It looks like FEMA is in trouble again. The CDC is now saying that tests on hundreds of FEMA trailers for victims of disaster had formaldehyde levels five times higher than what is normal. The results are making it necessary to increase the effort to move 35,000 families out of the trailers but this should have happened much earlier. The CDC should have reacted sooner to the news of hazardous fumes in government-issued trailers that were housing the Gulf Coast hurricane victims. They didn’t engage the issue as strongly and quickly as they should have according to the director Howard Frumkin. It was actually in mid-2006 that FEMA had originally enlisted the CDC’s assistance in looking at air-quality tests from the unoccupied trailers. Still, the CDC didn’t start to test the quality of the air until the trailers were already occupied in late 2007. CDC scientists were already extremely busy in other areas of environmental health which may be understandable considering the scale of the Katrina disaster.
Nonetheless, this is an unfortunate oversight. The Formaldehyde that was in the trailers wasn’t a top priority at the time and the CDC now wishes that it had been. This is because Formaldehyde causes respiratory problems and is a carcinogen according to the EPA. It is extremely dangerous to the long term health of the individuals who have been living in those trailers and will now require a new policy on the part of FEMA so that the mistake never happens again.

Source: Washington Post