For the past two years, at the request of residents,
researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and around the Houston area have
been studying the health impacts on the population following Hurricane Harvey.
Dr. Cheryl Walker, professor, and director of the Center for
Precision and Environmental Health at Baylor College of Medicine said they were
able to determine what each person tested was exposed to and how they were
affected when the flooding subsided.
"Even though dioxin was measured in the flood, unless
people were actually putting their hand and their wristband in those
floodwaters, they would not have been necessarily exposed, and that's what we
saw," said Walker.
She said they asked about people physical and mental health
following Hurricane Harvey.
"We saw there was no detectable dioxin exposures in any
of our cohorts, but we did see, for example, high levels of exposure to
pesticides and some other industrial chemicals," said Walker.
She said the study also found a big variation in exposure
due to location.
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