PCB CONTAMINATION CHC offers medical assistance

Amid concerns on the effect of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) contamination on the people’s health, Department of Public Health Secretary Joseph Kevin Villagomez has made a commitment to provide the needed medical assistance to residents in Tanapag Village.

According to Villagomez, three physicians from the Commonwealth Health Center will undergo training in connection with PCBs before sending them to the village to check on the local people.

“Instead of waiting for these people to come to the hospital, we will go to them,” he said.

During last Thursday’s public hearing, the local people in Tanapag expressed fears on possible health effects of PCB contamination with what they observed as increasing deaths related to cancer.

Villagomez noted that many people who were born and who grew up in Tanapag have already transferred to other villages, thus, the need to include them in the statistical study.

PCB and dioxin contamination in the village was discovered when the Division of Environmental Quality had the contents of the one of the capacitors found in the village in 1988 tested by the Guam Environmental Protection Agency.

With the assistance of the U.S. EPA and several contractors, DEQ collected the 53 PCB capacitors and, for lack of hazardous waste storage facility, kept them temporarily at the Department of Public Works’ Lower Base yard. The excavated capacitors were later on removed from Tanapag and shipped to the U.S. mainland for disposal.

The U.S Army Corps of Engineers claimed PCB contamination in the village has been removed since 1997. However, they have yet to clean up the contaminated area in the Lower Base cemetery.

Experiments conducted in animals show that PCBs have caused cancer as well as affected the immune, reproductive, nervous and endocrine systems. Studies in humans raise further concerns regarding the cancer-causing potential of PCBs.

People who have been exposed to PCBs through the air for a long time have also experienced irritation of the nose and lungs and skin, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Various medical tests can be conducted to find out if PCBs are in a person’s blood, body fat and breast milk. ATSDR said blood tests are the easiest, safest and best method for detecting recent exposure to large amounts of PCBs.