The Dioxin Deception

The causes of cancer are contested. Certainly, there is evidence that the disease can be passed down from generation to generation. There is also, of course, proof that smoking can cause lung cancer and a diet high in salt and sugar can cause stomach cancer. But there is no way to predict with certainty who will get cancer or why. And so the wives' tales proliferate: deodorant causes breast cancer; stress causes brain cancer; repression causes colon cancer.

Yet there is one general connection that has been proved but remains buried. It is the connection between dioxin and cancer. Dioxin is formed when chlorine-containing chemicals, like plastic or industrial waste, are burned, or when pulp or paper are bleached. The chemical then becomes airborne, settling on plants that are eaten by animals, which, in turn, are eaten by humans. Humans retain dioxins in their fatty tissue through both meat and dairy consumption. And once dioxin is lodged in the body there it remains.

Scientists have known the dangers of dioxin for a long time. When the US Environmental Protection Agency completed its first health assessment of dioxin in 1985, it reported that more people will get more cancer from dioxin than any other chemical on earth. The assessment was intended to form the basis of all future EPA regulations of dioxin emissions.

But, according to a report released on April 3 by the Center for Health, Environmental and Justice, the paper and chlorine industries pressured the EPA to reconsider publishing its assessment -- and have succeeded in burying, waylaying and buying off government officials ever since. CHEJ's report, "Behind Closed Doors," is among the most damning studies ever written on how the chemical industry has influenced policy makers and concealed vital health information from the public.

Behind Closed Doors reveals that year after year the publication of the EPA's report on dioxin has been stalled due to pressure from the chemical industry. Tactics have included:

- funding alternative scientific panels, which downplay the health threats of dioxin

- pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the campaigns of President Bush and former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (who now runs the EPA)

- influencing the negotiations of the United Nations Treaty on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPS), which is intended to eliminate the proliferation of dioxin and other pollutants

- suing the EPA on the grounds that its guidelines for classifying dioxin as a "known human carcinogen" are false

- squelching community groups and anti-dioxin activists

- and attempting to prevent local governments, such as the California counties of San Francisco and Marin and the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco and Palo Alto, from passing resolutions to phase out dioxin sources.

"If you start telling people that every child born in this country has dioxin in their body," said Gary Cohen of the Environmental Health Fund, a partner of CHEJ, "if you show them the list of health effects and that every mother is passing dioxin on to her child, if you say we are all being exposed to hundreds of thousands of chemicals -- it's an explosive issue. And the chemical industry, particularly the chlorine section of the chemical industry, will be in trouble."

So you might say it is in the chemical industry's interests to keep scientific studies of dioxin poisoning under wraps. Among the key findings of "Behind Closed Doors" is the role the American Chemical Council and the Chlorine Chemistry Council have played in preventing a final release of the EPA's dioxin assessment.

Chiefly, the report shows that the ACC and CCC have manipulated the Science Advisory Board of the EPA's dioxin committee through money. The CHEJ's research on the November 2000 dioxin committee shows that a third of its members received funding from 91 dioxin-generating companies, like Dow and DuPont.