So here's yet another sad story, a bit of evidence that national leaders would just like the problems left by Hurricane Katrina to go away. (Anyone notice that it went, yet again, unremarked upon by our president and, while we're at it, doesn't really come up in candidate stump speeches this primary season?)

It turns out, those teeny tiny trailers that were supposed to be temporary but are actually starting to seem permanent to the nearly 40,000 people still living in them. Well, those trailers are toxic, off-gassing formaldehyde and  upping risks of cancer and birth defects for those who live in them. And officials have known about this. And they acted to NOT act on it.

An investigative reporter for Salon lays it all out today. CBS is reporting the intentional cover-up too. 

Apparently reports of sickness, bloody noses, breathing problems and death in the trailers started coming in shortly after the first wave of them was opened up for residency after the storm. But the CDC watered down not only the known ill effects of formaldehyde, but suppressed repeated warnings of its best scientists.

Photo: CBS News