Health Study Targets Rocketdyne Vicinity

Residents concerned about health problems among neighbors of the Rocketdyne facility are invited to attend a meeting Wednesday announcing the start of a federal public health study.

The meeting will be from 7 to 9 p.m. at Posada Royale Hotel, 1775 Madera Road, Simi Valley.

The Santa Susana Public Health Initiative is being launched by the Atlanta-based Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The study will be conducted with UCLA researchers in concert with Eastern Research Group Inc.

The study will attempt to assess potential off-site exposures and health implications from decades of operations at Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory, situated in the Simi Hills just west of Chatsworth. For years, some residents and environmentalists have contended that Cold War-era work on nuclear and rocket testing there has contributed to illnesses.

Accidents and long-term operations at the lab will be studied to assess whether they might have had any measurable effect on people who did not work at the plant but lived nearby.

Also, researchers will be taking an updated look at cancer statistics to determine what connections, if any, are suggested between the site and neighborhood cancer rates. The study is expected to begin this month and take one to three years to complete.

For more information about the meeting or the study, call Lafreta Dalton in Atlanta, toll free, at (888) 422-8737.