Those who may have been impacted by the fuel-contaminated drinking water at Red Hill in 2021 are encouraged to attend a webinar at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, April 9. It's a chance for families to ask questions and get updates on the latest public health efforts underway.
The Conversation talked to Col. (Dr.) John Oh, the chief of the Occupational and Environmental Health Division of the Defense Health Agency Public Health in Virginia, about the meeting.
He said that over two years after the Red Hill fuel leak, many people are doing well. But that's not the case for everyone.
"There are some that have significant problems with their health, their quality of life, their overall functional status. And so I think we owe it to the community of exposed individuals as well as the greater Hawaiʻi community to really try to be honest and transparent, to share what types of efforts we're doing at Defense Health Agency to try to support the population of the people that were exposed to the fuel release," Oh said.
Oh said that within the U.S. Department of Defense, there is a Red Hill registry of about 55,000 DOD-affiliated people, including civilian contractors.
He said the vast majority were automatically added to the registry based on their housing or employment records during the 2021 fuel leak.
"We don't have the ability to provide serial, ongoing monitoring of health through questionnaires over the years ahead, which is really what an exposure registry is all about. And so one of the things we're really committed to in DOD is to support an independent Red Hill registry, an independent registry that would be operated by a party external to DOD, that really would have full latitude to plan and execute the registry to support the population of exposed individuals," he said.
"We think that the independence is very important," Oh said. "I've talked to a number of individuals that, you know, they've really lost a lot of trust in DOD."
Unlike the DOD registry, the independent registry will operate on an opt-in basis. Oh said he hopes to have more information about enrollment in the next month or so.
Those eligible must have lived, worked, or attended school or day care in any part of the water system served by Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam from Nov. 20, 2021, to March 18, 2022.
"I think, you know, a future decision about any individuals served by the water system before and after that time period will have to be done at a later date once we know a little bit more," he added.
Click here to learn more about the April 9 meeting. If you can't watch it in real time, it will be recorded and available online.
This story aired on The Conversation on April 8, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1. Sophia McCullough adapted this story for the web.
