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The NIH will conduct a multi-million dollar long-term study into the health effects of the devastating chemical spill and “controlled burn” that took place in East Palestine, Ohio in 2023.
The study was announced on Thursday in a video posted to Twitter featuring Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and NIH Director Dr Jay Bhattacharya.
Speaking first, Vice President Vance said local residents were worried about the long-term impacts of the toxic chemicals released into the environment when a Norfolk-Southern train derailed in East Palestine in February 2023.
Vance admitted that scientists simply don’t know the long-term effects of the chemicals that were released during the derailment and subsequent burning of the train’s contents, including highly toxic vinyl chloride.
He also added that although he had visited East Palestine a number of times after the derailment, the Biden administration “refused to do anything to actually study the effects of these long term exposures on the people of East Palestine.”
Secretary Kennedy noted that “community members immediately began experiencing a range of initial health symptoms, including headaches and respiratory in the skin and eye irritations, prompting concerns about the broader long-term impacts on maternal and child health.”
Secretary Kennedy said a new $10 million study will focus on the “long-term health impact” of the disaster, over a period of five years.
“The program will support robust community-engaged epidemiological research to understand the impacts of exposures on short and long term injuries,” Kennedy explained.
“It will also support public health tracking and surveillance of the communities’ health conditions to help us make informed health care choices and take appropriate preventative measures.”
Director Bhattacharya added that “the program will be community-led, will emphasize extensive, well coordinated communications among researchers, study participants, community stakeholders and healthcare providers and others to provide a comprehensive approach to address the affected communities’ health concerns.”
Recently, it was revealed that the Biden administration lied about the risk of cancer for residents of East Palestine.
Officials from the Biden administration, including Michael Reagan from the EPA, sought to reassure residents they were “not in danger” from the toxic spill and could return to their homes and drink water from the local supply.
“Since the disaster, EPA has collected more than 100 million air monitoring data points and more than 25 thousand samples in and around the community,” Regan said in a statement in October of 2023.
“This data collection continues, and ongoing science-based reviews show that residents of East Palestine are not in danger from contaminated drinking water, soil, or air from the derailment.”
In private however, officials warned there was a danger of adverse health effects, including cancer, for the residents of the town.
“The occurrence of a cancer-cluster in EP [East Palestine] is not zero,” FEMA recovery leader James McPherson wrote in an email to other public health officials on 29 March 2024.
“As you all are aware, the first 48 hours of the fire created a really toxic plume,” he said.
The emails also show that one year after the chaos admin officials were still discussing the need to develop a “tripwire to identify cancer clusters.”
The communications were obtained by the Government Accountability Project through freedom of information requests.
The group’s response was scathing.
“They didn’t always test for the right chemicals; they didn’t test in the right locations; they didn’t have the right detection limits,” Government Accountability Project investigator Lesley Pacey told The New York Post, saying the Biden admin wasn’t “worrying about public health” but “public reassurances.”
“They delayed testing for dioxin, and then when they did the testing for dioxin—and also did the testing in people’s homes for other chemicals—they used Norfolk Southern contractors, and those contractors used equipment that wasn’t correct,” said Pacey.
“They completely botched this event from the very beginning.”
Norfolk Southern settled with the Justice Department for $310 million for the damage caused by the derailment.
Research for the new NIH study into the health effects of the East Palestine derailment will begin this fall.
