Dioxin: Most Toxic Chemical Known to Man

[Guest guest]

Dioxin: Most Toxic Chemical Known to Man

JoAnn Guest

Oct 17, 2004 16:51 PDT

 

Dioxin: Most Toxic Chemical Known to Man

mcl-

(McLibel Support Campaign) Jon Campbell

Letter from Jon Comments- by Mike Mike's site

 

Hi,

I met Dave at the CCHW convention in Arlington, VA several weeks

ago. You might recall that I promised I'd send some info about

dioxin in beef. Sorry for the delay. Basic information about dioxin,

and recommendations regarding dioxin

in diet can be found at:

 

http://www.cqs.com/edioxin.htm

More detailed information can be found in the book

Dying From Dioxin by Lois Gibbs.

 

The long and the short of it is:

 

1. The EPA, in 1994, re-assessed the toxicity of dioxin, and

confirmed the finding that it was the most toxic organic chemical

known, with measurable health effects in our bodies at levels of as

little as 10-15

ppt, cumulative over a lifetime.

 

Based on this, the EPA set the " acceptable " dose of dioxin to

be .006

picograms (six million millionths of a gram) per kilogram of body

weight, or about 0.40 picograms for an adult (proportional to body

weight - much less for a child).

 

2. Beef is about the most dioxin-contaminated food, at about 1 part

per million million (or 1 picogram per gram of food).

 

That means that a single McDonald's hamburger in the U.S. has about

100 picograms of dioxin

(assuming a 100-gram patty).

 

(I don't know whether food testing for dioxin has been done by the

British govt; I assume it has...). That is 250 TIMES the

EPA " acceptable daily dose " for an adult (and double that for a

child).

 

If people knew that by eating at McDonalds that threatening their

health and the health of their children, rather dramatically, they

might be less inclined to eat there... You might, if you have a

chance, check out the rest of my website (www.cqs.com)

and let me know what you think... Regards Jon Campbell

 

Mike Ewall

D Briars Dave, I trust that Jon Campbell knows his stuff on

this. He's working on a book, actually. It's about personal ways to

reduce your exposure to dioxin and similar problems.

Yes, 90% of the dioxin you're exposed to is through meat and dairy

products. Sadly, while the main anti-toxics groups will admit this,

they all but refuse to recommend a vegan diet.

 

Beef is the most dioxin-contaminated food according to EPA. There is

a wonderful chart from their 94 report that I scanned and put on my

dioxin website at -

http://www.envirolink.org/issues/dioxin/

(see below) Mike

 

From Mike's page --

 

What is dioxin? Dioxin is one of the most toxic chemicals known. A

report released for public comment in September 1994 by the US

Environmental Protection Agency clearly describes dioxin as a

serious public health threat.

 

The public health impact of dioxin may rival the impact that DDT had

on public health in the 1960's.

 

According to the EPA report, not only does there appear to be

no " safe " level of exposure to dioxin, but levels of dioxin and

dioxin-like chemicals have been found in the general US population

that are " at or near levels associated with adverse health effects. "

 

 

The EPA report confirmed that dioxin is a cancer hazard to people;

that exposure to dioxin can also cause severe reproductive and

developmental problems

(at levels 100 times lower than those associated with its cancer

causing effects);

and that dioxin can cause immune system damage and interfere with

regulatory hormones.

 

Dioxin is a general term that describes a group of hundreds of

chemicals that are highly persistent in the environment.

 

The most toxic compound is 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin or

TCDD.

The toxicity of other dioxins and chemicals like PCBs that act like

dioxin are measured in relation to TCDD.

 

Dioxin is formed as an unintentional by-product of many industrial

processes involving chlorine such as waste incineration, chemical

and

pesticide manufacturing and pulp and paper bleaching.

 

Dioxin was the primary toxic component of Agent Orange, was found at

Love Canal in Niagara Falls, NY and was the basis for evacuations at

Times Beach, MO and Seveso Italy.

 

 

Where does dioxin come from?

 

Dioxin is formed by burning chlorine-based chemical compounds with

hydrocarbons.

The major source of dioxin in the environment (95%) comes from

incinerators burning chlorinated wastes.

 

Dioxin pollution is also affiliated with paper mills which use

chlorine bleaching in their process and with the production of

Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) plastics.

 

What health effects are related to exposure to dioxin and dioxin-

like compounds?

 

Sperm count in men worldwide has dropped to 50% of what it was 50

years ago.

The incidence of testicular cancer has tripled in the last 50 years,

and prostate cancer has doubled.

 

Endometriosis - the painful growth outside the uterus of cells that

normally line the uterus - -which was formerly a rare condition, now

afflicts 5 million American women.

 

In 1960, a woman's chance of developing breast cancer during her

lifetime was one in 20. Today the chances are one in eight.

 

How are we exposed to dioxin?

 

The major sources of dioxin are in our diet.

Since dioxin is fat-soluble, it bioaccumulates up the food chain and

it

is mainly (97.5%) found in meat and dairy products

(beef, dairy products, milk, chicken, pork, in that order.

 

In EPA's dioxin report, they refer to dioxin as " hydrophobic " .

 

This means that dioxin avoids other vegetation.

 

Rather,Dioxin will find animals to go in to, working its way to the

top of the food chain.

 

Men have no ways to get rid of dioxin other than letting it break

down according to its chemical half-lives.

Women, on the other hand, have two ways which it can exit their

bodies:

It crosses the placenta... into the growing infant;

It is present in the fatty breast milk,

which is also a route of exposure which doses the infant, making

breast-feeding for non-vegetarian mothers quite hazardous.

 

This is where you get dioxin from Total exposure/injestion = 119

pg/day

Beef 38.0

Dairy 24.1

Milk 17.6

Chicken 12.9

Pork 12.2

Inhalation 2.2

Soil .8

Water Negligible

 

Chart from EPA Dioxin Reassessment Summary 4/94 - Vol. 1, p. 37

(Figure II-5.Background TEQ exposures for North America by pathway)

EPA's reports on dioxin.

 

Much of this new research into the health effects of dioxin was

undertaken in response to industry challenges to EPA's findings on

the toxicity of dioxin in 1991.

Now, 3 years later, dioxin was found to be more dangerous than ever.

 

Copies of the EPA Health Assessment report may be obtained by

contacting: CERI/ORD Publications Center

USEPA 26 W. Martin Luther King Drive Cincinnati, OH 45268 (513) 569-

7562; fax (513) 569-7566. EPA's Scientific Advisory Board has

completed its reassessment of dioxin.

 

To get copies of the dioxin report, contact Sam Rondberg at the EPA

at (202) 260-2559. The final report issued by the Health and

Exposures Panels of the Science Advisory Board regarding the dioxin

reassessment is now available.

Get your copy by calling the SAB at: 202-260-8414, or

fax: 202-260-1889. Environmental Research Foundation's RACHEL's

Environment & Health Weekly Issues (many links follow)

 

Jon's site

What Is Dioxin?

 

Dioxin is the name generally given to a class of super-toxic

chemicals,

the chlorinated dioxins and furans, formed as a by-product of the

manufacture, molding, or burning of organic chemicals and plastics

that contain chlorine.

 

It is the nastiest, most toxic man-made organic chemical; its

toxicity is second only to *radioactive* waste.

 

Dioxin made headlines several years ago at places such as Love

Canal, where hundreds of families needed to abandon their homes due

to dioxin contamination, and Times Beach, Missouri, a town that was

abandoned as a result of dioxin.

 

Dioxin - An Unprecedented Threat

 

We now know that dioxin exhibits serious health effects when it

reaches as little as a few parts per trillion in your body fat.

 

Dioxin is a powerful " hormone-disrupting " chemical.

 

By binding to a cell's hormone receptor, it literally modifies the

functioning and genetic mechanism of the cell, causing a wide range

of effects, from cancer to reduced immunity to nervous system

disorders to miscarriages and birth deformity.

 

Because it literally changes the functioning of your cells, the

effects can be very obvious or very subtle. Because it changes gene

functions, it can cause so-called genetic diseases to appear, and

can interfere with child development.

 

There is no " threshold " dose -the tiniest amount can cause damage,

and our bodies have no defense against it.

 

Unfortunately, according to the EPA, much of the population of the

U.S. is at the dose at which there can be serious health effects.

 

How did this happen?

 

For about 40 years we have seen a dramatic increase in the

manufacture

and use of chlorinated organic chemicals and plastics.

 

For chemicals, it was insecticides and herbicides (weed killers).

 

For plastics, it was primarily polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

 

From phonograph records to automobile seat covers to wire insulation

to shampoo bottles to handbags to house siding to plumbing pipes to

wallpaper, we are literally surrounded by PVC.

 

When these chemicals and plastics are manufactured or burned, dioxin

is produced as an unwanted (but inevitable) by-product.

 

Dioxin had been a little-known threat for many years near factories

that produce PVC plastic or chlorinated pesticides and herbicides,

and where those pesticides and herbicides have been heavily used,

such as on farms, near electric and railway lines, apple orchards,

paper company forests.

It became better known when Vietnam War veterans and Vietnamese

civilians, exposed to dioxin-contaminated Agent Orange, became ill.

 

It has been a hazard downstream of paper mills (where chlorine

bleach combines with natural organics in wood pulp

and produces dioxin).

Several towns and cities have become contaminated as a result of

chemical spills or manufacturing emissions, some that needed to be

evacuated. Love Canal (Niagara Falls, N.Y), Seveso (Italy), Times

Beach (Missouri), Pensacola (Florida), and the entire city of

Midland, Michigan have high concentrations of dioxin.

 

Bizarre health effects, such as cancer, spina bifida (split spine)

and

other birth defects, autism, liver disease, endometriosis, reduced

immunity, chronic fatigue syndrome, and other nerve and blood

disorders have been noted.

 

But in the last 20 years we have begun to burn household and

industrial trash and medical waste in mass-burn incinerators.

The result - given that we have disposable vinyl plastic all around

us - has been a dramatic increase in dioxin contamination everywhere

in the U.S.

 

Dioxin, formed during burning, is carried for hundreds of miles on

tiny specks of fly-ash from the incinerators.

It settles on crops, which then get eaten by cows, steers, pigs, and

chickens. It contaminates lakes, streams, and the ocean.

 

Like the pesticides such as DDT, dioxin 'accumulates' in the fat

cells

of the animals, and re-appears in meat and milk.

 

Dioxin is virtually indestructible in most environments, and is

excreted by the body extremely slowly.

 

How To Avoid Dioxin --

Do not eat beef, pork or Dairy, which have some of the largest

concentrations of dioxin of all food sources. Chicken has the lowest

dioxin content of all meats, but is still 'significant'.

 

Vegetarian meat substitutes such as organic tofu, beans, and rice

have essentially no contamination.

If your family drinks milk, drink only organic skim milk, since

dioxin is carried in the 'butterfat'.

Avoid all full-fat dairy products, such as butter, cheese and ice

cream.

Use dairy substitutes. Do not breast-feed infants, as human milk

contains more dioxin than any other food (in relation to an infant s

body weight), unless you have eaten a non-dairy, low-fat vegetarian

diet for several years.

 

Avoid all organic chemicals that have " chloro " as part of their

names (such as the wood preservative pentachlorophenol, which is

probably the

most dioxin-contaminated household chemical).

 

Avoid chlorine bleach (sodium hypochlorite) and products containing

it. (Use oxygen bleach insead).

Use unbleached paper products. Do not use weed killers or

insecticides that contain chlorine.

Especially avoid the chlorophenol weed killers, such as 2,4-D, found

in most fertilizer/weed killers and used by commercial lawn

services.

Avoid " Permethrin " flea sprays for pets.

 

Avoid household or personal products and toys made of or packaged in

polyvinyl chloride - PVC - labeled V or #3 plastic.

(For example, Beanie Babies are filled with PVC beads, which often

produce cancer-causing vinyl chloride fumes and are often

contaminated with dioxin.)

 

Avoid using Saran Wrap and similar " cling-type " plastic wraps

(unless

they are clearly identified as non-chlorinated plastic.).

 

Wash all fruits and vegetables carefully to remove chlorophenol

pesticide residue.

 

Avoid grapes and raisins unless they are clearly labeled as organic

(grown without pesticides).

 

Avoid all products which have *cottonseed* oil as an ingredient

(such as

potato chips), since cotton is often sprayed with chlorophenol

insecticides.

 

Moderator's Note: Cottonseed oil is genetically engineered as well,

so there is a double threat involved there.

 

Do not use soaps containing tallow (most soaps), as it is made from

animal fat.

Avoid " deodorant " soaps and deodorants containing " triclosan, " a

chlorophenol.

 

What You Can Do

 

The way to reduce the dioxin threat is to stop burning trash and

to stop producing PVC and other chlorinated chemicals.

 

If your town sends its trash to an incinerator, tell your town

officials

to institute comprehensive recycling.

 

Write to companies that use vinyl and ask them to use the known safe

substitutes.

 

Ask your supermarket and office supply stores to sell Totally

Chlorine

Free (TCF) products. Learn more about the dioxin threat.

Read the books " Dying From Dioxin " by Lois Gibbs, and " Our Stolen

Future " by Theo Colborn.

 

Talk to your friends and neighbors about dioxin and what you can do

to reduce the threat.

Join a community environmental organization, or form one if there

are none in your town. Call a state or national organization to get

help.

 

Download a copy of a Microsoft Word Version 6-compatible version of

this

document for a community information leaflet.

U.S. McLibel Support Campaign Email dbr- PO Box 62

Phone/Fax 802-586-9628 Craftsbury VT 05826-0062

http://www.mcspotlight.org/

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Mitchell B. Stargrove,N.D., L.Ac.

 

Integrative Medical Arts Group, Inc. 503/526-1972 4720 SW Watson

Avenue, Beaverton, OR 97005 fax: 503/643-4633

 

Integrative Medicine, Natural Health and Alternative Therapies

IBIS Medical Software: Interactive BodyMind Information System

 

http://www.HealthWWWeb.com http://www.Integrative-Medicine.com

--

. DIOXIN AND HEALTH .

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DIOXIN AND HEALTH

 

The word " dioxin " stands for a group of chemicals that occurs

rarely, if ever, in nature.

A very large proportion of dioxin comes from human sources.

 

Dioxin began accumulating in the environment around 1900 when the

founder of Dow Chemical (in Midland, Michigan) invented a way to

split

table salt into sodium atoms and chlorine atoms, thus making large

quantities of " free chlorine " available for the first time.

 

(Dow's chlorine is " free " in the sense of " chemically unattached, "

not free in the sense of " without cost. " )

 

Initially, Dow considered free chlorine a useless and dangerous

waste.

But soon a way was found to turn this waste into a useful product,

attaching chlorine atoms onto petroleum hydrocarbons and thus

creating, during the 1930s and 1940s, a vast array of " chlorinated

hydrocarbons. "

 

These new chemicals, in turn, gave rise to many of today's

pesticides, solvents, plastics, and so forth. Unfortunately,

when these chlorinated hydrocarbons are processed in a chemical

plant, or are burned in an incinerator, they release an unwanted

byproduct --dioxin

 

--the most toxic family of chemicals ever studied.

 

 

Dioxin is released by paper mills, by metal smelters, by many

chemical plants, by many pesticide factories, and by all

incinerators.

 

According to Greenpeace chemist Pat Costner, the biggest source of

dioxin discharges into the environment is factories that make the

popular plastic, PVC (polyvinyl

chloride).[2] Industry and EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection

Agency) have known much of the bad news about dioxin since at

least the late 1970s, but have done little or nothing about it.

 

In 1991, the paper industry and the Chlorine Council (a trade

group) pressured EPA to relax the few dioxin standards that EPA

had set at the time; in response, EPA has spent the last 4 years

re-examining the toxicity of dioxin, in preparation for deciding

what to do about it. (See REHW #269, #270, #275.) EPA released a

draft

of its 9-volume " dioxin reassessment " last year (see REHW

#390 and #391). Yesterday, EPA's Science Advisory Board released

its own critique of the 9-volume " dioxin reassessment. " [3]

 

 

 

Congress has attacked Chapter 9 of EPA's dioxin reassessment --the

chapter that contains most of the chillingly bad news about dioxin.

We

reported in REHW #457 that Congress was preparing to pillory EPA

scientists in a public hearing; that hearing has been delayed, and

perhaps has been scrapped completely. " Conservatives " in Congress

complain that Chapter 9 has not been adequately " peer reviewed. "

 

 

 

Last month the main authors of EPA's Chapter 9 published --in a

peer-reviewed journal --their own conclusions about the toxicity

of dioxin.[4]

 

 

 

The basic message from these senior EPA scientists is that dioxin

is toxic to humans in surprisingly many ways, and that the

general public is not adequately protected from ill effects by a

traditional " margin of safety. "

 

 

Public health policy usually aims to keep the public's exposure to

poisons at least 100 times below levels known to harm humans or

animals. As we will see,

this new report from EPA shows that U.S. adults are already

carrying around an average dioxin burden in their bodies that is

remarkably close to the levels known to cause illness in humans

or animals.

 

 

 

We want to note at the outset that all of the results reported

here were taken from peer-reviewed literature and were

statistically significant.

 

All of the following information is taken from the new EPA study.

[4]

EPA'S LATEST FINDINGS: EPA says the average U.S. citizen has no

particular exposure to dioxin besides what is routinely eaten in

food --mainly in red meat and dairy products.

 

 

This routine dietary exposure has produced an average body burden

that is estimated to be 13 nanograms of dioxin per kilogram of body

weight (ng/kg). (A nanogram is a billionth of a gram; a gram is

1/28th of an ounce. A kilogram is about 2.2 pounds.) Ng/kg is

equivalent to parts per trillion. So 13 ng/kg seems tiny --and

as an absolute quantity it is.

 

But compared to the amount that causes havoc in dioxin-exposed

animals and humans, 13 ng/kg qualifies as a major public health

problem, in our opinion. (EPA

estimates that 5% of Americans --some 12.5 million people --have

body burdens twice the average.)

 

 

 

Here are some effects of dioxin, as reported by EPA:[4]

 

CHLORACNE: Chloracne was the first disease associated with

exposure to dioxin, first described in 1897. Chloracne appeared

as an occupational problem in the 1930s among pesticide workers,

and among workers who manufactured industrial chemicals called

PCBs [polychlorinated biphenyls].

 

 

However, dioxin was not identified as the cause of chloracne until

about 1960. (Dioxin was an unwanted contaminant of the pesticides

and PCBs.)

 

Chloracne produces skin eruptions, cysts and 'pustules' --like a

very bad case of teenage acne, except that the sores can occur

all over the body and in serious cases can last for many years.

 

 

To grasp the nature of a bad case of chloracne, we can recall Dr.

Raymond Suskind's description of one of his patients, a white man

who got chloracne from dioxin exposure in a Monsanto chemical

plant in West Virginia in 1949: " ... he has given up all social

and athletic functions and remained in his house, according to

his own description, for months on end.

 

 

Several times he has been mistaken for a Negro and forced to conform

with the racial segregation customs of the area. This has happened

on buses or in the theatres [sic], " Suskind wrote.[5]

 

In laboratory animals, chloracne occurs at body burdens as low as

23 ng/kg and as high as 13,900 ng/kg; in humans, chloracne has

occurred at body burdens as low as 96 ng/kg and as high as 3000

ng/kg. This means that some humans get chloracne when their

dioxin body burden is only 7 times as high as the body burden of

the average person in the U.S. today.

 

 

In other words, there is not even a factor of 10 separating the

average person from the possibility of chloracne. In fact, the EPA

study cites examples of humans getting chloracne with body burdens

only 3 times as high as the U.S. average.

 

 

 

CANCER: There have been 5 peer-reviewed studies showing cancer in

humans

exposed to dioxin. The exposures occurred through

accidents or through routine activities at work.

 

These studies of humans show that, for some human populations, the

danger of cancer begins to rise noticeably when the dioxin body

burden reaches 109 ng/kg. This means that a cancer effect in humans

is evident

when the dioxin body burden reaches a point 8 times as

high as the average dioxin body burden in the U.S. public.

 

Again, there is not a factor of even 10 separating the average

American from the possibility of cancer from dioxin.

 

 

 

BEHAVIORAL EFFECTS & LEARNING DISORDERS: Laboratory experiments

on monkeys (marmosets) reveal learning disabilities in young

monkeys with a dioxin body burden as low as 42 ng/kg.[6]

 

 

Thus learning disorders are evident in monkeys who have a dioxin

body

burden only 3.2 times as high as that of the average American.

 

Again, there is not a factor of even 10 separating the average

U.S. resident from the possibility of a dioxin effect on the

central nervous system.

 

 

 

DECREASED MALE SEX HORMONE: Researchers at the National Institute

of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) found reduced levels of

testosterone --male sex hormone --circulating in the blood of

dioxin-exposed male workers.[7]

 

 

Other sex hormone levels in

 

these men were affected as well. If we can assume that dioxin

 

exposure caused the diminished testosterone levels, then some

 

humans are 280 times as sensitive as rats are, from the viewpoint

 

of testosterone. What seems most important is that these

 

dioxin-exposed workers had body burdens only 1.3 times the dioxin

 

body burden of the U.S. population. Thus there is not even close

 

to a factor of 10 separating the average U.S. male from the

 

testosterone effects seen in dioxin-exposed workers. The

 

reduction in testosterone levels was statistically significant,

 

but the reduction was small and the measured levels still

 

remained within the range that is considered normal.

 

 

 

DIABETES: In two studies, an increased incidence of diabetes has

 

been reported in dioxin-exposed Vietnam veterans; a third study

 

that reaches similar conclusions was reportedly released last

 

week by the U.S. Air Force.[8] The body burdens that seem to

 

produce an increase in diabetes range from 99 to 140 ng/kg.

 

Thus

 

the average American, with a body burden of 13 ng/kg, is a factor

 

of 8 below the lowest level thought to create a diabetes hazard.

 

Once again, there is not even a factor of 10 separating the

 

general public from the levels though to cause health problems in

 

dioxin-exposed people.

 

 

 

IMMUNE SYSTEM TOXICITY: In monkeys (marmosets), changes in white

 

blood cells associated with the immune system can be measured at

 

dioxin levels of 10 ng/kg --25% below the level already found in

 

average Americans.

 

 

Mice with body burdens of 10 ng/kg --25% below the amount already

found

in you and me --display an increased susceptibility to infections by

viruses, presumably because their immune system has been damaged.

 

 

 

SPERM LOSS AND ENDOMETRIOSIS. Female rhesus monkeys with body

 

burdens only 5 times as high as the U.S. average have a

 

measurable increase in the painful, debilitating disease of the

 

uterus, called endometriosis.

 

Endometriosis is increasing in U.S. women. (REHW #364, #377.) Male

offspring of rats with a body burden only 5 times as high as the

U.S.

average have diminished sperm production. During the last 50 years,

sperm production of men through the industrialized world has dropped

50%. (REHW #343, #432.)

 

 

 

CONCLUSION: We have only scratched the surface of the bad news

 

that has accumulated about dioxin. It is an astonishingly

 

versatile and potent poison. EPA, and the corporations that

 

release dioxin into the environment, have waffled and fudged for

 

20 years or more.

 

 

The answer to this burgeoning public health

 

problem is clear, if not easy: over the next 20 years, we must

 

ban chlorine as an industrial feed stock and thus cut off the

 

source of all dioxins. What other choice do we have?

 

--Peter Montague

 

===============

 

[1] Jack Weinberg, editor, DOW BRAND DIOXIN (Washington, D.C.:

 

Greenpeace, September, 1995); 34 pages, $15.00, from Sanjay

 

Mishra at Greenpeace: (202) 319-2444.

 

 

 

[2] Pat Costner, PVC: A PRIMARY CONTRIBUTOR TO THE U.S. DIOXIN

 

BURDEN (Washington, D.C.: Greenpeace, February, 1995); $15.00;

 

available from Sanjay Mishra at Greenpeace: (202) 319-2444.

 

 

 

[3] Copies of the Science Advisory Board's dioxin critique are

 

available, while supplies last, by phoning (202) 260-8414.

 

 

 

[4] Michael J. DeVito and others, " Comparisons of Estimated Human

 

Body Burdens of Dioxinlike Chemicals and TCDD Body Burdens in

 

Experimentally Exposed Animals, " ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH

 

PERSPECTIVES Vol. 103, No. 9 (September, 1995), pgs. 820-831.

 

 

 

[5] Raymond R. Suskind, PROGRESS REPORT -PATIENTS FROM MONSANTO

 

CHEMICAL COMPANY, NITRO, WEST VIRGINIA, APRIL, 1950 (Cincinnati,

 

Ohio: Kettering Laboratory, April, 1950), pg. 9.

 

 

 

[6] S.L. Schantz and others, " Learning in monkeys exposed

 

perinatally to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD). "

 

NEUROTOXICOLOGY AND TERATOLOGY Vol. 11 (1989), pgs. 13-19. And

 

see: R. Bowman and others, " Behavioral Effects in Monkeys Exposed

 

to 2,3,7,8-TCDD Transmitted Maternally During Gestation and

 

During Four Months of Nursing. " CHEMOSPHERE Vol. 18 (1989), pgs.

 

235-242.

 

 

 

[7] Grace M. Egeland and others, " Total Serum Testosterone and

 

Gonadotropins in Workers Exposed to Dioxin, " AMERICAN JOURNAL OF

 

EPIDEMIOLOGY Vol. 139 (1994), pgs. 272-281.

 

 

 

[8] Reuters reported October 6 on a new 20-year study of Air

 

Force veterans exposed to Agent Orange. Reuters said the new

 

study shows that dioxin-exposed vets have an increased incidence

 

of diabetes and heart disease. We believe the new study is

 

available from Donna Tinsley at the Air Force; phone (202)

 

767-4587. Thanks to Pat Costner of Greenpeace for this

 

intelligence.

 

 

 

Descriptor terms: dioxin; chlorine; dow chemical; epa; studies;

 

pesticides; solvents; smelting; pulp and paper industry; pvc;

 

pcbs; epa science advisory board; food safety; diet; meat; milk;

 

dairy products; fish; chloracne; cancer; learning disabilities;

 

central nervous system; testosterone; androgens; occupational

 

safety and health; diabetes; ranch hand study; vietnam veterans;

 

immunotoxicity; viruses; sperm count; endometriosis; greenpeace;

 

pat costner;

 

 

 

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NOTICE

Environmental Research Foundation provides this electronic

version of RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY free of charge

even though it costs our organization considerable time and money

to produce it. We would like to continue to provide this service

free. You could help by making a tax-deductible contribution

(anything you can afford, whether $5.00 or $500.00). Please send

your tax-deductible contribution to: Environmental Research

Foundation, P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403-7036. Please do

not send credit card information via E-mail. For further

information about making tax-deductible contributions to E.R.F.

by credit card please phone us toll free at 1-888-2RACHEL.

 

--Peter Montague, Editor

_________________

_________________

 

JoAnn Guest

mrsjo-

DietaryTi-

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Genes