[Dioxin-l] [Dioxin] Open List?

[Jon Campbell]

David,

    Sometimes I think you're beginning to "get it" and then you fall back
into the industry line.

    Virtually all - if not all - of the products currently made with
organochlorines could be made without them, with no loss of health or
modernity or lifestyle. It was just a choice we made, a wrong turn in our
industrial development promoted by those industries (Dow, Monsanto, DuPont)
who would benefit from the widespread use of technology they developed and
patented.

    Refrigeration can be done with ammonia, and it can be done totally
without chemicals or moving parts as well (thermocouple refrigerators were
actually manufactured). PVC is used because of convenience and INITIAL
cheapness; its continuing costs to society in pollution of the biosphere are
tens or hundreds of times as great as its initial cost.

    Pesticides - and especially DDT - do not need to be used against
malaria. It is a disease of poverty. Clean up the breeding grounds - or get
people away from them - and you get rid of malaria. In emergencies you use
BTI, the natural insecticidal which is non-toxic (it's a soil bacteria)

    Pharmaceuticals are organochlorines and organofluorines specifically
because it is impossible for ordinary people or small companies to concoct
them. And they are all probably toxic to the human body, given what we know
about them. Hormone disruptors, etc. Remember fen-phen, an organofluorine?
The same result comes from 5-HTP, a safe and natural isolate of the African
Griffonia plant. But you won't see any pharmaceutical firms selling it,
because they can't patent it. As soon as the "discovery" is made, anyone can
make it. So the use of organochlorines is a POLITICAL and ECONOMIC rather
than TECHNICAL decision.

    As pointed out in a previous posting, pentachlorophenol is being used to
treat telephone poles. It has been used to dip entire log homes. It is used
to treat outdoor wood for people's porches and decks, where they will eat
BBQ and soak up dioxin each time they touch the wood. Penta is the most
dioxin-contaminated commercial chemical, TCDD level upwards of 100,000 ppb
in some batches. This is a political and economic, not technical decision to
allow this super-toxic poison to be manufactured and sold. It is another
PCB-like disaster which is still ongoing.

Jon

-----Original Message-----
From: david bell [mailto:burnt_paper@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2000 3:36 PM
To: Evertcc@aol.com; dioxin-l-admin@venice.essential.org
Cc: dioxin-l@venice.essential.org
Subject: Re: [Dioxin-l] [Dioxin] Open List?


>David,
>
>You've got to help me here. What lake(s)? The Great Lakes? The lake in
>Central Park? You are assuming that deposition in the late 19th century is
>from natural sources. It's my understanding that foundries/smelters etc. 
>are
>now recognized as possible sources of air borne dioxin during that period.
>The only unexplaned dioxin deposits that I know of have been in clay 
>deposits(deep?)

I did quote my source, so you could have looked. You can also look at :
http://www.epa.gov/ncea/pdfs/sedcore.pdf
which looks at historical data from 11 lakes throughout the US from the 
1700s onwards. Also, there is a study of dioxins in various foods available 
at:
http://www.epa.gov/ncea/docs/histmdw.wpd
or
http://www.epa.gov/ncea/pdfs/histmdw.pdf

I would like to see your reference about the clay and dioxin.


>Where did you hear about falling dioxin levels? What consensus? Dioxin 
>levels
>in what? In the air? In B&J's ice cream? Have you seen the posting on
>backyard burn barrels? have you had any of the new pentachlorophenol 
>treated
>utility poles installed in your neighborhood lately? Penta is loaded with
>dioxin and is becoming the pole treatment of choice (over creosote).

The references above find that dioxin TEQs now are lower than they were in 
the 60's/ 70's.

What you have given above is a lot of examples that dioxin is there; well, 
that's a start. But they are not comparisons showing that the level of 
dioxins are rising.

In a way, that is quite important. If you were able to show that dioxin 
levels were rising by access to decent data, then it is a very important 
thing to know; something that would inform your view of what action was 
necessary. I don't know the literature here particularly well, so I would be

very interested to hear what is out there.

>What are you trying to tell us about DDT? You admit that it is a known
>problem, and it deserves "effort", then you tell us that it saves lives in
>third world countries.  Which is it going to be? Perhaps we humans have
>learned nothing from one of our  earliest environmental mistakes.  We have
>created a super race of DDT resistant mosquitos which proliferate in human
>created habitats like tires, containers and stagant water in natural 
>drainage
>systems screwed up by harebrained development schemes. People use spent DDT
>containers for everything. A favorite use of DDT is to spray the interior
>walls of homes because it kills mosquitos (some) on contact for many months
>afterwards. That, to me is a reckless threat to public health with no long
>term effect on the mosquito population.

That's easy for you to say; I guess that you are not in much danger from 
dying from malaria. I think there are lots of extremely poor people with no 
medical cover in the third world who suffer terribly from malaria; they 
might have a different view.


>I'm sorry. I don't think organo halogens have proven to be that >useful.

Have you got a fridge ? a freezer ? Do you buy your food in the supermarket,

which uses HCFCs in their fridges and freezers ? Have you ever had to rely 
on hospital supplies which need refrigeration ?
Have you ever had any medication ? (maybe half are organohalogens)
Have you ever had a general anaesthetic (all organohalogens) ?
Got a pacemaker ?
Ever used plastics ? so many use organochlorines either as a constituent, or

to dissolve the starting chemicals. If you have a car, you can bet you have.

>Just
>because our society uses them does not mean that they are really necessary.
>Does our society need all of the disposable vinyl crap that it throws away
>and burns in incinerators? Vinyl siding is the rage now. In 20-25 years it
>will be getting torn off of the millions of homes upon which it was 
>installed
>because it disintegrates from UV exposure. Then what? our stupid wasteful
>society doesn't need all of the absurd rubbish that it consumes to maintain
>its fabric. It just thinks it does because that is what it is told by
>propagandists. Checked out the latest Pokemon?

How does society stop all the stupid crap ? good question- what is your 
answer ? would you ban Pokemon ?

I share your concerns- and maybe I would like to ban Pokemon- but I don't 
know it's so easy, nor that banning organochlorines helps.

cheers
david




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