=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #310
—November 5, 1992—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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THE N.Y. TIMES DETOXIFIES DIOXIN (AGAIN)
During August and September U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) released drafts of 8 chapters of its long-awaited report on
the dangers of dioxin. The agency then promptly convened a 4-day
meeting of independent scientists September 22-25 to review and
discuss the drafts.
The day after the meeting ended, the NEW YORK TIMES reported
(Sept. 26, 1992, pg. 9) that “An independent panel of scientists
concluded today that dioxin was not a large-scale cancer threat
except to people exposed to unusually high levels of the toxic
compound in chemical factories and from accidents.”
The TIMES said, “The panel based its conclusions about the
effects of dioxin on human health largely on four studies….”
The TIMES story said, “…the risk to average Americans exposed
to dioxin, principally by eating beef, dairy products, chicken
and fish, is lower than previously believed.”
The TIMES reported that, “The risks, said several panelists, are
largely confined to chemical workers and people exposed to high
levels of dioxin from industrial accidents. They said the levels
of dioxin ordinarily found in the environment had not been shown
to be dangerous to people.”
The TIMES went on, “Scientists have known for a long time that
laboratory animals are apparently much more sensitive to the
dioxin molecule than people for reasons that are not well
understood, and newer studies have shown that trout, salmon, and
some species of birds also are very sensitive.”
The TIMES concluded, “In separate interviews, several panelists
said today that they did not consider the levels of dioxin in
most Americans, about 5 parts per trillion in fat, to be an
important health hazard.”
In sum, the NEW YORK TIMES led its readers to believe that a
panel of independent scientists reviewed four studies and
concluded, apparently by consensus, that dioxin is only a danger
to the health of heavily-exposed chemical workers and victims of
rare accidents, and even for them the only danger is cancer; that
existing levels of dioxin in the environment are not dangerous to
people; that the risks of dioxin are lower than previously
believed; that laboratory animals and some wildlife may be at
risk but this has little to do with humans because humans–for
reasons unknown–seem to be uniquely unaffected by low doses of
dioxin.
The TIMES put this comforting story on the wire and many U.S.
newspapers picked it up. The result was a nation-wide press blitz
saying dioxin is basically harmless to humans. For example, the
DETROIT NEWS reprinted the TIMES story, then capped it off Sept.
29 with an editorial,”The End of Dioxin Hysteria?” which
concluded, “But the fact that dioxin has turned out to be
something of a non-issue where humans are concerned suggests the
religious zeal with which some environmentalists are trying to
close down the chemical industry deserves to be greeted with
extreme skepticism.”
Is this the last word on dioxin? It’s not a threat to human
health; levels found in the environment today are of little
concern; the risks used to seem worse than they seem today; and
the risks are limited to cancer among chemical factory employees.
Is that what EPA spent 18 months and untold millions of dollars
to find out?
It seems not. Other reporters and participants in the four-day
meeting–including top EPA officials who called the meeting–came
away with views and information almost 180 degrees out of sync
with what the NEW YORK TIMES reported. On October 9, Erich W.
Bretthauer, EPA’s Assistant Administrator for Research and
Development, sent a memo to EPA chief William Reilly giving
Reilly his own views on what EPA has learned so far about dioxin.
In his memo, Bretthauer made seven points, each of which was
either contradicted, or missed entirely, by the TIMES:
1. To understand the risks of dioxin, we should consider a broad
range of health effects, not just cancer, Bretthauer told Reilly.
2. Dioxin has been observed to cause certain non-cancer effects
in animals by disrupting the body’s endocrine system (glands and
tissues that control bodily functions via chemical messengers
called hormones). These endrocrine effects include reproduction,
behavior of offspring, and changes in the immune system. “Some
data suggest that these effects may be occurring in people at
body burden levels that can result from exposures at, or near,
current background,” Bretthauer told Reilly. In other words, the
amount of dioxin already present in the environment, and in the
bodies of Americans, is at, or close to, levels that, in animals,
cause hormone shifts, reproductive disorders, changes in
behavior, and immune system damage.
3. Recent studies indicate that dioxin causes cancer in humans;
these studies need to be evaluated further and then EPA needs to
form a new official position about the cancer hazard to humans.
4. Additional compounds besides dioxin (for example, some types
of PCBs) have dioxin-like effects and should be included in EPA’s
reassessment of the hazards of dioxin.
5. There is insufficient data to develop a model that will allow
us to predict the cancer hazards to humans from low-level
exposure to dioxin. During the next 3 to 5 months, government
studies may provide the needed data.
6. The available data seem to indicate that dioxin will cause
cancer in humans in proportion to the exposure–high doses will
cause many cancers, lower doses will cause fewer cancers, and the
only dose that is risk-free is zero. In other words, the
so-called “linear hypothesis” of cancer causation appears to hold
true in the case of dioxin, though this is not certain.
7. Risks from existing background levels of dioxin in the general
population need to be “carefully considered.”
The WALL STREET JOURNAL (Oct. 16, 1992, pg. B9) summarized
Bretthauer’s memo this way: “Data reviewed by an independent
scientific panel suggest that the danger from dioxin may be
broader and more serious than previously thought, according to an
internal Environmental Protection Agency memo.”
The business journal, ENVIRONMENT REPORTER [ER] (Oct. 2, 1992,
pg. 1504), offered its own coverage of the Sept. 22-25 meeting.
The basis of ER’s story was an interview with William H. Farland,
director of the EPA Office of Health and Environmental
Assessment, the man in charge of the EPA’s reassessment of
dioxin. Farland summarized the four-day meeting by saying dioxin
is “a major health threat,” and that the draft report on dioxin
is “unlikely to ease public concern over dioxin.”
Farland said that “scientists at the recent meeting reported a
host of non-carcinogenic effects at very low dose levels–near
background levels–as well as the ability to cause cancer in
humans at high doses,” ENVIRONMENT REPORTER said.
In sum, EPA’s scientific reassessment of dioxin–which is based
on several thousand studies of dioxin–isn’t over yet, but so far
the scientific evidence is showing dioxin to be a worse problem
than formerly believed. The reassessment was initiated by EPA
chief Reilly 18 months ago in response to complaints by the paper
and chlorine industries, who charged that EPA’s regulation of
dioxin was too strict because low doses of dioxin are harmless.
These industries argued that there is a “threshold,” an amount of
dioxin below which no effects will occur. EPA’s scientific
reassessment of dioxin has, so far, substantiated EPA’s original
view of dioxin, that it is a potent toxin for which there is no
observable threshold. Furthermore, the reassessment has added a
host of new concerns, which were discussed at length during the
four-day meeting–concerns about disruption of the reproductive
system, harm to the immune system, and behavioral changes in
offspring of dioxin-exposed parents.
The really big news from the meeting was the revelation that
these endrocrine-system effects in animals are observable at body
burdens similar to the body burdens in Americans today. If this
view is upheld in the next few weeks as scientists continue to
review the available data, it will mean that any addition of
dioxin to the environment will be adding to an
already-unacceptable situation. This would provide a scientific
foundation for a demand that “zero discharge” be adopted as the
basis for control of dioxin. William Farland nearly said as much
in his interview with ER: “We have to be very cautious about any
additions of dioxin to the environment. We must be very concerned
about these high background levels of dioxin and what they may
mean for human health.”
Industries that emit dioxin into the environment–paper
producers, waste incinerators, metal smelters, and herbicide
producers and users–are feeling tremendous pressure to curtail
emissions, and the pressure seems likely to increase.
Newspapers, of course, are dependent upon paper for their
existence and they have a material interest in keeping paper
prices low. According to the WALL STREET JOURNAL, the paper
industry has already spent over a billion dollars trying to
control dioxin.
The NEW YORK TIMES, which has a history of odd reporting on
dioxin (see RHWN #248, #249, #275), received at least three
letters to the editor complaining about its misleading coverage
of the September meeting–two of them from scientists who
participated in the meeting and who objected strongly to the
TIMES’s reporting. The TIMES also received a letter from a
consultant to the incineration industry who said it was
“comforting” to learn that the dioxin found now in the bodies of
Americans is “less toxic than previously assumed.” The TIMES did
not print either of the letters from the scientists but did
print the letter from the incineration consultant, who argued
that automobiles are the leading source of dioxin. This point of
view, which is no doubt comforting to the incineration industry,
and to the paper and newspaper industries, is almost certainly
wrong. We will provide more details next week.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
Descriptor terms: epa; dioxin; incineration; health; pulp and
paper industry; dioxin reassessment; birth defects; ny times;
carcinogens; cancer; wall street journal; automobiles;