From Mary Shomon,
Your Guide to Thyroid Disease.
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November 2000 -- On behalf of military contractor Lockheed Martin, California's Loma Linda University is conducting the first large-scale tests of a toxic drinking water contaminant on human subjects -- a step medical researchers and environmentalists are calling unethical and scientifically invalid. According to news reports, the drinking water study is attempting to recruit 100 volunteers who will be paid $1,000 to ingest a six-month daily dose of perchlorate, an pollutant byproduct of rocket fuel and fireworks production that is potentially damaging to the thyroid in high concentrations.

The study is attempting to determine if perchlorate interferes with the thyroid, and results of the study are expected to have an impact on national and state drinking-water standards. There is a running controversy over whether perchlorate, which is found in drinking water, with high concentrations in the west and southwest U.S., is a danger to the thyroid gland. The controversy primarily stems from the fact that perchlorate cleanup efforts could likely cost billions of dollars to the defense contractors who created the pollution in the first place, should cleanups of the water supply be federally mandated. Lockheed Martin also faces hundreds of lawsuits accusing the company of creating a perchlorate pollution problem in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

According to a press release issued by the Oakland, California Environmental Working Group, "The Loma Linda subjects are being fed up to 83 times the 'safe' level of perchlorate currently set by the state health department, which is expected to review its percholorate standards in coming months. Next year, the U.S. EPA will begin national testing of water supplies for percholorate in preparation for setting national regulations on the chemical. If Lockheed Martin can persuade the state and EPA not to set strict standards for percholorate allowed in drinking water, the company will save millions of dollars in cleanup costs."But the experiment at Loma Linda Medical Center, funded by Lockheed Martin, has also raised questions about whether scientists should allow people to ingest chemicals or pesticides to help researchers learn about the dangers of environmental contaminants."

This drinking water study is believed to be the first large-scale study to use human volunteers to test a water pollutant.

At high doses, scientists believe that perchlorate can inhibit production of thyroid hormones, research shows. In August of 2000, it was reported that drinking water contaminated with small amounts of perchlorate may be the reason behind higher-than-normal thyroid hormone levels being identified in some newborns in Arizona.

In a November 22, 2000 letter to Loma Linda President B. Lyn Behrens, EWG President Ken Cook said: "I am writing to express serious ethical, scientific, and policy concerns about this human study, and to strongly urge the university to terminate it immediately." Cook said Loma Linda should not "be complicit in a corporate strategy to permit long-term perchlorate contamination of tap water, and associated exposure to many thousands of individuals in proximity to the University, in large parts of Southern California, and in other states."

In response to criticism of the study, Loma Linda University Medical Center researchers held a news conference at which Dr. Anthony Firek, the study's principal investigator, said the dosages are lower than those given in a Harvard University study published earlier in 2000.

While Loma Linda and Lockheed continued to defend the study, the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) -- the federal agency with oversight for an human research trials -- announced that it would investigate the study for compliance. Reuters reported that OHRP Spokesman Damon Thompson has said that "We determined that we did have the authority to review here."

The perchlorate problem is one that has been regularly covered here at the About Thyroid site for several years. In addition to coverage of the August 2000 report on the Arizona newborns, last year, in August of 1999, I reported that research presented recently at the American Chemical Society was suggesting that America's fertilizer supply contains the chemical perchlorate, at concentrations of up to 1 percent. This finding raised the possibility that perchlorate exposure may be widespread in some of America's rural areas, and that perchlorate may be contaminating America's food supply.

Earlier that year, in June of 1999, I reported on the fact that United States Air Force researchers were refusing to release data to their counterparts in the Environmental Protection Agency regarding how much of the rocket fuel component perchlorate is accumulating in the nation's food supply.