=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #405
(formerly RACHEL’s HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS)
—September 1, 1994—
News and resources for environmental justice.
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TURNING POINT FOR THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY
In St. Louis, Missouri on July 30, Dr. Barry Commoner gave the
keynote address at the Second Citizens’ Conference on Dioxin.
Here are excerpts:
…We meet at a crucial time in the history of dioxin. I am
convinced that 1994 will be seen as the year in which –despite
every effort of the chemical industry and its journalistic allies
to confuse and misinform us –the true dimensions of the ominous
threat of dioxin to human health became known. The profound
significance of its diverse attack on living things has now
become clear: Dioxin and dioxin-like substances represent the
most perilous chemical threat to the health and biological
integrity of human beings and the environment.
The history of dioxin is a sordid story –of devastating sickness
inflicted, unawares, on chemical workers; of callous disregard
for the impact of toxic wastes on the public; of denial after
denial by the chemical industry; of the industry’s repeated
efforts to hide the facts about dioxin and, when these become
known, to distort them. … We need to learn what must be done,
now, not merely to diminish, but to end –the menace of dioxin
and its many toxic cousins to life.
… On May 26, 1971, 2,000 gallons of what was supposed to be
waste oil were sprayed on the soil in a nearby horse arena [in
Times Beach, Mo.]. Three days later the arena was littered with
dead birds; four days later three horses and the ringmaster were
sick. By June, 29 horses, 11 cats and four dogs had died; in
August the six-year-old daughter of one of the owners was
admitted to St. Louis Children’s Hospital with a severe kidney
disorder.
[This led to a decade of scientific study of dioxin, during which
it became clear that dioxin is an inevitable by-product of
chlorine chemistry.] … The chemist learns to favor the
production of a particular molecule by controlling temperature,
pressure and other conditions and, more precisely, by introducing
a catalyst. But the process is never perfect; some unwanted
molecules that happen to be very stable and resist further
transformation will persist –as waste. [Dioxin is one of these
stable waste products.] … Toxic waste is not simply a matter of
poor housekeeping or bad management; it is an inescapable part of
chlorine-based chemical production.
… In 1985 the EPA [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] issued
its first formal cancer risk assessment of dioxin. …EPA
estimated that people would be exposed to the one-per-million
[cancer] risk if they lived near soil contaminated at the level
of one part per billion. When soil in Times Beach [Mo.] was found
to considerably exceed this level, the EPA decided to evacuate
the town.
[Because controlling dioxin is expensive, since 1985 industry has
maintained relentless pressure on government to relax dioxin
standards. Some animal studies showed dioxin to be an extremely
potent toxin in some species; other studies showed it to be
weaker in other species. EPA established a Workgroup to review
the data and conclusions of its 1985 assessment.] … The
Workgroup decided that the “scientifically sound” thing to do was
to average the potency values indicated by the different
theories. Because the high potency value of the 1985
assessment’s theory was outweighed by the more numerous
low-potency theories, the average turned out to be 16 times less
stringent than the 1985 risk assessment. …[However] if the
low-potency theories are right, then the original high-potency
theory is wrong, and vice versa –a situation that can hardly be
corrected by averaging their mutually contradictory results. [The
Workgroup’s flawed efforts died somewhere inside EPA, and the
1985 risk assessment survived.]
… [In 1986 EPA proposed controls on dioxin emissions from the
paper industry. The industry responded by re-evaluating the data
upon which EPA’s 1985 risk assessment was based.] And once more,
under this new assault…. the 1985 risk assessment survived.
[In October 1990 EPA and the Chlorine Institute —an industry
group –convened a conference at the Banbury Center in Long
Island.] The purpose of the conference was to review new data
about how dioxin caused cancer in order to provide a “scientific”
basis for a new risk assessment. The “new data” were studies
that actually went back to the 1970s….
The EPA participants in the Banbury Conference hurried back to
Washington with news that prompted the Administrator, William K.
Reilly, to predict that a new reassessment would in fact reduce
the dioxin risk. [This latest dioxin risk assessment has now been
prepared and will be released September 13.] But we already know
what it will say, thanks to a leak of the report’s conclusions a
few weeks ago. The new attempt to downgrade the dioxin hazard,
like all the earlier ones, has failed. But in failing, it has
not simply confirmed the important but narrow result of the 1985
risk assessment that dioxin is an enormously potent carcinogen.
It has also greatly expanded the range and biological impact of
dioxin’s effects, at levels of exposure already experienced by
the entire U.S. population.
… Apparently Americans are sufficiently exposed to some very
general source of dioxin to put us all well above the
“acceptable” cancer risk of one in a million, and within range of
its numerous other harmful effects. That source, according to
the forthcoming EPA report, is chiefly food [meat and dairy
products]….
Stated more simply, the situation is this: The general spread of
dioxin and dioxin-like chemicals in the U.S. environment has
already exposed the entire population to levels of these
extremely toxic substances that are expected to cause a number of
serious health effects. These include an average risk of cancer
of 100 or more per million in the entire U.S. population –100
times greater than the risk standard that has triggered EPA
remedial action, for example at Times Beach.
The EPA document also acknowledges that the newly appreciated
hazards of dioxin go far beyond the risk of cancer… the
expected non-cancer effects include:
** disruption of endocrine hormone systems, especially those
related to sexual development;
** disruption of critical stages of embryonic development, for
example of the nervous system;
** damage to the developing immune system, leading to increased
susceptibility to infectious diseases.
These are intergenerational defects, they are imprinted for life
on the developing fetus by the effect of dioxin on the mother and
sometimes the father.
…Dioxin and dioxin-like chemicals have become widely known as
“environmental hormones”… [but] There is a crucial molecular
difference between dioxin and hormones. Dioxin is distinctively
characterized by its chlorine atoms, which, when linked to
particular carbon atoms in its molecular structure, give rise to
dioxin’s powerful toxic properties. In contrast, no natural
hormone is chlorinated.
… [Chlorinated molecules] are rare in living things; only about
600 such substances have been identified, compared with tens of
thousands of different organic substances made by living things
that are not chlorinated. Moreover, not a single chlorinated
compound has been identified as natural in mammals. In Gribble’s
compilation of 611 chlorinated (and other halogenated organic)
compounds produced by living things, there are numerous examples
from fungi, higher plants, algae, sponges, jellyfish, worms, and
other marine animals.
… When the first mammals –or possibly vertebrates –emerged,
chlorine was abruptly excluded from this new form of life. As a
result, chlorinated organic compounds like dioxin are
incompatible with the distinctively complex hormonal systems and
developmental processes that are characteristic of vertebrates,
especially mammals.
… The industry’s chief defense against shutting down the use of
chlorine in chemical manufacturing is that it is essential to the
manufacture of most of its products (true), which are in turn
essential to most other industries and agriculture (not so true).
It is true that synthetic organic chemicals –plastics,
pesticides, detergents and solvents –have deeply penetrated the
modern world. This was done not so much by creating new
industries as it was by taking over existing forms of production.
After all, we did have food before synthetic pesticides, and
there was furniture, flooring and paint long before plastics. In
fact, as pointed out by one of the leaders in the development of
the petrochemical industry, Lord Beeching, it grow through a
virulent form of industrial imperialism:
…”Instead of producing known products to satisfy existing
industrial needs, it [the petrochemical industry] is,
increasingly, producing new forms of matter which not only
replace the materials used by existing indus-tries, but which
cause extension and modification of those industries…. To an
increasing degree it forces existing industries to adapt
themselves to use its products.”
I believe that this is where the [chemical] industry is most
vulnerable. The chemical industry is the source of persistent,
dangerously toxic substances that must be eliminated. To meet
that obligation, the industry must change its methods of
production –and, where necessary, its products –beginning with
the elimination of chlorine. Of course, the industry will use
its enormous wealth and political power to resist such a
far-reaching change. But some of its equally powerful corporate
customers –paper mills, electronics manufacturers, and the food
industry –may be less rigid. Yes, they have been invaded by the
chemical industry’s products that they use. But with those
products have come the built-in toxic accompaniments and the
economic liability for their damage.
We now know, for example, that the U.S. population is exposed to
dioxin not so much from the chemical industry’s direct emissions,
but chiefly from food that has been contaminated with dioxin
entering the food chain, especially beef and dairy products.
These industries, already suffering from reduced consumption to
avoid fat and cholesterol, are now likely to be hit once more,
this time by the dioxin problem. Sooner or later, to protect
their own economic interests–properly encouraged by grass-roots
activists –they will use their own corporate power to help
persuade the chemical industry to change its ways. Already the
paper industry has begun to make plans for ending chlorine
bleaching processes. There are even whispers from the chemical
industry itself that they have got the message; very quietly, I
have heard, their chemists are looking for ways to take chlorine
out of their processes.
These are some of the reasons why we are at a turning point not
only in the history of dioxin, but of the chemical industry
itself. What has brought us to this point, I am convinced, is
the environmental movement –at its powerful grassroots: the
numerous community campaigns against trash-burning incinerators;
the valiant battles against hazardous waste incinerators in East
Liverpool [Ohio] and Jacksonville [Arkansas]; the struggles at
Times Beach [Mo.] and Love Canal [N.Y.]; the campaign for justice
for the veterans exposed to Agent Orange. Let this conference,
here in the place where it all began, be the start of new
campaigns and new victories –for the sake of the environment and
the people who live in it.
                
                
                
                
    
–Peter Montague
Descriptor terms: barry commoner; center for the biology of
natural systems; cbns; st. louis; second citizens’ conference on
dioxin; times beach; dioxin; chemical industry; wildlife; epa;
risk assessment; banbury center; banbury conference; william
reilly; cancer; carcinogens; endocrine system; hormones;
developmental disorders; teratogens; nervous system; immune
system; food safety; beef; milk; cheese; dairy products; wti;
east liverpool; oh; love canal; ny; jacksonville; ar;