Morgan, John
<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/06/03/12744/cancer-cluster-study-seeking-debunk-erin-brockovich-has-glaring-weaknesses">http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/06/03/12744/cancer-cluster-study-seeking-debunk-erin-brockovich-has-glaring-weaknesses</a><div>
</div><div><div class="main-body" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: tablet-gothic-narrow, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.199999809265137px; line-height: 20.212499618530273px;"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden clearfix" itemprop="articleBody" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="field-items" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="container container_12" style="margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; width: 960px;"><div class="field-item even first" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="body-copy-inner" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 230px 0px 80px; border: 0px; font-family: ff-tisa-web-pro, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.33em; font-size: 0.95em; width: 620px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Even before the film <em>Erin Brockovich</em> depicted the true-life plight of a California town with poisoned water, state scientist John Morgan was calling claims of a cancer cluster there pure fiction.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For the past 18 years, the Loma Linda University professor, who also works as an epidemiologist for the California Department of Public Health</span>, has tenaciously tried to <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/705826/morgan-hinkley-cancer-cluster-study.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">debunk</a>the notion that families in the desert community of Hinkley were suffering from a high rate of cancer after Pacific Gas & Electric Co. dumped tons of a contaminant into an unlined wastewater pond.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Morgan has kept his research up to date and even today presents it at scientific conferences. His message is not subtle. At a conference in Maryland last year, he popped up one slide comparing Brockovich to a delusional Don Quixote and another mocking the Academy Awards for honoring the film “in spite of the absence of evidence of a cancer excess in Hinkley.”</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Morgan doesn’t hide his disapproval of a recent <a href="http://oehha.ca.gov/water/phg/pdf/Cr6PHG072911.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">ruling</a> by the California Environmental Protection Agency that drinking hexavalent chromium, the rust inhibitor that PG&E dumped in Hinkley, can cause cancer. The agency based its ruling on rodent <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2685832/" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">studies</a>, but as Morgan says, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“We’re not big rats.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reached the same <a href="http://ofmpub.epa.gov/eims/eimscomm.getfile?p_download_id=498828" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">conclusion</a>internally as California’s EPA — that drinking chromium causes cancer — but it faces powerful opposition from the chemical industry in making its ruling official. At stake is whether regulators will set stricter limits on how much chromium is allowed in drinking water. Tens of millions of Americans drink small amounts of chromium each day in their tap water.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">The ongoing controversy has resurrected interest in Morgan’s work. Some <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/03/cancer_cluster_in_toms_river_new_jersey_the_link_to_a_superfund_site_is.single.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">writers</a> and<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1473137/" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">scientists</a> cite it as proof that Brockovich was wrong.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">But a review by the Center for Public Integrity <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">found glaring weaknesses in Morgan’s analysis</span> that challenge the validity of his findings. In his first study, he dismisses what others see as a genuine cancer cluster in Hinkley. In his latest analysis, he excludes people who were exposed to the worst contamination.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Morgan has done other questionable work. As an advisor to the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> American Council on Science and Health, </span>which gets funding from the chemical industry, Morgan is featured on the group’s website, <a href="http://www.riskometer.org/" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">Riskometer.org</a>. He claims that exposure to a number of toxic chemicals, including known carcinogens such as dioxins and hexavalent chromium, has killed no one from cancer in America.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Morgan stands by his research. He says he was dispelling a misconception fostered by the lawsuit and film that the entire community of Hinkley suffered from a high rate of cancer because of the pollution.</p></div></div></div><div class="container container_12" style="margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; width: 960px;"><div class="field-item odd" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><aside class="relation packaged" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="relation-inner stacked cols8" data-sigil="relation" style="margin: 0px 10px 1.33em 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; width: 620px; float: right; clear: right;"><section style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div id="node-12752" class="node node-freeform node-teaser teaser-view teaser clearfix" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><header style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; float: none; width: auto;"><hgroup style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><h2 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 1.3775em; line-height: 1.33em; color: rgb(100, 100, 100); letter-spacing: -0.047em;"><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/05/31/12752/diluting-cancer-study" title="Diluting a cancer study" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(100, 100, 100);">Diluting a cancer study</a></h2></hgroup></header><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="field-items" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="field-item even" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; float: none; width: auto;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">An often-cited study by researcher John Morgan found no cancer cluster in Hinkley, Calif. But the study looked for cancers throughout a census tract stretching over 137 square miles. The neighborhood contaminated with high levels of hexavalent chromium covered only one square mile.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">The red area shows where water wells exceeded state standards for chromium. Former residents of 13 homes there sued PG&E and were featured in the film <em>Erin Brockovich</em>. PG&E bought and destroyed these homes by early 1993. The blue area shows the census tract used in the study. Most of the people living there were exposed only to low levels of chromium that are naturally found in this part of the Mojave Desert.</p></div></div></div></div></section></div></aside><div class="body-copy-inner" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 230px 0px 80px; border: 0px; font-family: ff-tisa-web-pro, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.33em; font-size: 0.95em; width: 620px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><strong>Questionable methods</strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">In his Hinkley analysis, Morgan fails to distinguish residents who were exposed to heavy doses of chromium from those who were exposed to little or none at all. With any carcinogen, the more you’re exposed to it, the higher your odds of getting cancer as a result.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Morgan tallies all cancers among roughly 3,500 people in a 137-square-mile census tract. Yet the families who sued PG&E at Brockovich’s urging lived in a neighborhood of 13 homes covering roughly one square mile. Those families were exposed to chromium levels up to hundreds of times higher than anyone else in Hinkley.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Despite obvious limitations, local and state health officials often do this sort of back-of-the-envelope calculation when people complain about too many cancers in a neighborhood. Still, some epidemiologists say such analysis is weak science.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Other problems in Morgan’s work are not so common. In his first analysis from 1988 to 1993, Morgan actually <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/705830-hinkley-cancer-cluster-or-not.html#document/p2/a104396" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">found</a> the cancer rate in Hinkley was 25 percent higher than in the surrounding counties. But he dismisses this cluster as a statistical mirage, a mere fluke.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Other epidemiologists who looked at Morgan’s numbers at the Center’s request disagree. Statistically, there’s at least 95 percent certainty that the cluster is not a fluke, said Richard Clapp, a Boston University professor who used to direct the Massachusetts Cancer Registry. He said that’s the statistical standard most epidemiologists use.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">In his 2011 update, Morgan reports fewer cancers than expected in Hinkley. But he starts counting cancers in 1996, coincidentally the year PG&E settled the Brockovich lawsuit.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">By then, PG&E had bought and bulldozed every home in the neighborhood where it had dumped chromium. All the people who had sued and were portrayed in the film had moved. One of them, Roberta Walker, said only a couple of families stayed in Hinkley. So, hardly anyone exposed to high levels of chromium are in the Morgan analysis most often cited.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">“It seems to me that what’s going on here is this guy has got a bias. He’s trying to use his science to confirm his opinion,” said Stephen Lester, science director for the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, a group that helps communities with environmental problems.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Morgan defended his analysis, saying that he wasn’t testing whether chromium was safe to drink. He acknowledges that he has no data on who was exposed and by how much. But he said there was a popular notion that people in Hinkley were suffering from a high rate of cancer, and his analysis proves that was not true.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">But what about the cancer cluster that other epidemiologists discovered in his first analysis? Morgan acknowledged that a 95 percent confidence interval is the standard most epidemiologists use. But he said the guidelines for the California Cancer Registry — guidelines he helped craft — call for 99-percent certainty. The cancer cluster in Hinkley didn’t reach that bar.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Morgan himself isn’t consistent in his use of the standard. He says the <a href="http://www.phscof.org/2012-agenda/2012-highlights/107-agenda-sessions/159-cancer-assessment-in-hinkley-the-real-problem" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">real problem</a> in Hinkley is a cluster of cervical cancers as a result of women not getting Pap smears. But Morgan relies on a 95-percent confidence interval to deem that cluster statistically significant.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">He justifies switching to a lower standard by saying his most recent research was done in his role as a college professor, not a state epidemiologist, so he didn’t have to adhere to state guidelines. In other words, the job Morgan is working determines whether a cancer cluster is real.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">He struggled to explain why he started his latest Hinkley analysis in 1996, saying demographics change from one census to the next and for that reason it may be impossible to do a study over more than a decade. Morgan’s latest study stretches over 12 years, but he says he was pushing it by looking at such a long period of time.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Clapp said it is possible to do studies spanning more than a decade, and there are ways to adjust for changing demographics.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Morgan knows the neighborhood portrayed in the film was gone by 1996. He also knows that levels of chromium in most of the water in Hinkley are not much higher than is found naturally in the Mojave Desert. But again, he said it didn’t matter to him whether people in his study were exposed to chromium. He wasn’t looking into chromium exposure, he said; he was addressing the misconception that there was a cancer cluster in Hinkley.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Morgan speculated that people in Hinkley may be exposed to less chromium than others because he doesn’t believe they had been drinking the water since the film came out. In a visit in 2000, he noticed everyone had switched to bottled water. If he’s right, Morgan is left counting cancers in a town where an unknown number of people drank small traces of chromium many years ago.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Surprised by being asked about his analysis, Morgan said, “Now, what I presumed was you're going after Erin Brockovich.”</p></div></div></div><div class="container container_12" style="margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; width: 960px;"><div class="field-item even" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><aside class="relation packaged" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="relation-inner stacked cols8" data-sigil="relation" style="margin: 0px 10px 1.33em 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; width: 620px; float: right; clear: right;"><div id="node-12749" class="node node-image teaser-8col clearfix" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 0.893em;"><div class="field field-name-field-image-file field-type-image field-label-hidden" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="field-items" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="field-item" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; float: none; width: auto;"><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/06/03/12744/cancer-cluster-study-seeking-debunk-erin-brockovich-has-glaring-weaknesses" class="active" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;"><img src="http://cloudfront-1.publicintegrity.org//files/styles/8col/public/img/eb-slides.jpg?itok=dKfN4OZK" alt="" itemprop="image" data-sigil="image" data-width="620" data-height="232" style="border: 0px; width: 620px;" /></a></div></div></div><div class="text-wrapper" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><span class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="color: rgb(100, 100, 100);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; display: inline;">Slides in a scientific presentation by John Morgan mock Erin Brockovich for claiming people in Hinkley, Calif., got cancer from their exposure to hexavalent chromium.</p> </span><span class="field field-name-field-image-credit field-type-text-long field-label-hidden" style="color: rgb(150, 150, 150);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; display: inline;">John Morgan</p></span></div></div></div></aside><aside class="relation packaged" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">
</aside><div class="body-copy-inner" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 230px 0px 80px; border: 0px; font-family: ff-tisa-web-pro, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.33em; font-size: 0.95em; width: 620px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><strong>Limitations of epidemiology</strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Whether anyone in Hinkley got cancer from drinking chromium is an obvious question to ask. But science may not be able to answer it. Epidemiologists must rely on statistics, which aren’t capable of detecting whether a few extra people in a community got cancer from exposure to a toxic chemical. Either the chemical has to be really deadly, or the number of people in the study has to be very large. Epidemiologists sum it up this way: If they can detect a problem, you know you have a true catastrophe.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Morgan’s analysis illustrates the scientific limitations the EPA grapples with whenever it evaluates a toxic chemical.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">The <a href="http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/rwqcb6/water_issues/projects/pge/docs/chromium_plume/1q2013_8x11.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">boundaries</a> of the groundwater polluted by PG&E are now drawn around wells in Hinkley with more than naturally occurring levels of hexavalent chromium. The Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board currently defines that as 3.1 parts per billion — equal to about a tablespoon of chromium in an Olympic-size swimming pool.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Only 18 homes had private wells exceeding that level in recent years, according to Lauri Kemper, the board’s assistant executive officer. Based on the state’s estimate of risk, if a group of 6,500 people drank that much chromium every day, you might see one cancer caused by it. One additional cancer in 6,500 won’t show up in Morgan’s study of 3,500 people, even if everybody drank the most polluted water.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">As is often the case, there simply aren’t enough people to do a study. Even if there were hundreds of thousands of people drinking low levels of chromium, gathering data on how much chromium is in each person’s well is a daunting and expensive task.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">The families portrayed in the movie are a different matter. One well near where Roberta Walker used to live still reads 1,500 parts per billion, despite years of cleanup. That’s nearly 500 times more chromium than anyone in Hinkley is exposed to today. At that dose, a person’s risk of getting cancer increases — theoretically, at least — by one in 13.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">The lawyers Brockovich worked for tracked down 650 people who lived in Walker’s neighborhood, dating back to when the dumping began in 1952. Many of those records are sealed as part of a lawsuit.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment mentioned but dismissed Morgan’s work in its 2011 public health goal, which concluded that drinking low doses of hexavalent chromium daily posed a cancer risk. State epidemiologist Jay Beaumont said in an interview that he reviewed Morgan’s work and found it “not very useful.”</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Steven Patierno, an outside scientist who served on the EPA’s peer-review panel, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/705822-steven-patierno-cites-hinkley-cancer-cluster-study.html#document/p3/a104394" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">criticized</a> the EPA for leaving Morgan’s work out of its draft evaluation of hexavalent chromium. Patierno, now deputy director of the Duke Cancer Institute, has a long history of defending industry in chromium litigation. He served as a paid expert witness for PG&E in the Brockovich lawsuit.</span></p></div></div></div><div class="container container_12" style="margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; width: 960px;"><div class="field-item odd" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><aside class="relation packaged" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="relation-inner stacked cols6" data-sigil="relation" style="margin: 0px 10px 1.33em 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; width: 460px; float: right; clear: right;"><section style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div id="node-12290" class="node node-article teaser-view title-author-16x9-6col clearfix" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><header style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; float: none; width: auto;"><hgroup style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="field field-name-field-mini-image field-type-relation field-label-hidden" style="margin: 0px 0.665em 0px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; float: left;"><div class="field-items" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="field-item even" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; float: none; width: auto;"><div class="item even" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div id="node-12299" class="node node-image title-16x9-6col clearfix" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 0.893em;"><div class="field field-name-field-image-file field-type-image field-label-hidden" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="field-items" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="field-item" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; float: none; width: auto;"><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/03/13/12290/how-industry-scientists-stalled-action-carcinogen" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;"><img src="http://cloudfront-1.publicintegrity.org/files/styles/16x9-6col/public/img/Unknown_0.jpeg?itok=Cg4zyC6q" width="460" height="259" alt="" itemprop="image" data-sigil="image" data-width="460" data-height="259" style="border: 0px; width: 449.8999938964844px;" /></a></div></div></div><div class="text-wrapper" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;" /></div></div></div><h2 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 1.3775em; line-height: 1.33em; color: rgb(100, 100, 100); letter-spacing: -0.047em;"><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/03/13/12290/how-industry-scientists-stalled-action-carcinogen" title="How industry scientists stalled action on carcinogen" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(100, 100, 100);">How industry scientists stalled action on carcinogen</a></h2><div class="field field-name-field-authors field-type-relation field-label-hidden" style="margin: 0.665em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><h4 class="authors" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 0.855em; line-height: 0.665em; color: rgb(50, 50, 50); display: inline;">By <span class="author" style="padding: 0px; margin-right: 0px; background-image: none; color: rgb(100, 100, 100); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/david-heath" title="David Heath" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(100, 100, 100);">David Heath</a></span></h4> <h4 class="pubdate" style="margin: 0px 3px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 0.855em; line-height: 0.665em; color: rgb(50, 50, 50); font-weight: normal; display: inline;"><time datetime="2013-03-13T06:00:00-04:00">March 13, 2013</time></h4><div class="field-items" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;" /></div></div></div></hgroup></header><div class="main-body" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;" /></div></section></div></aside><div class="body-copy-inner" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 230px 0px 80px; border: 0px; font-family: ff-tisa-web-pro, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.33em; font-size: 0.95em; width: 620px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><strong>‘I want to know the truth’</strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Morgan says he’s not paid by industry. His job as regional epidemiologist for the California Cancer Registry, he says, is to keep people in his Mojave Desert region from getting cancer.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">He speaks with quiet passion, explaining that his philosophy is to wage war on cancer by focusing on the big things, like encouraging people to get screened. He argues that the Hinkley lawsuit doesn’t help him in his cause. Instead, he describes it as a crisis hyped up by a law firm to win a big settlement that ends up coming out of consumers’ pockets.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">“I've heard different reports of $2 million or $3 million that Erin Brockovich received herself. And yet, she is the humanitarian. Well, I'm more humanitarian than she is. I want to know the truth. My salary is not dependent upon what I find,” Morgan said.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Brockovich said the personal attacks are disappointing. She said when she was investigating claims in Hinkley as a single mother of three working for a Los Angeles law firm, she was getting paid $800 a month. She said she was concerned about the people in Hinkley and had no clue she’d ever get a bonus.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Brockovich said she’s always considered Morgan’s analysis flawed because it didn’t track the people who were actually exposed to chromium.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">“He’s projecting junk science onto me when he’s the one doing junk science,” she said.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Morgan did a cancer-cluster study in Redlands, Calif., at the request of scientists consulting for Lockheed Martin. The study was used in court to defend Lockheed Martin against allegations that an old rocket plant had polluted the groundwater with carcinogens. In a study very similar to the Hinkley study, Morgan found no cancer cluster.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Challenged in a 2004 deposition, Morgan testified that he didn’t know the scientists asking for the research were getting paid by Lockheed Martin. One of them, Michael Kelsh, worked at Exponent, a consulting company well known for defending companies in pollution cases.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">In a 2005 report on one of the pollutants, perchlorate, the National Academy of Sciences said of Morgan’s study and others like it, “Because ecologic studies do not include information about exposure and outcome in individuals, they are considered to be the weakest type of observational studies.”</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Still, Morgan’s work has been cited as evidence that cancer clusters are often creations of an ill-informed media. Morgan handed over an old clip from ABC’s 20/20 in which <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">John Stossel</span> uses his work to debunk the claims in <em>Erin Brockovich </em>that drinking hexavalent chromium can hurt people.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">The American Council on Science and Health, a group whose stated mission is to present sound science in public debates, posted some of Morgan’s research on its website, <a href="http://www.riskometer.org/" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">Riskometer.org</a>. On the site, the group says, “Americans are bombarded daily with warnings of dire threats to their health. … But in reality, most if not all of these warnings have little to do with the real threats to our health and lives.”</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Morgan offers a list of toxic chemicals that includes <font color="#ff0000">dioxins</font> and hexavalent chromium, chemicals that the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies as known carcinogens. But Morgan <a href="http://riskometer.org/library/Table_6.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">concludes</a> that in 2002, no one in American died of cancer from being exposed to any of these chemicals.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">“It’s actually a ridiculous statement,” said Lester, a toxicologist at the Center for Health, Environment & Justice. He said although science may not be able to say what caused a person to get cancer, that doesn’t mean chemicals aren’t to blame.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Morgan now says he doesn’t remember the details of this analysis, done in 2007, or where he got his information.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Former Hinkley resident Julie Heggenberger watched her mother, who grew up across the street from the PG&E station, suffer from a host of painful diseases. In 1976, her maternal grandfather died of thyroid cancer. And Heggenberger says that on the day she was born in 1974, her grandmother died of stomach cancer.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Court records show the family may have been exposed to the worst contamination of all. A nearby well in 1965 had a reading of 15,000 parts per billion or nearly 5,000 times worse than any exposure today.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.33em; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">When you know your family drank a chemical known to cause cancer and you see them suffering, you don’t want to wait for the science to be perfect, she said, adding, “How much hurt has to happen before they say, well yeah, it was hurting people all that time?”</p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="container container_12" style="margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; width: 960px; font-family: tablet-gothic-narrow, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.199999809265137px; line-height: 20.212499618530273px;"><div class="calais-tags-wrapper" style="margin: 1.33em 230px 0px 80px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; width: 620px; float: left;"><h4 style="margin: 0.266em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 0.95em; line-height: 1.33em; color: rgb(50, 50, 50);">More stories about</h4><div class="calais-tags node-12744" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 0.855em; line-height: 1.33em;"><div class="first" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Health" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">Health</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Medicine" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">Medicine</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Occupational-safety-and-health" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">Occupational safety and health</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Matter" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">Matter</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Epidemiology" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">Epidemiology</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/California-Office-of-Environmental-Health-Hazard-Assessment" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Hexavalent-chromium" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">Hexavalent chromium</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Chromium" style="color: red;">Chromium</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Erin-Brockovich" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">Erin Brockovich</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Hinkley%252C-California" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">Hinkley, California</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Chromium-compounds" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">Chromium compounds</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Cancer-cluster" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">Cancer cluster</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/John-Morgan" style="text-decoration: none; color: red;">John Morgan</a></div><div class="first" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">=</div><div class="first" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">
</div><div class="first" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div align="center" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.199999809265137px; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Professional and Scientific Experience of John W. Morgan, DrPH, CPH</span></i></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.199999809265137px; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.199999809265137px; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> John W. Morgan, DrPH, CPH is a Professor of Epidemiology at Loma Linda University with a primary appointment in the School of Public Health and a secondary appointment in the School of Science and Technology. In 1983, Dr. Morgan joined the faculty in the School of Public Health and has participated in teaching epidemiology in the Schools of Public Health, Nursing, Pharmacy, Science and Technology, and Medicine at Loma Linda University, including teaching of Preventive Medicine Residents. Dr. Morgan has taught more than 150 courses in the principles of epidemiology, epidemiologic research, or the epidemiology of cancer. In 1995, he joined the California Cancer Registry (CCR) as the Regional Epidemiologist for the Desert Sierra Cancer Surveillance Program (DSCSP), aka Region 5 of the<b> California Cancer Registry,</b> serving the approximately 4.5 million residents of Inyo, Mono, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties. In July 2009, Dr. Morgan assumed similar responsibilities for cancer assessments in Region 4 of the CCR (Central Coast Region), covering San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura Counties that includes a combined population of approximately 2.8 million. In these roles, Dr. Morgan serves as an agent of the California Department of Public Health with responsibility for cancer surveillance, cancer control, and assessment of cancer concerns in the DSCSP, the Central Coast Region, and statewide.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.199999809265137px; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.199999809265137px; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Since Dr. Morgan joined the CCR in 1995 as the Regional Cancer Epidemiologist, he has authored or co-authored 40 peer-reviewed scientific publications or reports, conducted hundreds of community and media interviews or presentations that dispense cancer control and prevention information, established and enlarged collaborations with the American Cancer Society (ACS) Loma Linda University School of Public Health, and other public health, academic, healthcare, and community-based organizations involved in cancer control. In this capacity, Dr. Morgan has developed and enlarged cancer research in the DSCSP and Central Coast Regions of California and Statewide that uses regional and statewide CCR data, responded to hundreds of cancer concerns, and has conducted approximately 20 detailed cancer assessments that included formal comparison of the numbers of observed and expected new cancer cases, controlling for the effects of confounding factors, in communities, schools, and workplaces. Consistent with these collaborations and public health need, Dr. Morgan involves approximately a dozen public health students or preventive Medicine Residents in surveillance and research activities in the CCR each year. His current research interests include assessment and isolation of the independent contributions of demographic and quality of care measures in the stage at diagnosis and treatments for breast, colon & rectum, cervix uteri, and pancreas cancer and research that identifies and measures consequences of cancer treatment on development of a second malignancy. While the majority of his current research is in the area of cancer control, Dr. Morgan continues to participate in infectious disease research and infection control that served as his entry into epidemiology.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.199999809265137px; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.199999809265137px; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> In addition to his continued contributions to education and applied academics at Loma Linda University and his role in cancer control in the CCR, Dr. Morgan served four consecutive two-year terms on the Board of Directors of the California Division of the ACS, a three year term on the Council of the California Breast Cancer Research Program, three terms on the California Division ACS Cancer and the Environment team and continues to serve on the Inland Empire ACS Leadership Council. Dr. Morgan is currently serving a fourth, one-year term on the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries. Since October 2010, Dr. Morgan has Chaired the Cancer Evaluations and Outcomes team of the California ACS and continues service begun in 1995 on the Board of Scientific and Professional Advisors of the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">American Council on Science and Health</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> (ACSH). In these capacities, Dr. Morgan co-authored the ACSH position papers on risk factors for breast cancer and a white paper on competing causes of death among Americans and has reviewed dozens of ACS reports and publications.</span></span></div></div></div></div></div></div>