A pilot study on the metals content in the stool of Butte infants has brought attention to the work of a Montana Tech professor.
Dr. Katie Hailer, the study’s co-author, used samples from 15 healthy Butte babies and compared them with samples from 17 newborns in South Carolina. The study found higher concentrations of copper, zinc and manganese in the Montana samples.
“I expected to see a higher metal concentration in Butte, but I didn’t expect it to be this large. So we were very surprised,” Hailer, an associate professor of chemistry, told KRTV.
Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency have refuted that the metal levels are alarming.
"If you look at the ranges (of metals) found in the literature – all the metals, copper, zinc, manganese – the conclusion is obvious," Charles Partridge, EPA Region 8 toxicologist, said in a story posted on the Montana Standard website. "We have this body of literature. One study is all the way against everything that's been published that we've been able to find. Everything's pointing one way and this study's pointing the other."
Hailer then provided a follow-up rebuttal to the EPA, also posted on the Montana Standard.
"We won't know any more about Butte's values until a larger, much more comprehensive study is undertaken,” Hailer said. "If the EPA and others want to take our very small study and compare it across the board to larger studies without accounting for variations in methodologies or sample collection from exposed or non-exposed groups, and say they are confident the Butte numbers fall in the ‘normal’ range, then that is their decision.”
What constitutes "normal" range remains in dispute.
Hailer has said she is seeking grant funding to help conduct additional research that will allow for a greater sampling of babies and their mothers and taken over a longer period of time.
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