More or Less Dioxin??? (was Re: Dioxin Sources

[philip@prcn.org (Philip Fleischer)]

  Sam wrote
  >fifteen years.  Yet, dioxin exposure has dropped by over 75% in the
  >last decade; I am talking the total biologically available as a
  >function of TEQ.  Seems to me that if the PVC industry was the smoking
  
  Although this claim (and variations on it) are continually made by
  industry and their consultants, what I have actually observed looking
  at analysis sheets is increasing amounts of dioxin.  I can agree that
  many of the hot spots identified a decade ago have been really cleaned
  (or made to look so).  But there are many disturbing new findings,
  and good reason to believe that other bad news is being suppressed.
  (Whats _certainly_ increasing is the toxic concentration of information,
  that is propaganda--the dollars spent there prove that.)
  
  So many mass balances contradict each other or just don't add up.  For
  example one last year from Indian U. found almost 5 times as much dioxin
  is falling out of the sky as all the regulators and inventory keepers
  can account for.
  
  Even in mass balances studies like Duarte-Davidson (EnvSci&Tech 31 1
  97) which attempt to support the industry line of declining dioxin, its
  quite clear that there are uncertainties _within_ the uncertanties.
    "Clearly these estimates are of variable quality [...] results
    for most [...data...] classifed under medium to poor [i.e. 1's
    and 2's on a scale of 1 2 and 3]...etc." [pg 2]
  
  I simply do not accept that dioxin exposure has dropped by over 75%
  over the past decade.  From what I have seen, it is as likely that
  dioxin exposure is still increasing.
  
  
  
  
  
  Philip Fleischer   philip@prcn.org