Concerns arise over hair testing

A local resident and medical experts are questioning hair sampling in Henderson that is being sponsored by a Southern California foundation, purportedly as a method to look for exposure to environmental pollutants.

The Hope for Life Foundation of Mission Viejo, Calif., has collected about 30 hair samples in Henderson, foundation founder and President Don Westover said. The snippets of hair have been sent to laboratories in Phoenix and Addison, Texas, for analysis.

The Hope for Life Foundation sells dietary supplements, hair sampling kits and education programs on environmental contaminants to schools and communities, according to its website. The supplements, the foundation claims, can remove heavy metals that have built up in the body.

Westover said he is trying to sell neither supplements nor kits to Henderson residents. He is looking for sponsors to cover the cost, however.

Westover started seeking the Henderson samples after learning of the city's industrial past through a chance conversation that led him to a resident suffering from multiple sclerosis. The man's test results indicated lead, mercury and benzene in his system.

Among those for whom Westover's group has offered the tests are Tom and Sue Roe of Henderson, whose 16-year-old son, Christopher, died of leukemia two years ago. The Roes live near industrial evaporation ponds used from World War II until the 1970s.

The Roes have declined to give Westover any samples, saying they doubt the methods the foundation is using.

The foundation's supplements have come under scrutiny.

In January 2000 the foundation underwent a Food and Drug Administration recall for distributing a dietary supplement called Radic Electrolyte Formula. The over-the-counter liquid contained catechol, a cancer-causing agent. About 20 bottles were distributed in California and Nevada, but all were recovered, according to the FDA.

The foundation's board also appears to lack the traditional medical expertise that it claims.

Its website says the California-based board includes, along with a chiropracter and a naturopath, a medical doctor named Kenneth E. Burke.

However, California Medical Board of Examiners records listed a Dr. Kenneth E. Burke with a medical license that expired in 1999. "He's deceased," a board clerk said, as she read further through the record.

When asked about Burke, Westover said, "Dr. Burke is alive, as far as I know, in the east, Michigan, I think."

A national search for a Dr. Kenneth Burke noted only a doctor from New Hampshire with a license that lapsed in 1996.

In addition, the foundation was not listed as a nonprofit corporation on the California Secretary of State's web page or a national database called Guidestar.

Many medical experts question the value of hair sampling in general.

The American Medical Association opposes hair analysis as "an unproven practice and a potential for health-care fraud," an official policy since 1994, Carrie Hennessy, a spokeswoman in the AMA's Chicago headquarters, said.

The California Department of Health Services, in results published in the Jan. 3 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, termed hair analysis "unreliable, and we recommend that health-care practitioners refrain from using such analyses to assess individual nutritional status or suspected environmental exposures."

Hair testing has had a questionable history, although it has been in use since the 1950s.

"Hair testing is controversial, anyhow," said Clark County's Chief Health Officer Dr. Donald Kwalick, referring to the fact that results can vary widely. "You can't give it a lot of credence."

Most of the laboratories conducting hair analysis are not regulated or certified, said John Hiatt, technical director of Associated Pathologists Laboratories of Las Vegas.

"There are real red flags here," Hiatt said of the foundation's offer.

While most people have detectable metal levels in their hair, many of these will disappear from the body over time without any further outside interference, Hiatt said.

Removing heavy metals through the use of dietary supplements is not endorsed by the medical community, Hiatt said.

Finding benzene, for example, in the Henderson resident's hair would be difficult, he said. Benzene is a volatile chemical that evaporates from the body, including the hair.

Foundations such as Hope for Life have an "extremely successful promotional approach," Hiatt said.

For those worried about what might be accumulating in their bodies, blood and urinalysis samples analyzed by a certified laboratory is the best way to determine contaminant levels, he said.

There is no evidence that industrial chemicals are a public health threat to Henderson residents, a state official said.

The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection has had the industrial complex, 15 miles southeast of Las Vegas, under study over a decade and ordered various cleanup efforts, said Vern Rosse, assistant division administrator. The chemicals or radioactive substances found in the soils or ground water are not considered a threat to the health of those living nearby, he said.

The Roes were cautious after Westover contacted them. They said they canceled a meeting last week with the California man because they didn't trust the hair analysis approach.

As of Monday, Tom Roe said he has received numerous phone calls from Henderson residents and one from Needles, Calif., after the Las Vegas Review-Journal ran a story last week on the foundation's testing plans.

Westover promised that he would not charge Henderson residents for tests or for dietary supplements.

"If I have to go out and get a paper route to pay for these hair analyses, I will," Westover, 32, said.

After receiving a bachelor's degree in community and world development at the University of Nations in Kona, Hawaii, Westover said, he cashed in his stocks and retirement savings, plunging $800,000 of his own money into the foundation two years ago. The nonprofit foundation does not operate on federal dollars, he said.

"There is no money needed from anyone in Henderson," he said. "We are not taking money from anyone in Henderson."

The foundation is seeking sponsors willing to pay for hair testing and for dietary supplements, said David Nickel of Santa Monica, an acupuncture specialist who works with Westover.

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