properties in water as early as the late-1980s. But the fact that it could reach drinking water wells was not considered a possible health problem when the oxygenate fuel requirement was being debated in Congress said Robert Sawyer professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California-Berkeley and a blue ribbon Danel member "The i«?
