Volume 4, Number 2
May 1991

Dioxin: Outrage VS. Risk Assessment

• The Chlorine Institute/EPA conference on dioxin toxicity last October (APA Nov. 1990, p. 57, "Some Credible Information on Dioxin") has gotten into the news, not because the world was so interested in what was said there, but because the Chlorine Institute's public relations firm issued a press release that allegedly misinterpreted what happened there, then put out the press release without showing it to most of the scientists who attended. The misinterpretation concerns a statement saying that the scientists had agreed ("reached a consensus") that no risk exists below a certain level of exposure to dioxin. In fact, the scientists reached no formal consensus on this, though probably most of them held that view. Some of the scientists resent having their names used for what they see as political purposes. None of all this changes the fact that the October conference was on the level; according to a news item, the April Scientific American, few of the 38 world dioxin experts who attended the conference even know it was commercially sponsored.
• Two informative articles, on dioxin and chlorinated Organic compounds (both targets of Greenpeace campaigns), appeared in April issue of Pulp & Paper. The one on dioxin is an interview with J. Leonard Ledbetter, who was for 25 years the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. When asked about EPA's intransigence in setting dioxin standards at the limits of detection, 13 parts/quintillion, rather than at levels determined by modern risk assessment methods, he says both he and Lee Thomas-;, the former administrator of EPA, have been puzzled by it. It bas to do partly with a formula the agency uses to calculate all standards for water toxics. If they made an exception for dioxin, they would have to change everything. The paper industry, Ledbetter says, has been targeted by the EPA and the public because mills are an identifiable point source. Other sources, such as municipal incinerators, which discharge more dioxin than mills, do not have an "upstream" and a "downstream" from which data can be recorded to show exactly how the pollution is generated. [Another reason is that the law on water pollution is much stricter than the law on air pollution, the Clean Air Act, which takes effect next November, will redress part of that imbalance. -Ed.]
• The article on chlorinated organics is by Bruce Fleming, director of the chemical pulping and bleaching division of the Pulp & Paper Research Institute of Canada (Paprican). He demonstrates that not all chlorinated organics are poisonous manmade chemicals like DDT. Many of them are produced and metabolized in nature, or have been part of our drinking water for decades. Chloroform, for instance, is typically found at 5-100 micrograms/liter in municipal drinking water. It is also found in smaller amounts in the Atlantic Ocean, along with methyl chloride, trichlorethylene, tetrachlorethylene and carbon tetrachloride. The author does not argue that a compound must be safe just because it occurs in the ocean or in drinking water--or that it is unsafe, either. His point is that chlorinated organics are everywhere in the environment. The article has a 20-item bibliography.
• Yet another study shows that low levels of dioxin exposure probably do not affect human health has been published. it was conducted by the Cincinnati NIOSH office and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Men exposed at work to 500 times more dioxin than the general public had 50% more cancer deaths than the normal, but men with only 90 times normal exposure had normal cancer rates. (From p. 35 of the March Pulp & Paper)
• A TV documentary called "Living Against the Odds" was broadcast in April. in a low-key, entertaining way, it made the point that the general public has no understanding of rational risk assessment or the principles of probability because of strong psychological tendencies to think in terms of luck, superstition and tradition.
• Last September, Renate Kroesa, International Project Coordinator with Greenpeace, was a guest commentator in Pulp & Paper. She said that dioxin was only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to dangerous organochlorines produced during the chlorine bleaching process. Greenpeace is working to eliminate "all use of chlorine and other chlorine-based chemicals" and get the public to stop demanding bright white paper. She must know that chlorine dioxide and hypochlorite have not been implicated in dioxin production, and that the characteristics of an element are not the same as those of compounds including that element. Table salt, for instance, is a chlorine-based chemical, but it is not poisonous at normal dosage levels.
• A $2 billion lawsuit against Georgia Pacific and International Paper for dumping of dioxin and other toxins into three Mississippi rivers is also described as a tip of the iceberg. In fact, a case last October in the saw area, in which a man was awarded $1 million for Georgia Pacific's pollution of the Leaf River, should be regarded as the real tip, because it came first. The Leaf River suit is being appealed, and the GP/IP suit bas not been settled yet. (From p. 35 of the March Pulp & Paper)