Clinton Crony Morris Cranmer is a Convicted Felon

[Cdstelzer@aol.com]

WEAK IN MATH

BY C. D. STELZER

first published in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis), July 12, 1995

Relying on false information leaked by the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch reported on June 10 that all dioxin levels in the blood
of residents living
near the Vertac dioxin incinerator in Jacksonville, Ark. had decreased. 
Wrong.
Morris F. Cranmer Jr., the researcher responsible for the study, now says
that levels of the
most toxic form of dioxin actually increased among those tested. On May 2,
Cranmer told the
St. Louis County Dioxin Monitoring Committee the opposite. Since the
Post-Dispatch did not
cover Cranmer's presentation, the EPA eagerly provided a transcript of that
meeting later to
the daily newspaper.
"I'm sorry that we appear inconsistent, but I don't see it that way," said
Cranmer in a
telephone interview last week. "I see it as trying to come up with the best
analysis of the data.
It's painful, but that's the way it is." 
Cranmer's reversal is important because the blood testing at the Superfund
site in Arkansas is
one of the few attempts to measure inhalation exposure on general populations
residing within
the vicinity of an incinerator. Its significance is further enhanced by the
imminent completion
of the Times Beach dioxin incinerator near Eureka, Mo., which may begin
operating as soon
as early next year. The EPA, Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR)
and Syntex
Agribusiness Inc., the company liable for the $118 million-plus cleanup, are
proceeding with
the terms of their 1990 consent decree, and contend that the project will be
safe (the RFT,
April 26). Once completed the incinerator is scheduled to begin burning
100,000 cubic yards
of dioxin-contaminated soil from Times Beach and 26 other sites in Eastern
Missouri. The
project has moved forward despite the uncertain consequences of incineration
and in the wake
of an EPA study released last year that reaffirms the dangers that dioxin
poses to human
health (the RFT, May 19, 1994). Opposition by residents, elected officials
and
environmentalists has so far been unsuccessful in persuading the responsible
parties to use
any alternative means of disposing of the toxin.
The flip-flop on the Arkansas study is one of many controversies that have
cast doubt upon
the EPA's plans for Times Beach. This latest flap began after the
environmental group
Greenpeace began analyzing the raw data on the Vertac blood tests. Up until
that time,
Cranmer, a consultant for the Arkansas Department of Health (ADOH),
maintained that all
dioxin levels had decreased among people living near the Vertac incinerator.
Pat Costner, a
Greenpeace chemist, says she submitted a state Freedom of Information Act
request on May
18 and received copies of the data soon thereafter. Sometime between that
date and the public
release of the report in late June, Cranmer changed the method of his
analysis. By using a
more appropriate arithmetic means rather than a geometric one, Cranmer says
he found the
data showed that TCDD -- the most toxic form of dioxin -- has increased, not
decreased,
among those tested. The third and final round of blood tests at Vertac will
not be completed,
because the EPA shut down the incinerator late last year, after recurring
safety problems and
environmental opposition to the project continued. The remaining waste at the
site is being
trucked to a hazardous waste incinerator at Coffeyville, Kan.
So the conclusions of the Arkansas study now have more relevance to the
public policy
decisions that will effect that residents who live near Times Beach. By
providing an
inaccurate interpretation of his own blood study data prematurely to the St.
Louis County
Dioxin Monitoring Committee on May 2, Cranmer bent, if not broke, federal
law. Arkansas
environmentalists and a Little Rock reporter say they repeatedly attempted to
gain the same
information and were told by state and federal health officials that it would
be illegal to release
the data pending peer review.The subsequently altered findings in Cranmer's
report were not
officially made public for almost two months after he spoke in St. Louis.
An official for the Missouri Department of Health (MDOH) says Cranmer
appeared here at the
request of the Monitoring Committee, an ad hoc group of locally appointed
citizens and
elected officials who are charged with overseeing the safety of the Times
Beach incinerator.
Cranmer's travel expenses were paid for out of a grant he received from the
federal Agency
for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).
The ATSDR's generosity towards Cranmer has continued despite the fact that
the scientist is a
convicted federal felon. In 1988, the U.S. District Court for Eastern
Arkansas found Cranmer
guilty on two counts of providing false information to a lender. The case
involved bilking the
Farmers Home Administration out of nearly $10 million. The scientist secured
a loan from the
federal agency ostensibly to build a laboratory. He instead used some of the
funds for other
personal real estate ventures. Judge Henry Wood sentenced Cranmer to serve
six months of
community service at the ADOH under former surgeon general Jocelyn Elder, who
then
headed the state agency. After serving his sentence, Cranmer began working as
a private
consultant for the state, and in that capacity was given the contract to do
the blood study at the
Vertac incinerator site. Earlier in his career, Cranmer came under federal
investigation before
leaving his job at the National Center for Toxicological Research, a source
in the U.S.
Attorney's office in Little Rock told the Riverfront Times last week.
Nevertheless, since his
conviction on the fraudulent loan charges, Cranmer has been paid more than
$139,000 by the
ATSDR to conduct the Vertac dioxin exposure study, according to a report in
the July 8
edition of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
In a telephone interview last week, Cranmer admitted making a mistake. "I
don't remember
what I said to the St. Louis group, but I 
certainly told them that the levels went down," he said. "That was not
correct. ... "I'm not
trying to make excuses, but when I gave the talk in St. Louis, I was relying
on summary
information that had been provided me. I did the best to respond to questions
of people, and,
if I was in error, then I was in error. The facts speak for themselves," said
Cranmer. "
Steve Taylor, an opponent of the incinerator and the leader of the Times
Beach Action Group
(TBAG), isn't accepting the apology, nor does he believe Cranmer's
explanation. "Dr.
Cranmer has been convicted of fraud and was hired by corrupt agencies to
perpetuate their
lies and deception.
"This recent episode is a continuation of over two decades of deception,
flawed science and
political manipulation surrounding the dioxin controversy," said Taylor.
TBAG's rallying cry
has long been uncover the dioxin coverup, stop EPA lies. We demand real and
effectual
action by our local elected officials, in particular (Gov.) Mel Carnahan, to
protect Missouri
citizens from renegade agencies. If they do not, the citizens themselves have
the right and the
responsibility to shut the project down."
The response of locally elected officials has been more reserved. "This
technology is
untested, certainly it's untested on this scale," said County Councilman Greg
Quinn (R-7th
Dist.). Quinn's district includes the Times Beach site. "When we were
considering a bill to
implement standards for how much dioxin could be emitted from the stack at
the incinerator,
the EPA wasn't sure they could meet that. What concerned me about that was
they had been
making some claims about what they could do all the way along, and, when push
came to
shove, they indicated to us that they weren't sure that they could achieve
what we had
mandated (the RFT, Dec. 6, 1994 and Feb. 1). 
The EPA and DNR referred all questions on Cranmer's study to the ATSDR or
MDOH.
Spokespersons at those two agencies say that the slight changes in the Vertac
findings are
insignificant. They contend that TCDD and a few other related dioxins, which
have also
shown increases in the latest round of tests, are not as important as the
average for all 16
dioxin-like substance measured. That figure has still decreased, and is
indicative of a national
trend, the officials say. In addition, rises in the TCDD levels of the
Mabelvale, Ark. control
group suggest that there may be some reason for the increase other than
incineration
emissions, health officials say. "If Cranmer did something he wasn't supposed
to have done
that's too bad, and it's wrong," said Gale Carlson of the MDOH. "(But) based
on the
information I have right now, which is from the Arkansas Department of
Health, the Missouri
Department of Health is not unhappy with the numbers."
Costner of Greenpeace isn't so giddy. "They're either not looking rationally
at their study and
their results or, as it seems apparent, they designed the study to see no
effects, and then they
initially mathematically manipulated the data in order to hide the effects,"
said Costner. "But,
nonetheless, despite this absolutely horrendous bias, ... there was clearly a
substantial
increase in exposure to some of the dioxin." 
TBAG is organizing a protest at the EPA's Times Beach site office on Lewis
Road for 1:00
p.m. July 27. For further information call 391-5715.