By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many of the government-suppliedtrailers housing thousands of people displaced by HurricaneKatrina contain potentially dangerous levels of the chemicalformaldehyde, U.S. federal health officials said on Thursday.
"In some of these situations, the formaldehyde levels arehigh enough where there could be a health hazard to the peoplewho are living there," U.S. Centers for Disease Control andPrevention Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said.
Gerberding told reporters in New Orleans, which wasdevastated by the 2005 storm, and by telephone link that theCDC is urging the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency toget people out of the trailers "as quickly as possible andcertainly before the warm summer months arrive."
Gerberding noted that the formaldehyde levels were found inthe cooler months of December and January and that warmertemperatures tend to drive them higher.
FEMA Administrator David Paulison said about 38,000families remain in FEMA trailers and mobile homes, or about114,000 people. He said more than 15,000 families had moved outsince November, with 800 to 1,000 families moving out weekly.
Paulison said FEMA, whose response to the disaster has beencriticized as slow and ineffective, will aim to "get as manypeople out as we can" by summer into different housing.
Tens of thousands of people lost homes in Katrina in 2005and many have been living for about two years in trailersbought by the government for temporary housing. Some residentshave attributed health problems to formaldehyde exposure.
The CDC conducted indoor air-quality tests for formaldehydebetween December 21 and January 23, 2008 on a random sample of519 travel trailers and mobile homes in Mississippi andLouisiana.
Formaldehyde is a chemical used widely in the manufactureof building materials. It also is used in embalming fluid. Itcan irritate the skin, eyes, nose and throat, and high levelsof exposure may cause some types of cancers.
The CDC said average levels of formaldehyde in all thetested units was about 77 parts per billion (ppb). Long-termexposure to levels in this range is linked to elevated risk ofcancer and as levels rise above this range, there can also be arisk of respiratory illness, the CDC said.
The CDC said indoor air levels of formaldehyde commonly arefar lower -- in the range of 10 to 20 ppb. Levels seen in thevarious units ranged from 3 ppb to 590 ppb, the CDC said.
Gerberding said the CDC analysis did not answer whether theformaldehyde levels seen in the trailers actually caused theillnesses reported by some of the trailer residents.
"Hindsight is 20-20. We can look back and say, 'Yeah, maybewe should have did something differently.' With the informationwe had, we thought we moved very quickly," Paulison said.
Paulison said FEMA will never again use travel trailers,which he called too small and made only for short-term use, tohouse people displaced by future disasters but may use mobilehomes, which he said are built for longer term occupation.
"We are not housing experts. That's obvious. We should notbe in the housing business," Paulison said. "We didn't ordertravel trailers with extra formaldehyde. We bought the sameones we've been buying for 20 years."
(Editing by Maggie Fox and Stuart Grudgings)
