Dioxin News Article

[slester@essential.org]

This article appeared in the October 1, 1995, edition of the Charleston 
Gazette (Charleston, WV).  

                   EXPERT PANEL BACKS EPA DIOXIN STUDY
                                    
By Ken Ward Jr.
SUNDAY GAZETTE-MAIL
                                    
An independent panel of scientists has given its general approval to the 
conclusions of a three-
year U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study of the toxic chemical dioxin.
 
According to a summary and several key chapters of its report obtained 
last week, a committee
of EPA's Science Advisory Board has found that:
 
* EPA was right to conclude that almost all dioxin currently found in the 
environment was
created by human - i.e., industrial - sources, not natural causes like 
forest fires.
 
* The agency was correct in finding that dioxin is properly classified as 
a probable human
carcinogen, according to data from both animal and human studies.  This 
designation is more
serious than the current EPA classification for dioxin.
 
* As EPA concluded last September, dioxin can cause serious harmful 
effects on the immune,
nervous and reproductive systems of humans.  In fact, these non-cancer 
effects may be more
serious than dioxin's ability to cause cancer.
 
* Dioxin, as EPA outlined, does have adverse effects on animals at levels 
of exposure far below
those previously believed to be safe.
 
A final version of the Science Advisory Board report was expected to be 
delivered to EPA
Administrator Carol Browner on Friday, according to agency officials.
 
EPA scientists will study the peer review team report and then issue a 
final dioxin report
sometime next year.
 
"I don't think their report will bring about major changes in our 
conclusions," said William H.
Farland, an EPA scientist who helped write the agency's dioxin report.
 
The public release of this full peer review report, expected soon after 
Browner reviews it, will
probably start another media and political war over the agency's 
scientific conclusions.
 
Environmental groups, who believe EPA's conclusions should mandate 
tougher dioxin regulations,
are braced for another blitz from the chemical and paper industries that 
oppose such measures.
 
They say several criticisms of EPA by Science Advisory Board will be 
plucked form the panel's
report and used to push the message that the dangers of dioxin are being 
exaggerated.
 
In fact, some environmental groups say, parts of the committee's report 
were written for that
purpose by committee members who received research money from industries 
that would be
hurt by stronger dioxin rules.
Former EPA Administrator William Reilly launched the EPA dioxin 
reassessment in April
1991 after a series of industry-sponsored reports alleged the dangers of 
the chemical had been
overstated.
 
In September 1994, EPA officials in Washington, D.C., unveiled a public 
review draft of their
report.  It filled six thick books containing more than 2,000 pages.
 
The report concluded that there may be no safe level of dioxin and that 
the range of adverse
health effects was much broader than just cancer.
 
The peer review report from the Science Advisory Board generally endorsed 
the EPA report's
first eight chapters, which examined the sources, exposure levels and 
health effects of dioxin.
 
The committee agrees with the EPA position that current levels of 
dioxin-like compounds in
the environment are due to anthropogenic sources, and based on available 
data, that the air-to-
plant-to-animal pathway is the primary way in which the food chain is 
impacted and humans
are exposed," the committee's &aft report stated.
 
The committee also suggested EPA needed to do more work on the models 
used to
extrapolate high-dose dioxin exposure of industrial workers, and on 
animal tests to low-dose
average human exposures.
 
Perhaps the most controversial sections of the peer review report will be 
those that examined
Chapter 9 of the EPA's reassessment.
         
This chapter, called the risk characterization chapter, was intended to 
provide "a balanced
picture of the scientific findings of the health and exposure assessments 
for use by risk
managers in selected risk management options," the EPA draft study said.
 
In its review of this chapter, the Science Advisory Board committee 
praised EPA for focusing
serious attention on non-cancer effects, examining dioxin and similar 
compounds together,
and stating specifically that the new study found adverse health effects 
occurring at much
lower levels of exposure than previously reported.
 
But the panel also noted what it called three major weaknesses in Chapter 
9 of the
reassessment:
 
*  EPA failed to present scientific findings in a balanced manner and 
tended to overstate the
evidence of danger.  For example, the inference that humans are at risk 
from average current
exposure levels of dioxin was based on populations that are at the high 
end of these average
current exposure levels.
 
*  Important uncertainties associated with EPA's conclusions were not 
fully recognized and
subjected to analysis.  For example, EPA consistently used conservative 
numerical values - those
aimed at being more, rather than less, protective - for dioxin potency.
 
*  EPA did not provide specifics about how much dioxin exposure would 
cause which of the
many non-cancer effects identified in the report.
 
This section of the peer review report was written primarily by John 
Graham of the Harvard Cen-
 
ter for Risk Analysis and William Greenlee, formerly of Purdue University 
and now with the
University of Massachusetts at Worcester, according to EPA officials.
 
During the 1993-93 academic year, Greenlee received nearly $1 million in 
research grants from
the industry lobby group the American Forest & Paper Association, 
according to a Purdue
University annual report.  According to the report the grant was for a 
project called "De-
 
velopment of a Biological Basis for Dioxin Risk."
 
A secretary at Greenlee's current office in Worcester said Greenlee 
wished to refer questions
about the peer review report to Sam Rondburg, a staff member of the 
Science Advisory Board.
 
Barry Polsky, a media spokesman for the trade group, noted that the EPA 
was  aware of where
Greenlee's research grants came from.
         
"There was complete disclosure of that and we don't see conflict of 
interest," Polsky said Friday.
 
Stephen Lester, science director for the Citizens Clearinghouse for 
Hazardous Waste, said two
scientists with ties to national environmental groups recused themselves 
from the Science
Advisory Board review of the dioxin study because the groups they work 
with had taken public
stands on dioxin policy.
 
Lester wonders why Greenlee didn't do the same thing. 
 
"The science end of this is sound," Lester said.  "But it has become a 
complete circus that is
dominated by the corporations and their money."
 


Michael Drescher
Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste
e-mail:  slester@essential.org