I would like to thank the Bitterroot Star for publishing the excellent article regarding the Board of Health’s consideration of the birth defects and other health issues on newborn babies.
There was one error in the article for which I am to blame. Unfortunately, I did not make it clear when I talked to Michael Howell that I had nothing to do with the formation of the Study Group in 2000. I was not a member. He mistakenly said in the article that “Hoy formed a Ravalli County Study Group.”
I believe that Dr. Linda Dworak was responsible for the group’s formation, because she wrote the Study Group Report, issued in April 2001. Their report was given to the Ravalli County Board of Health.
The Study Group was formed “to evaluate whether existing information justifies further investigation into the issue of wildlife deformities in the Bitterroot Valley.” The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks Wildlife Laboratory Report on White-tailed Deer in 1997 had stated that animals taken to them by game wardens for examination had no birth defects, just “impact trauma,” “artifacts of being dead” and “normal variations.”
This contradiction resulted in dispute, which the Study Group was formed to resolve. Their findings were that all of the birth defects that were reported by my colleagues and I were present on the examined wild and domestic animals and were in fact serious birth defects. They determined “a systematic evaluation of wildlife health is warranted to safeguard public health.”
The Study Group’s 2001 Report was not published. One of the BOH members at the time, Patti Eldredge, gave them her 2006 report that was critical of the 2002 peer reviewed study I co-authored, which was published in a scientific journal (hard copy, not an online journal).
Judy Hoy
Stevensville