Volume 4, Number 5
Nov 1991

New Balance of Opinion on Dioxin

• William Reilly, chief of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), announced recently that it was time to take a second look at the straight-line model on which the EPA's toxic risk estimates are based. Evidently he had been listening when a majority of the dioxin researchers and regulators at the Banbury Center conference in October 1990 had favored less rigid standards (APA, 1991, p. 18; for background information see p. 57 and 65 in the 1990 volume).
  This willingness to reconsider has alarmed Greenpeace, according to an article in the May/June issue of its magazine of the same name.
  In this article, Greenpeace denigrates the "fake consensus" reached at the Banbury conference and re affirms its intention to work for total elimination of chlorine and chlorinated chemicals in order to protect the environment from dioxin. "These are serious changes that will not come easily... but focussing on lengthy disputes over science and risk assessment has diverted time and money from action and jeopardized public health" ("The Dioxin Deception," by Joe Thornton, Greenpeace, May/June 1991, p. 17-21). The author deplores the fact that EPA is allowing states to relax their standards, and regrets that seven states have already done so.
• Science published a well-balanced, readable summary of the Banbury Center conference, describing reactions to it and reporting a related NIOSH study and three Monsanto Corp. studies of exposed workers in its February issue, on p. 624-626. According to this summary, the new view of dioxin is still controversial, but a consensus based on recent knowledge is emerging. Whether regulatory policy will change to reflect the developments in science is not known yet. (Thanks to Nelson Eldred, who recommended this paper because of its impartiality.
• Finally, there is the cartoon by Beattie, which by R. appeared in the Provo Daily Herald August 22. It is reproduced here by permission of Copley News Service, not as a statement of editorial opinion, but as a demonstration that it is now possible to laugh about this issue.