[CPEO-MEF] Los Alamos contractor charged with fraud

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Environmental Working Group
For Immediate Release: January 10, 2006


LOS ALAMOS LAB CONTRACTOR CAUGHT IN SCIENTIFIC FRAUD: WORK ON CHROMIUM
CONTAMINATION CONFLICTS WITH TIES TO POLLUTERS


OAKLAND, Calif., Jan. 10 - The consulting firm in charge of
investigating how toxic chromium from Los Alamos National Laboratory
(LANL) contaminated a regional aquifer fraudulently planted an article
in a scientific journal reversing the findings of an earlier study
linking the chemical to cancer, according to documents obtained by
Environmental Working Group (EWG).

The consultants are ChemRisk, based in San Francisco, who have a
multimillion-dollar contract with the U.S. Department of Energy and
Centers for Disease Control to examine all chemical and radioactive
releases from the lab (LANL), which develops nuclear weapons and is
managed by the University of California and Bechtel Corp. ChemRisk's job
is to find and catalog historical documents on chemical and radioactive
leaks and discharges, but also prioritizing the health risks of the
chemicals detected.

In December, extraordinarily high levels of chromium were found in test
wells just north of LANL. Today, the Albuquerque Journal reported that
Tom Widner of ChemRisk, director for the Los Alamos Historical Document
Retrieval and Assessment (LAHDRA) project, confirmed that his team is
investigating the chromium contamination. The Journal said chromium
levels in a monitoring well in Mortandad Canyon were more than four
times federal drinking water standards and eight times the state
ground-water quality standard.

The Wall Street Journal reported Dec. 23 that in 1997 ChemRisk distorted
the data from a Chinese study linking a form of chromium to stomach
cancer to publish an article under the original author's byline that
reversed the earlier findings. ChemRisk was working for Pacific Gas &
Electric Co. on the infamous "Erin Brockovich" case, in which residents
of Hinkley, Calif., sued PG&E for polluting their drinking water with
chromium-6. PG&E paid $333 million to settle the case.

>From California health officials and court records, EWG has obtained the
documents outlining the fraud, and posted them at www.ewg.org/reports/chromium.

The fraudulent article has influenced chromium regulations by state and
federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency.
ChemRisk, perpetrator of the deception, continues to work for corporate
and government clients including the Department of Energy and the
Centers for Disease Control, who last year renewed ChemRisk's LAHDRA
contract for another five years and a reported $5 million.

EWG has written the Centers for Disease Control, urging the agency to
take action against the company. "ChemRisk's current contract must be
cancelled and the firm barred from seeking future contracts from the CDC
or other government agencies," Wiles wrote Dec. 23.

On Monday, Wiles wrote again to the CDC saying: "As if ChemRisk's
unethical work for chromium polluters wasn't enough reason to disqualify
them from any taxpayer-paid contract, now it comes out that at Los
Alamos they have direct responsibility for investigating a chemical
they're known to have been dishonest about.

"A company that's willing to commit scientific fraud to help a corporate
client win a lawsuit has no business getting taxpayer money for a public
health investigation," wrote Wiles. "Now we see that there is a direct
conflict of interest, because ChemRisk is paid by PG&E and other
polluters to downplay the risk of chromium in drinking water." (The
letter is available at www.ewg.org.)

The ChemRisk article was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of
Occupational and Environmental Medicine. EWG has written the journal's
editors urging them to set the record straight and bar the scientists
who were involved from its pages.

The documents obtained by EWG show that ChemRisk employees?with the
knowledge of PG&E's attorneys?hired one of the original study's authors
as a "consultant," and conducted a new analysis of his data that
deliberately ignored evidence of an association between stomach cancer
and chromium-6 in drinking water.

They then wrote and submitted the article for publication without
disclosing that they worked for ChemRisk or that PG&E had paid for the
new "study." Nowhere in the published article are the names of the
ChemRisk employees who worked on it, or any indication that it was part
of PG&E's legal defense strategy.

The founder and president of ChemRisk is Dennis Paustenbach, who has
made a career of consulting for big polluters including PG&E, ExxonMobil
and Dow Chemical. In 2002, his appointment to a federal committee on the
health effects of chemicals was blasted by independent scientists as
part of a Bush Administration pattern of packing environmental panels
with industry-friendly experts.

###

EWG is a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C., that
uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment.


For the original press release and links, go to
http://www.ewg.org/reports/chromium/release20060110.php

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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