AP story downplays dioxin's link to cancer

[Mike Ewall <catalyst@envirolink.org>]

The AP (Apathy Promoters, oops, I mean the Associated Press), ran a story
today downplaying dioxin's role in cancer.  Certain mainstream
environmental groups under fire on their acceptance of dioxin-emitting
technologies are already distributing this article to one another.  While
many of the arguments in the AP article are easy to shoot down, I'd
appreciate if someone could take the time to comb through it and knock down
all of the statements in need of refutation.  Documentation of such
refutations would be helpful as well.

Mike Ewall
Pennsylvania Environmental Network
http://www.penweb.org
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The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 5, 1999
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Dioxin's link to cancer reported limited now

Only workers exposed to high levels of the chemical have an increased risk
of the disease, a study says.

By Paul Recer

ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - Chemical workers exposed to high levels of dioxin have a 60
percent increased chance of dying of cancer, but the chemical poses no
added cancer risk to the general population, a study says.

Kyle Steenland, coauthor of the study in today's Journal of the National
Cancer Institute, said the research suggested that most people typically
were not exposed to dangerous levels of dioxin today and that cancer
appeared to result only among those who had extremely high and long-term
exposures to the chemical 15 to 20 years ago.

Steenland called the finding "reassuring" from a public-health standpoint.

The amount of dioxin in the environment is steadily declining, because the
products most commonly linked to it are no longer being made, said
Steenland, a researcher with the National Institute for Occupational Safety
and Health.

Dioxin was a byproduct in the manufacture of herbicides and pesticides that
were in common use decades ago, Steenland said in an interview. Production
of the chemicals halted in the mid-1980s, and the environmental
contamination has dropped steadily since.

However, for those who experienced high exposures, the chemical can persist
in the body for decades.

Dioxin is one of the chemicals in Agent Orange, the herbicide used by the
United States to kill jungle vegetation during the Vietnam War. Hundreds of
U.S. troops were exposed to the chemical, but not at the high levels
experienced by many chemical-plant workers, Steenland said.

Dr. Robert N. Hoover, of the National Cancer Institute, called the study by
Steenland and his colleagues "a critical piece of evidence" that shows that
dioxin, at its present levels in the environment, appears to present no
significant threat to general public health.

In the study, Steenland examined the health record of about 3,500 chemical
workers who were exposed to dioxin on the job during the 1960s, '70s and
'80s for periods of six months to 20 years.

Among workers with the highest exposure rate, there was a 60 percent
increase in cancer deaths compared with the rate among the general public.
This increase, Steenland said, was seen only in those workers whose dioxin
exposure was 100 to 1,000 times higher than the background exposure of the
general public.

© 1998 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.