A federal agency has linked TCE exposure to above-normal rates of nine Illnesses, including heart problems, in children.
But Je Anne Burg, a scientist with the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Control, said the agency so far has not found abnormal rates of cancer or lupus, an immune-system disease, among those exposed to TCE.
In addition to heart problems, the agency found among TCE-exposure victims unusually high rates of anemia and other blood disorders, high blood pressure, diabetes, skin rashes, strokes, hearing impairment, speech impairment and urinary disorders.
TCE, trichloroethylene, causes cancers in laboratory animals, and a number of published studies have linked it to human cancers. A study of a TCE Superfund area on Tucson's southside, published in 1992, linked TCE exposure to lupus.
Rose Marie Augustine, president of the southside Tucsonans for a Clean Environment, said the report is a "cover-up" of TCE's ability to trigger illnesses, such as cancer and lupus.
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Burg, chief of the federal agency's disease-registry branch and primary author of a May report on TCE links to illnesses, said the agency has no authority to take action on the findings — beyond listing data in a registry.
The report was based on interviews of 4,281 people in 13 TCE-related Superfund areas in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.
Burg said the Atlanta-based agency will begin adding the southside Superfund area to its TCE registry this winter.
Augustine, who has lupus, said she will advise members of her group and other southsiders to not cooperate with the agency when it comes to town this winter.
"Everyone knows we have health problems because of the TCE, but the agency wants more study," she said. "We don't need more study, we need medical help for victims — now, not after we're dead."
Myra Jones, chairwoman of the Toxic Waste Investigative Group, said the agency report "just found links to anemia, diabetes and a few other illnesses that aren't deadly and censored other material."
"The agency is an obstacle to finding the truth and should have been gotten rid of years ago," she said. "We need professional health services from our own community."
Burg said the findings related to children are "clearly a concern in light of the Tucson study."
University of Arizona Dr. Stanley Goldberg's study of Tucson southsiders who live in the TCE Superfund cleanup area found that TCE exposure appears to increase the rate of heart defects at birth. It was reported in a professional journal in 1990.
Burg said the agency compiles disease registries under the Superfund law and does not have authority to provide to provide, or use money for, medical services.
"We tell people who answer our questions for the registries all we know . . . And we have community meetings to see if they have further questions," she said.
The agency also notifies area doctors — "a heads-up type thing because we don't provide health care," she said.
The people whose answers provide data for the for the registry are interviewed initially, then will be interviewed again every two years to keep the registry updated, Burg said.
The same questions asked of people in TCE-exposure areas are asked of a national sample of people In general. The results are compared to determine if any illness rates are higher in the exposed group, and If so which ones.
Burg said the TCE registry is the farthest along of three the agency Is compelling.
She said the other two are on people exposed to benzene, a gasoline component that is a known human carcinogen, and those exposed to dioxins, chemicals that are the most carcinogenic ever tested on laboratory animals.
The agency also is planning a registry for people exposed to chromium, a cancer-causing metal, Burg said.
Although the Environmental Protection Agency found TCE in southslde water in 1981 and put the area on its Superfund cleanup list in 1983, its sister agency did not question southsiders for the May baseline report.
"We looked at Tucson in 1989 when we selected the other sites, but we didn't have clear documentation of exposures," Burg said.
Tucson Water has closed 11 wells in a finger-shaped plume of TCE pollution in ground water, up to a mile wide, that reaches from the Hughes Missile Systems Co. plant more than four miles north, past Michigan Street.
Burg said the city utility mixed water from those wells with water from other wells in its system, making it difficult to determine who was exposed to what levels of TCE, and when.
The agency this winter will focus its southside study on people exposed to water from 25 TCE-contaminated wells at private homes, she said.
"We still need to define the area," she said.
Augustine said the Superfund law requires Burg's agency "to include every Superfund contamination site in a registry — I believe it didn't include us before because there are a large number of people here of color."
She added: "But we don't want the agency here to cover up anyway. We're dealing with life and death issues and it's pushing paper around so it can say we have no problems, or only relatively minor ones."