Dr. Kimberly Dickson, who operates the South Bay Urgent Health Clinic with her husband, said she was gratified that county health officials investigated, but she questioned the scope of their review as well as their interpretation of the data.
The Dicksons reported a surge in stomach ailments last August after storms caused a huge flow of sewage-contaminated Tijuana River water into the ocean just south of Imperial Beach.
The county’s investigation, which found “no evidence of increased illness,” was based on 14 days of medical records from February, following a winter storm.
Dickson said charts from two weeks of care at small clinics does not provide sufficient data to reach a conclusion about illness spikes, especially when the county’s study focused on a time period when few people are using beaches and water temperatures, weather conditions and currents are markedly distinct from summertime.
“You can’t really compare February data to the August data,” she said.
Dickson, who serves on Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre’s task force studying Tijuana sewage, said her clinic had recorded more than 20 patients tested positive for pathogens associated with sewage.
She noted that county health experts are key players in the struggle to address coastal sewage contamination because their findings are likely to influence state and federal agencies that could address the contamination.
“We need them to say there is a problem, and recognize that there’s a problem,” Dickson said. “They are the driving force for getting things done when it comes to the Tijuana River.”
