#353: EPA: Dioxin Does Cause Cancer In Humans

=======================Electronic Edition========================

RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #353
---September 2, 1993---
News and resources for environmental justice.
------
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org ==========
RACHEL-4CM = DIOXIN FOCUSED DIRECTORY Remote Access Chemical Hazards Electronic Library. Dioxinnz.com
========================Original Source========================

An explosion at a Hoffman-LaRoche chemical plant in Seveso, Italy, in 1976 sent a cloud of the herbicide 2,4,5-T over the surrounding countryside, contaminating several thousand people. Dioxin is created as an unwanted by-product during the manufacture of 2,4,5-T, so the Seveso population was exposed to dioxin. For years, optimists have been pointing to Seveso saying, "Dioxin doesn't cause cancer in humans--look at Seveso." Now a new study in the journal EPIDEMIOLOGY reveals that people exposed to dioxin during the Seveso explosion have begun to exhibit excessive numbers of cancers.[1]

Dr. Linda Birnbaum, director of environmental toxicology for U.S. EPA [Environmental Protection Agency], told the Associated Press that the new study "is one more nail in the coffin" for dioxin.[2] Birnbaum, who is coordinating EPA's multi-year "scientific reassessment" of dioxin said, "This, together with other studies, clearly supports that dioxin has the potential to cause cancer in people, just as it does in every animal it's been tested in. The weight of the evidence is becoming overwhelming," she told AP reporter Paul Raeburn.

The area around Seveso has been divided into three zones, called A, B and R. The small A zone was most heavily contaminated, but its 724 residents were evacuated. ("Heavy" contamination means that each square yard of land contained 13 to 494 micrograms of dioxin; a microgram is a millionth of a gram and there are 28 grams in an ounce.) The B zone was less heavily contaminated but its 4824 residents were not evacuated; zone B contained 43 micrograms of dioxin per square yard of soil, or less. The R zone was even less contaminated (average contamination being 4.3 micrograms per square yard), so its 31,647 residents were probably exposed to low levels. Another 181,579 people living beyond zone R serve as a control group living in "noncontaminated" areas.

The greatest cancer increase has occurred in zone B. In zone A the numbers are small and no significant cancer increases have occurred. In zone R one kind of cancer has increased: soft tissue sarcoma. Previous studies have linked dioxin exposure to soft tissue sarcoma in humans.

In zone B, among women there has been an observable increase in cancers of the gall bladder and biliary tract (the system that delivers bile from the liver to the small intestine), and in cancers related to the blood-forming system (multiple myeloma and myeloid leukemia).

Among men in zone B, there were observable increases in cancers of the blood-forming system, and in one kind of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (a cancer of the lymph system called lymphoreticulosarcoma).

This new study only covers the period 1976 through 1986--10 years after the Seveso accident. Since most cancers take longer than 10 years to develop, the cancers reported in this study may represent only the earliest signs of more trouble to come.

This Seveso study is not the first to indicate that dioxin causes cancer in humans. [3-10,14,15] Swedish researchers in the late 1970s began reporting that exposure to phenoxy herbicides (2,4-D and 2,4,5-T) caused a 3-fold to 6-fold increase in the risk of soft tissue sarcomas and lymphomas. Phenoxy herbicides are contaminated with dioxin during manufacture.

Monsanto Corporation, a major manufacturer of phenoxy herbicides, in the late 1970s and early 1980s sponsored studies of workers that the company had exposed to dioxin, and these studies showed no increased cancer deaths among exposed workers. However, the Monsanto studies have been criticized by a report from the National Research Council, [11] which says Monsanto's studies were "plagued with errors in classification of exposed and unexposed groups, according to some reports, and hence have been biased toward a finding of no effect." A 1990 analysis of Monsanto workers, conducted by the National Institute for 

Occupational Safety and Health, reported a statistically-significant increase in soft tissue sarcomas. [12]

As part of its multi-year scientific reassessment of dioxin, EPA recently published a draft review of all scientific data linking dioxin to cancer and other health effects in humans. [13] The EPA's draft document concludes that four separate studies[8,9,14,15] of workers exposed to dioxin have revealed an "overall increased mortality from all malignancies combined." EPA speculates that dioxin's ability to mimic hormones gives dioxin the capacity to cause cancer in many different organs and bodily systems in humans. [13, pg. 7-7]

There seems to be little room left for doubt: As the EPA's "scientific reassessment team" told then-chief of EPA, William Reilly, January 27, 1992: "Dioxin does cause cancer in humans." (See RHWN #283.)

It therefore seems that EPA now has little choice but to declare dioxin a class A carcinogen, i.e., one known to cause cancer in humans. This would have far-reaching implications for public health policy. (A public hearing to discuss the new EPA document, and its implications, is scheduled for 9-to-5 September 7 and 8, 1993, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Pentagon City, Arlington, Va. If you want to reserve time to speak, contact Helen Murray of Eastern Research Group: (617) 674-7374. The meeting will be full and space is limited, so we suggest you arrive by 8 a.m. if you want a seat.)

An editorial in the September issue of EPIDEMIOLOGY points out some of the public policy implications of the conclusion that dioxin causes cancer in humans. [16] The author of the editorial, Swedish dioxin researcher Olav Axelson, says that the "biological effects of TCDD [dioxin]" are "a first order public health concern." Axelson says "there seems to be an urgent and costly need to change or improve industrial and other processes so as not to produce dioxins (and the toxicologically similar chlorinated dibenzo-furans). For example, there is a need to restrict the use of chlorine in paper bleaching. Incineration of waste material at too low temperature should be avoided as well as the 'combustion' of organochlorine compounds in general," Axelson says.

Dioxin is produced by every municipal solid waste incinerator ever tested; it is produced by all hazardous waste incinerators, cement kilns and BIFs [boilers and industrial furnaces] that burn chlorinated wastes. It is produced by the manufacture of many pesticides (85% of which involve chlorine). It is produced by metal smelters, and paper mills, and probably by other common industrial processes. Although there is now little doubt that dioxin causes cancer in humans, translating that into public policies that genuinely protect public health will create a political firestorm. Once again, EPA chief Carol Browner faces a series of decisions that will define clearly and unmistakably which side she and Bill Clinton are on.

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

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

[1] Pier Alberto Bertazzi and others, "Cancer Incidence in a Population Accidentally Exposed to 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-PARA-dioxin," EPIDEMIOLOGY Vol. 4 (September, 1993), pgs. 398-406.

[2] Paul Raeburn, "Dioxin Dangers," a story on the Associated Press news wire datelined New York, August 29, 1993.

[3] Lennart Hardell and others, "Case-control study: soft-tissue sarcomas and exposure to phenoxyacetic acids or chlorophenols," BRITISH JOURNAL OF CANCER Vol. 39 (1979), pgs. 711-717.

[4] Lennart Hardell and others, "Malignant lymphomas and exposure to chemicals, especially organic solvents, chlorophenols, and phenoxy acids: a case-control study," BRITISH JOURNAL OF CANCER Vol. 43 (1981), pgs. 169-176.

[5] Mikael Eriksson and others, "Soft tissue sarcomas and exposure to chemical substances: a case-referent study," BRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE Vol. 38 (1981), pgs. 27-33.

[6] Sheila Hoar and others, "Agricultural herbicide use and risk of lymphoma and soft-tissue sarcoma," JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION Vol. 256 (1986), pgs. 1141-1147.

[7] Sheila Hoar Zahm and others, "A case-control study of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and the herbicide 2,4-dichloro phenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) in Eastern Nebraska," EPIDEMIOLOGY Vol. 1 (1990), pgs. 349-356.

[8] Marilyn Fingerhut and others, "Cancer Mortality in Workers Exposed to 2,3,7,8-tetrachloro-dibenzo-P-dioxin," NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE Vol. 324 (1991), pgs. 212-218.

[9] R. Saracci and others, "Cancer Mortality in Workers Exposed to Chlorophenoxy Herbicides and Chlorophenols," LANCET Vol. 338 (1991), pgs. 1027-1032.

[10] Pier Alberto Bertazzi and others, "Ten-year Mortality Study of the Population Involved in the Seveso Incident in 1976," AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY Vol. 129 (1989), pgs. 1187-1200.

[11] Anthony B. Miller and others, ENVIRONMENTAL EPIDEMIOLOGY VOLUME 1 PUBLIC HEALTH AND HAZARDOUS WASTES (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1991), pg. 207.

[12] Marilyn A. Fingerhut and others, MORTALITY AMONG U.S. WORKERS EMPLOYED IN THE PRODUCTION OF CHEMICALS CONTAMINATED WITH 2,3,7,8-TETRACHLORODIBENZO-P-DIOXIN (TCDD) FINAL REPORT [PB91-125971] (Springfield, Va.: National Technical Information Service, 1991).

[13] David Bayliss, Marie Sweeney and others, CHAPTER 7. EPIDEMIOLOGY/HUMAN DATA [EPA/600/AP-92/001g; Revised June 1993; Workshop Review Draft] (Cincinnati, Ohio: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Center for Environmental Research Information, 1993). For a free copy while supplies last, phone EPA in Cincinnati: (513) 569-7562.

[14] A. Manz and others, "Cancer mortality among workers in chemical plant contaminated with dioxin," LANCET Vol. 338 (1991), pgs. 959-964.

[15] A. Zober and others, "Thirty-four-year mortality follow-up of BASF employees exposed to 2,3,7,8-TCDD after the 1953 accident," INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF OCCUPATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH Vol. 62 (1990), pgs. 139-157.

[16] Olav Axelson, "Seveso: Disentangling the Dioxin Enigma?" EPIDEMIOLOGY Vol. 4 (September, 1993), pgs. 389-391.

Descriptor terms: explosions; accidents; spills; hoffman-laroche; seveso; italy; 2,4,5-t; herbicides; pesticides; studies; linda birnbaum; epa; dioxin; carcinogens; cancer; soil contamination; soft tissue sarcoma; sts; gall bladder cancer; biliary tract cancer; liver cancer; multiple myeloma; myeloid leukemia; hematopoeitic system cancers; blood; lymphomas; non-hodgkin's lymphomas; phenoxy herbicides; 2,4-d; monsanto; william gaffey; w r gaffey; judith zack; j a zack; occupational safety and health; nrc; national research council; niosh; marilyn fingerhut; chlorine; chlorinated solvents; incineration; cement kilns; bifs; boilers; industrial furnaces; carol browner; bill clinton;

#355: An Uncontrolled Experiment on the Planet

=======================Electronic Edition========================

RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #355
---September 16, 1993---
News and resources for environmental justice.
------
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org ==========
RACHEL-4CM = DIOXIN FOCUSED DIRECTORY Remote Access Chemical Hazards Electronic Library. Dioxinnz.com
========================Original Source========================

The anti-environmental backlash is in full swing. Public relations firms and their hired scientists say toxic chemicals are safe. They say the ozone hole isn't real. They say global warming isn't a problem.

Some writers in the mainstream media have welcomed the backlash. Keith Schneider, the NEW YORK TIMES's environmental writer, says the Wise-Use anti-environmental movement "is maybe one of the most important and interesting movements to arise in environmentalism in a long time because they're prying into the environmental questions that we've all grappled with for two decades: Is there really a global warming? Is there really an ozone problem?"[1]

The anti-environmental movement is making special efforts to convince us there's no problem with global warming. For example, a shiny, four-color magazine, called WORLD CLIMATE REVIEW, has appeared during the last year, published from the Department of Environmental Sciences at University of Virginia in Charlottesville. It is dedicated to two key ideas: (a) global warming is not happening; and (b) when it does happen, we will be able to cope, and it might even be a good thing. The magazine is being sent free to all members of the Society of Environmental Journalists. Production and distribution of the magazine is paid for by the Western Fuels Association---a group of coal companies. A spokesperson for the Association told us they put about a third of a million dollars a year into the magazine.[2] Burning coal is, of course, one of the major sources of carbon dioxide, the main "greenhouse gas" responsible for trapping heat and eventually warming the Earth.

Public-relations science, like WORLD CLIMATE REVIEW, is having an effect. The backlash against the idea of global warming is gaining ground in the mainstream media. The NEW YORK TIMES this week featured a story on the backlash itself, which they said is being promoted by "conservatives and industry groups."[3] The TIMES story was 45 column-inches long and the reader had to plow through 41 inches of "maybe this, maybe that" before reaching the main point:

"Issues in science are not decided by taking votes, but polls of climate researchers show that most believe there is a better than even chance that the climate will warm by at least 3.5 degrees over the next century," said the TIMES.

"Climatologists also know that once in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide stays there for centuries; whatever climatic effect it has will not be reversed in several human lifetimes. This may partly explain why the weight of opinion among climate scientists, as measured by polls, is that lack of certainty should not stand in the way of prudent steps to control greenhouse gas emissions," the TIMES said.

The goal of the backlash is to prevent "prudent steps to control greenhouse gas emissions" because such steps would entail burning less oil, gas and coal, and would mean developing ways to capture, store and use solar energy, a technology for which the fuel is free.

While the mainstream media in the U.S. celebrate the backlash and give major play to "maybe this, maybe that," the National Academy of Sciences, the United Nations, and the world-wide insurance industry are taking global warming seriously.

There are two undisputed facts about global warming: First, greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, CFCs, nitrous oxide, and ozone) are capable of trapping heat in the atmosphere, just as panes of glass trap heat in a greenhouse and warm it up. And second: The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is steadily climbing because of human activities. The obvious and inevitable conclusion is that, unless humans behave differently, sooner or later planet Earth will become warmer. Scientists only disagree on the rate at which the warming will occur, and on what the consequences of the warming will be.

The National Academy of Sciences believes warming is occurring now, or soon will: "Scientists have known for decades that a buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could warm the earth's climate," the Academy said in 1990. [4, pg. 64] And: "This principle, known as the greenhouse effect, explains why gases produced by human activity will probably cause the earth's average temperature to increase within the lifetimes of most people living today." [4, pg. 63]

What effects might that have? "A warmer climate would change the probabilities for heat waves and possibly for strong hurricanes," the Academy says. More heat waves would cause soil to lose moisture, reducing farm output. The Academy gives the example of summer, 1988: "In the summer of 1988, the North American corn crop was stunted by drought in the grain belt and productivity fell below consumption (probably for the first time in U.S. history) so that no grain was added to the nation's reserves." [4, pg. 65]

The Academy notes that, as a result of global warming, we should expect sea levels to rise, not only because of melting ice caps but also because water expands in volume as it grows warmer; indeed, during this century, average sea level has risen 6 inches or more, and the rise is continuing, the Academy notes. [4, pg. 91]

Another effect of global warming, the Academy says, will be increased evaporation of water from the oceans. This will put more water into the atmosphere, but the atmosphere has a limited capacity to hold more water, so rainfall will increase in some areas, even as hot spells and drought are increasing in other areas.[4, pg. 83] This will increase the likelihood of flooding in some regions.

For scientists, these issues are of theoretical interest. But for the insurance industry they are very practical and real. It is a stark fact that the three most damaging climatic disasters in U.S. history have occurred within the last 12 months. First Hurricane Andrew struck south Florida last September, costing the insurance industry $20 billion. Then on March 12 a giant blizzard, which the National Weather Service called "the single biggest storm of the century" swept from Florida to Maine. Then came this summer's flooding in the Mississippi valley, which may yet rival Andrew for the title, "costliest disaster of all." "Taken together, the storms do make one wonder if there are pattern shifts occurring in our climate," says Elbert Friday, director of the U.S. Weather Service.[5]

Insurance companies are doing more than wondering. In the U.S., 36 companies have canceled or limited coverage of property insurance in coastal areas of Florida. Where coverage remains, premiums have risen by up to 40 percent. Some companies have also started limiting coverage in parts of Hawaii, Texas, Louisiana, New Jersey and New York.

The re-insurance industry (companies that insure insurance companies) are taking global warming very seriously, hiring their own climatologists to evaluate the situation. A meteorologist, Gerhard Berz, heads the technical research division of Munich Re, the world's biggest reinsurance company. "The increased intensity of all convective processes in the atmosphere will force up the frequency and severity of tropical cyclones, tornadoes, hailstorms, floods and storm surges in many parts of the world, with serious consequences for all types of property insurance," he says.[6]

How serious could this become? In densely populated, wealthy areas where buildings are heavily insured, Berz says, the loss potential of individual catastrophes can reach a level where the national and international insurance industries do not have the capacity, or reserves, to foot the bill. A large storm with sustained winds exceeding 150 mph striking New York or Tokyo could generate claims approaching, or even exceeding, the total funds available for reinsurers, which currently stand at about $160 billion.

Senior executives in both London and Zurich believe a complete collapse of the reinsurance industry is possible if the current spate of large storms continues, or grows worse. [6, pgs. 31-32] Without reinsurers, the direct insurers would collapse. There appears to be little chance of operating healthy economies without a healthy insurance industry, yet failure of the insurance industry is rarely, if ever, discussed in global warming scenarios.

Swiss Re, another major reinsurer, has said, "There is a significant body of scientific evidence indicating that last year's [1990] record insured losses from natural catastrophes was... the result of climate changes that will enormously expand the liability of the property-casualty industry. In light of the magnitude of these losses, it would be prudent to act as if [global warming] is correct. Failure to act would leave the industry and its policyholders vulnerable to truly disastrous consequences."[6, pg. 32]

The truth is, no one really knows what global warming will be like, or what the full consequences will be. The National Academy of Sciences says, "In essence, we are conducting an uncontrolled experiment with the planet." [4, pg. 2] And: "Quite simply, the 'bottom line' of the evolving greenhouse gas buildup is that we insult the environment at a faster rate than we can predict the consequences, and that under these conditions, surprises are virtually certain." [4, pg. 76]

As citizens, we must ask ourselves, is it smart for us to allow the fossil fuel producers, and their "backlash" servants, to continue playing Russian roulette with our atmosphere, our property, our lives, and, indeed, our civilization?

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

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

[1] Keith Schneider, Taped remarks during a panel discussion, "Covering the Wise Use Movement" at the Society of Environmental Journalists' 2nd Annual National Convention held at Ann Arbor, Michigan November 6-8, 1992.

[2] Interview with Ned Leonard, Manager of Communications and Governmental Affairs, Western Fuels Association, September 15, 1993. Mr. Leonard's phone is (202) 463-6580.

[3] William K. Stevens, "Scientists Confront Renewed Backlash on Global Warming," NEW YORK TIMES September 14, 1993, pgs. C1, C6.

[4] Cheryl Simon Silver and Ruth D. DeFries, ONE EARTH, ONE FUTURE; OUR CHANGING GLOBAL CLIMATE (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1990).

[5] Friday quoted in LIFE magazine (September, 1993), pg. 31.

[6] Jeremy Leggett, "Who Will Underwrite the Hurricane?" NEW SCIENTIST August 7, 1993, pgs. 29-33.

Descriptor terms: global warming; global environmental problems; keith schneider; wise use movement; university of virginia; uva; sej; society of environmental journalists; coal; oil; natural gas; fossil fuels; greenhouse effect; world climate review; atmosphere; national academy of sciences; nas; united nations; un; insurance industry; oceans; sea level rise; drought; floods; flooding; agriculture; food; carbon dioxide; methane; chlorofluorocarbons; cfcs; nitrous oxide; ozone; u.s. weather service; storms; hurricanes; snow storms; hail; hi; tx; la; nj; ny; fl; reinsurers; reinsurance industry; munich re; cyclones; tornadoes; storm surges; swiss re;

#345: Corruption Out Of Control in Arkansas

=======================Electronic Edition========================

RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #345
---July 8, 1993---
News and resources for environmental justice.
------
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org==========
RACHEL-4CM = DIOXIN FOCUSED DIRECTORY Remote Access Chemical Hazards Electronic Library. Dioxinnz.com =======================Original Source========================

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was back in court in June, once again defending the right of the Vertac incinerator to vent dioxin-contaminated gases into a residential neighborhood in Jacksonville, Arkansas.

The Jacksonville incinerator has been burning dioxin-contaminated pesticides since last November as part of a Superfund cleanup at the Vertac site. For more than a decade, the Vertac company manufactured dioxin-contaminated pesticides in Jacksonville for use in the Vietnam war. Vertac officials left town hurriedly in the mid-1970s, abandoning some 30,000 leaking drums of chemical wastes. Despite local protests, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton personally approved the Vertac site incinerator last November.

In mid-June two employees of the incinerator company signed affidavits saying they had seen dioxin-contaminated wastes being intentionally blown out the smoke stack. One of the employees said under oath that she had regularly seen dioxin-contaminated pesticides oozing from the hot kiln: "I have seen 2,4-D pesticide waste leaking from the seals around the incinerator kiln. The waste oozes out from the seals and burns on the outside of the hot kiln, giving off black smoke and a strong odor," she said.

An EPA official stationed at the Vertac site confirmed publicly that dioxin-contaminated pesticide wastes "ooze" from the kiln during combustion. Rick Ehrhart, remedial site manager for EPA, told a news reporter pesticide leaks from the kiln are "not unusual." He said such leaks are "cause for concern" but that nothing can be done about them. "You don't have a lot of control over it," he said.[1] Such leaks are just "something that happens at all incinerators," he said.[2]

Even before these latest revelations, federal district judge Stephen Reasoner in Little Rock had concluded in April that the Vertac incinerator was a public health hazard and was operating "in violation of the EPA's own regulations," and he ordered it shut. EPA and the Vertac incinerator operators filed a joint appeal, and Judge Reasoner's first shutdown order was overturned on procedural grounds. Reasoner then heard new testimony, re-wrote his conclusions, and ordered the plant shut a second time.

The day Judge Reasoner's second shutdown order was filed, the 8th circuit court of appeals in St. Louis overturned Reasoner's order BEFORE VERTAC AND EPA HAD EVEN FILED A SECOND APPEAL. No appeal had been filed when the appeals court overturned Judge Reasoner's second order and directed that Vertac be allowed to keep operating. It was one of the most remarkable displays of judicial prejudice in memory.

In mid-June the two Vertac employees came forward and signed affidavits[3] under oath saying they had witnessed continuing spills of hazardous waste at the site, and had witnessed flakes of dioxin-contaminated salts falling from the incinerator smoke stack "comparable to a light snow fall."

Carolyn Lance, a Vertac employee, said in a sworn affidavit that she had worked at the Vertac site two and a half years, first as a maintenance technician, then in a warehouse dispensing parts to repair crews. "[O]n May 14th, at about 2:50 p.m.," she wrote, "I noticed salt flakes ranging in size from about the size of a nickel to the size of a quarter falling through the air. The flakes were coming from the incinerator stack. The release of hazardous salts from the stack is not unusual at the Vertac incinerator," she said. "There have been several other occasions when I have observed salt flakes falling from the incinerator stack. These incidents last ten to fifteen minutes at a time and are comparable to a light snowfall."

Chris DuJardin also worked at Vertac for two and a half years, as a maintenance technician, and reported seeing the same incident May 14th. DuJardin said in a sworn affidavit, "On May 14, 1993, at approximately 3 or 3:30 p.m. I was alerted by a co-worker that contaminated salts created by the spray dryer pollution control system were spewing out of the stack of the Vertac incinerator. Pollution control salts are contaminated with hazardous chemicals that are partially removed from the incinerator's gases by the spray dryer system prior to emission into the air. It is my understanding that the salts are contaminated with dioxins and heavy metals. Normally the salts drop through the system and are collected in drums to be disposed of as hazardous wastes.

"Initially, I didn't think much of the May 14, 1993 event," DuJardin said in a sworn affidavit, "because the Vertac incinerator and related systems experience frequent malfunctions and other problems requiring constant attention.

"However, upon looking at the stack I became alarmed because of the amount of salts and height of the salt plume blowing out of the stack. The plume appeared to be headed in the direction of my home and a nearby school attended by my nephew....

"It was obvious to me that the incinerator's 300 horsepower fan had been intentionally turned on in order to clear the salts from the system. The incinerator had recently been experiencing operating difficulties apparently because salts had clogged various systems where they normally should not be found.... As a result of the salt clogging problem, the spray dryer component of the incinerator had built up such pressure that the fiberglass housing of the system cracked. I was involved in repairing the cracks in the spray dryer system's housing.

"I decided to inform Mr. Dan Fuller, operations coordinator, about the salts coming from the stack.... When I told Mr. Fuller about salts coming from the stack, he told me it was steam, not salts, that were being emitted. I told him I knew it was salts because I had been outside and had seen the salts falling to the ground and being blown away. Mr. Fuller responded to my concern by saying, 'prove it.'

"... Since leaving the site on May 14, 1993, I have expressed my concerns to the media, investigators from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) criminal investigation division, and Arkansas Assistant Attorney General Charles Moulton. Despite my communication with various government officials, the Vertac incinerator continues to operate," DuJardin wrote.

In her affidavit, Carolyn Lance described other serious problems at the Vertac site. She wrote, "I have seen 2,4-D pesticide waste leaking from the seals around the incinerator kiln. The waste oozes out from the seals and burns on the outside of the hot kiln, giving off black smoke and a strong odor. I understand that D-waste [2,4-D pesticide waste] was leaking from the kiln as recently as Monday, June 14, 1993. Over the last six months I have observed at least one period of time when waste leaked from the seals and onto the outside of the kiln every day for about a thirty day period. Since January 1993 I have observed wastes leaking from the kiln seals at least every week, sometimes dribbling down onto the concrete pad the incinerator sits on," Lance wrote.

EPA administrator Carol Browner now has an opportunity to confront the corruption in Jacksonville head on. Attorneys for local citizens opposed to the Vertac incinerator wrote her in late June, asking her to intervene personally to "stop the poisoning" in Jacksonville. Attorneys Richard Condit and Mick Harrison of the Government Accountability Project (GAP) in Washington, D.C., said, "Our clients do not wish to resort to direct confrontations with EPA and the Clinton administration, but they will not stand by and continue to be poisoned." Browner's office said it would take several weeks for the administrator and her attorneys to draft a reply.

The reply, when it comes, will reveal unmistakably what this administrator is made of.

Is "poisoned" too strong a word for what EPA and the Vertac operators are doing to the people of Jacksonville? How dangerous is dioxin? EPA has been studying this question for the past 2 years, and some conclusions are beginning to emerge. For at least a decade, EPA has considered dioxin so dangerous that humans shouldn't be exposed to it at all. Then the paper industry and the Chlorine Institute convinced EPA officials to take a fresh look at available scientific evidence.

Dr. Kenneth Olden, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) said recently, "I've looked at the data, and I'm not aware of any new scientific studies that suggest it's not as dangerous as we thought it was."[4] Dr. George Lucier of NIEHS says dioxin is not only a carcinogen but it also increases the risk of diabetes, reduces sperm count, and can cause birth defects by disrupting the normal working of human calls. "I would say one's concerns about [existing] environmental levels of dioxin have not been diminished by recent scientific evidence," Lucier said.[4]

Linda Birnbaum, whom SCIENCE magazine calls "EPA's top dioxin researcher," says, "In my opinion, there is no reason to believe that dioxin is less hazardous than had been presumed in the past."[5] Taking into account "toxic equivalency factors" for dioxin-like chemicals (dibenzofurans and some PCBs), the current average of "dioxin equivalents" in the blood of Americans is 50 parts per trillion [ppt] and "Fifty ppt is a level we should be concerned about," Birnbaum told SCIENCE.

In sum, the current best science says there's already enough dioxin in the bodies of average Americans to create health risks. An incinerator like the one in Jacksonville, raining dioxins down upon the heads and homes of local citizens, is a public menace.

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

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


[1] Sandy Davis, "Vertac leaks common, affidavit says," ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT GAZETTE June 22, 1993, pgs. 1B, 3B.

[2] Sandy Davis, "Lawyer's letter asks EPA chief to stop 'poisoning' at Vertac," ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT GAZETTE June 25, 1993, pg. 2B.

[3] Both affidavits are available from us for $4.00 each.

[4] Eric J. Greenberg, "Feds Warn of New Dioxin Dangers," NEW YORK DAILY NEWS June 24, 1993, pg. 14.

[5] Richard Stone, "Dioxin: Still deadly," SCIENCE Vol. 260 (April 2, 1993), pg. 31.
Descriptor terms: epa; jacksonville; vertac; incineration; superfund; lawsuits; gap; government accountability project; ar; arkansas; pesticides; 2,4,5-T; cbw; bill clinton; whistle blowers; stephen reasoner; spills; hazardous waste; occupational safety and health; carol browner; dioxin; kenneth olden; niehs; george lucier; linda birnbaum;

Descriptor terms: incineration; meetings; calendar; cchw; ralph nader; washington; dc; mike williams;

#369: Chemicals and Health--Part 1

=======================Electronic Edition========================

RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #369 
---December 23, 1993---
News and resources for environmental justice.
------
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org ==========
RACHEL-4CM = DIOXIN FOCUSED DIRECTORY Remote Access Chemical Hazards Electronic Library. Dioxinnz.com =======================Original Source========================

Each year some 3.5 billion pounds of industrial toxins, and an additional 1 to 2 billion pounds of pesticides are intentionally released into the environment of the U.S., according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

During the early 1990s it has became fashionable for the mass media to portray these chemicals as having little effect on human or environmental health. [1] However, in scientific and medical journals, the evidence linking chemicals to ill health has continued to accumulate.

Writing in the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH in 1992, Philip J. Landrigan, chairman of the department of community medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, said, "Disease caused by toxic chemicals in the environment is a substantial... cause of morbidity [illness] and mortality [death] in the United States and around the world." [2] He went on to say, "Public health workers and the makers of public policy must recognize that toxic chemicals in the environment are important, widespread, proven causes of human disease. Each year preventable exposures to chemical toxins sicken and kill thousands of persons of all ages in the United States and around the world. These hazards must be confronted. They cannot be wished away. Reduction of exposures to chemical toxins will prevent thousands of deaths and will improve the quality of hundreds of thousands of lives."

Is there any evidence that these claims are true?

LEAD POISONING: 

"Lead poisoning is epidemic among young U.S. children," Landrigan writes. "The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 3 to 4 million American pre-school children have blood lead levels above 10 micrograms per deciliter (mcg/dl). Blood lead levels in this range in young children have been shown to cause depression of neurological and psychological function, effects that appear to be permanent."

(In 1993, the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences published the estimate that 6 million American children and 400,000 fetuses, at any given time, have 10 mcg/dl lead in their blood, or more, and that this level of lead "places them at risk of adverse health effects"--including reduced IQ and reduced ability to concentrate. [3])

ASBESTOS: 

"Asbestos in the workplace has created an absolute disaster," says Landrigan. By the year 2000, an estimated 300,000 American workers will have been killed by exposure to asbestos. Deaths will continue to occur well into the 21st century. With the overseas spread of asbestos-containing building materials, the pandemic [wide epidemic] is now extending to the third world."

OCCUPATIONAL DISEASE: 

"Studies conducted in New York state have estimated that 50,000 to 70,000 workers die each year from chronic occupational diseases resulting from past exposures to toxic substances," Landrigan writes. "Included are lung cancers and mesothelioma [cancer of the lining of the chest cavity] from asbestos exposure; bladder cancer among dye workers; leukemia and lymphoma in workers exposed to benzene and ionizing radiation; chronic bronchitis in workers exposed to dusts; disorders of the nervous system (including possibly dementia, Parkinson's disease, and motoneuron disease [Lou Gehrig's disease]) in workers exposed to pesticides, solvents, and certain other neurotoxins; renal [kidney] failure in workers exposed to lead; and cardiovascular disease in workers exposed to carbon monoxide and carbon disulfide."

In addition to what is known, millions of American workers are being exposed to chemicals whose effects are unknown because 80% [or 48,000] of the 60,000 chemicals now in use have never been tested for their carcinogenic [cancer-causing], neurotoxic, immunotoxic, or other toxic effects, Landrigan says.

In addition to the 50,000 to 70,000 deaths cause by toxic exposures in the workplace each year, an estimated 350,000 new cases of illness occur among workers each year from toxic exposures on the job, Landrigan says.

CANCER: 

Between 1950 and 1988, for U.S. whites, age-adjusted incidence [occurrence] for all forms of cancer rose by 43.5% and age-adjusted cancer mortality [deaths] increased by 2.9%.

"Explanations for these increases do not exist," says Landrigan. "They do not appear to be attributable solely to changes in cigarette smoking." Several of the cancers for which increased incidence at all ages (and mortality above age 55) have been noted in a number of industrialized nations are not known to be related to smoking: these include multiple myeloma [cancer of the bone marrow], brain cancer, cancer of the breast, testicular cancer, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

"Changes in competing causes of death, improved access to health care, and alterations in diagnostic technology also do not appear to account entirely for the observed changes in cancer incidence and mortality," says Landrigan.

* * *

During 1993, the relationship of toxic chemicals to breast cancer came into sharp focus. Cancer of the female breast has increased 58% during the past 35 years. Even when better diagnosis (mammography) is taken into account, it appears that breast cancer is increasing at a steady one percent per year. In 1940, an American woman's lifetime risk of getting breast cancer was one in 16; today it is one in 8--a rate that warrants the term "epidemic." A review of recent studies, by Devra Lee Davis and others, appearing in 

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES in 1993, offered many lines of evidence linking breast cancer to "xenoestrogens"--xeno from the Greek word for "stranger or foreigner." [4] Xenoestrogens are common toxic chemicals that mimic, or interfere with, the body's natural estrogen. Estrogen is female sex hormone--the chemical in blood that gives rise to a woman's monthly cycle. In the 1990s, it has been discovered that many common industrial chemicals and pesticides mimic hormones and thus can interfere with fundamental bodily processes. (See RHWN #365.) DDT, methoxychlor, chlordecone (kepone), PCBs, atrazine (and other triazines), benzene, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [PAHs], among others, can act like sex hormones and interfere with fundamental biological processes, such as reproduction, in wildlife and humans. PAHs are produced by automobiles, by burning of fossil fuels, and by incinerators. Pesticides and other xenoestrogens are manufactured by firms such as DuPont, Monsanto, and Dow.

Davis and her colleagues revealed that xenoestrogens stimulate the growth of cells in the breast, very possibly giving rise to cancer. From studies of humans and laboratory animals Davis and her colleagues found compelling evidence that estrogens lie at the heart of the breast cancer problem, and that xenoestrogens very well may be causally related to the epidemic.

From epidemiological studies, there is evidence that exposure of females to xenoestrogens while in the womb can increase their risk of breast cancer as adults. And in 1993, several studies raised the possibility that exposure of males to xenoestrogens while in the womb reduces their ability to produce sperm after they mature. The average male today produces only half as much sperm as his grandfather did, and exposure to environmental toxins may well be the cause of this decline. [5] (If this decline were to continue at historical rates, humans in industrialized countries would have difficulty reproducing themselves by about the year 2020.) Furthermore, there is now evidence that prostate cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths in U.S. men (after lung cancer) is linked to xenoestrogens.

Journals published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Chemical Society, as well as the American Public Health Association, in 1993 took official notice of this new information about chlorinated chemicals and human health. Prime Time on ABC TV aired an exploratory program on breast cancer and DDT. But for the most part the mass media in 1993 continued to promote the view that the connection between chemicals and ill health is imaginary and that the public suffers from "chemophobia."

Without public understanding of current scientific and medical views, public policy cannot very well protect public health. As Philip Landrigan said in 1992, calling for a policy of "containment:"

"The tragedy of environmental diseases is that they are highly preventable. Toxic environmental diseases arise as a direct consequence of human activity and can therefore, in theory, be prevented through modification of that activity. The control of toxic disease does not require changing the behavior of millions of addicted or habituated individuals, only the containment of common sources of exposure to chemical toxins. Such containment is demonstrably achievable through legislation, regulation, and other well-understood mechanisms of communal action. Children must be protected from exposure to lead. Automotive and industrial atmospheric emissions must be curbed. Dangerous chemicals in the work environment must be replaced with safe substitutes; hazardous processes must be enclosed and ventilated; and workers and consumers must be provided with knowledge, training, and protective equipment. Premarket testing of new chemicals and processes constitutes a very effective approach to the prevention of toxic disease." [2]

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

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


[1] For example, Keith Schneider, "New View Calls Environmental Policy Misguided," NEW YORK TIMES March 21, 1993, pgs. 1, 30.

[2] Philip J. Landrigan, "Commentary: Environmental Disease--A Preventable Epidemic," AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH Vol. 82 (July 1992), pgs. 941-943.

[3] Bruce A. Fowler and others, MEASURING LEAD EXPOSURE IN INFANTS, CHILDREN, AND OTHER SENSITIVE POPULATIONS (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1993), pg. 13.

[4] Devra Lee Davis and others, "Medical Hypothesis: Xenoestrogens As Preventable Causes of Breast Cancer," ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES Vol. 101 (October 1993), pgs. 372-377.

[5] Elisabeth Carlsen and others, "Evidence for decreasing quality of semen during past 50 years," BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL Vol. 305 (1992), pgs. 609-613. And: A. Giwercman and N.E. Skakkebaek, "The human testis--an organ at risk?" INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ANDROLOGY Vol. 15 (1992), pgs. 373-175. And: Richard M. Sharpe and Niels E. Skakkebaek, "Are oestrogens involved in falling sperm counts and disorders of the male reproductive tract?" THE LANCET Vol. 341 (May 29, 1993), pgs. 1392-1395. And: R. M. Sharpe, " Declining sperm counts in men --is there an endocrine cause?" JOURNAL OF ENDOCRINOLOGY, Vol. 136 (1993), pgs. 357-360.

Descriptor terms: toxic chemicals; production; statistics; toxics; pesticides; epa; u.s. environmental protection agency; american journal of public health; philip j. landrigan; mount sinai school of medicine; lead; children; national research council; national academy of sciences; nrc; nas; asbestos; occupational safety and health; third world; cancer; lung cancer; mesothelioma; bladder cancer; leukemia; lymphoma; benzene; dust; air pollution; particulates; radiation; chronic bronchitis; parkinson's disease; lou gehrig's disease; motoneuron disease; solvents; cardiovascular disease; mortality statistics; morbidity statistics; testing; breast cancer; devra lee davis; environmental health perspectives; estrogen; ddt; methoxychlor; chlordecone; pcbs; atrazine; triazines; benzene; polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; chlorinated hydrocarbons; chlorine; pahs; automobiles; fossil fuels; oil; natural gas; coal; incineration; xenoestrogens; sperm count; prostate cancer; american association for the advancement of science; aaas; american chemical society; prime time; abc tv; containment; pollution prevention; regulation; keith schneider;

#364: Dioxin and PCBS Linked To Endometriosis

=======================Electronic Edition========================

RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #364
---November 19, 1993---
News and resources for environmental justice.
------
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org==========
RACHEL-4CM = DIOXIN FOCUSED DIRECTORY Remote Access Chemical Hazards Electronic Library. Dioxinnz.com =======================Original Source========================

Endometriosis is a mysterious, painful disease that affects 6 to 9 million American women, according to estimates by the Mayo Clinic.[1] Endometriosis occurs exclusively in species that menstruate (humans and non-human primates). The disease occurs when bits of the endometrium (the tissue that lines the uterus) somehow escape the uterus and become implanted on other pelvic organs. Usually the implants occur on the outside of the ovaries, the fallopian tubes, the uterus or its supporting muscles.

The mislocated cells imitate the menstrual cycle, first thickening and then bleeding as menstruation begins. Because the implants are embedded within other tissues, there is nowhere for the blood to go. Blood blisters form, irritating the surrounding tissue, which may create a cyst (sometimes also called a nodule, tumor, lesion, implant, or growth) to encapsulate the blister. The cyst, in turn, may become a scar or an adhesion (abnormal tissue that binds organs together). Scars or adhesions on the ovaries or fallopian tubes can prevent pregnancy.

Typical symptoms of endometriosis include chronic pain, particularly pelvic pain; severe period pain; pain with sex; infertility; painful bowel movements with the period; painful urination or other urinary problems with the period and at other times; chronic fatigue; chemical sensitivities and/or extensive allergies and other allergic diseases; and, sometimes, autoimmune diseases, including Hashimoto's thyroiditis and lupus.

Endometriosis can run in families; it most commonly strikes women between 25 and 49 but it can begin as early as 11. It generally ends with menopause, though estrogen replacement therapy can reactivate the disease.

Although more than 4500 research papers have been published on endometriosis, the cause of the disease remains a mystery.

Now new thinking about endometriosis has been stimulated by research linking dioxin exposure to the disease in rhesus monkeys. In rhesus monkeys, endometriosis develops spontaneously and resembles the human disease both anatomically and clinically. In the rhesus, disease manifestations include growth of cysts and adhesions involving the ovaries, ureters, colon, and urinary bladder, just as in humans.

The recognition of dioxin as a contributor to the disease in rhesus monkeys is considered an exciting breakthrough by scientists who have been studying the disease for two decades or more, unsuccessfully seeking a cause.

The new research reveals a clear dose-response relationship between low levels of dioxin in the diet and development of endometriosis in rhesus monkeys. The more dioxin, the worse the endometriosis, according to experiments conducted at University of Wisconsin and reported this month by Sherry E. Rier and co-workers in the journal, FUNDAMENTAL AND APPLIED TOXICOLOGY.[2]

A colony of 24 wild [feral] female rhesus monkeys 6 to 10 years of age was obtained in 1977. From 1977 to 1983 the animals were housed at the University of Wisconsin's Biotron; from 1983 to the present, the animals have been housed at the Harlow Primate Lab in Madison, Wisc. In 1977, the monkeys were randomly assigned to 3 groups of 8 animals each. Control animals were not exposed to dioxin, animals in the low-dose group were exposed to 5 parts per trillion (ppt) in their diet and monkeys in the high-dose group were exposed to 25 parts per trillion. Dioxin was administered in the animals' feed for 5 years, from 1977 to 1982. The point of the original research was to see if low doses of dioxin in the diet interfered with reproduction in the rhesus colony.

The dioxin connection to endometriosis was discovered almost by accident. As the researchers themselves wrote, "This study was originally undertaken 15 years ago to investigate the long-term reproductive effects of exposure to dioxin in the rhesus monkey. Twelve years after the initiation of this work, [in 1989], a dioxin-exposed animal died and was noted at autopsy to exhibit widespread endometriosis. In 1990 and 1992, two additional dioxin-treated animals died of severe infiltrating endometriosis. During this time, we became aware that these animals and others in the colony displayed symptoms similar to human disease at the onset of menses, including anorexia [diminished appetite; aversion to food] and behavior consistent with pain. In view of these findings, the present study was performed to document endometriosis in this unique colony of monkeys and to determine whether the severity of the disease was correlated with exposure to dioxin."

This new study describes the 17 live monkeys currently remaining in the colony, plus the 3 monkeys that died of extensive endometriosis and were evaluated at autopsy.

The 17 living monkeys underwent laparoscopy in 1992. Laparoscopy is surgery performed under general anesthesia. A small incision is made in the abdomen, and a thin optical tube is inserted, so that the animal's internal organs can be observed and photographed. In humans, as in monkeys, laparoscopy is the only sure way to diagnose endometriosis because some forms of cancer create the same symptoms.

Among the 20 monkeys, the presence and severity of endometriosis was determined according to human criteria, using the revised American Fertility Society (rAFS) system, which is universally accepted. The rAFS system classifies the severity of endometriosis according to number, size and placement of endometriotic implants and the presence of adhesions. There are 4 stages of the disease: minimal, mild, moderate, and severe.

Among the rhesus monkeys, the incidence of disease directly correlated with dioxin exposure. Endometriosis was present in 71% of the animals treated with 5 ppt dioxin, and in 86% of animals treated with 25 ppt. This compares to 33% of the animals exhibiting disease in the control group.

The severity of the disease was also correlated with the dose of dioxin. According to the severity classification system, control animals not exposed to dioxin exhibited either no disease (4 of 6 animals) or minimal disease (2 of 6 animals). Animals treated with 5 ppt dioxin had no disease (2 of 7 animals), mild disease (1 of 7 animals) or moderate-to-severe disease (3 of 7 animals). Among the animals dosed with 25 ppt, 5 of 7 animals had moderate-to-severe disease and only one was disease-free.

The authors conclude, "The results of these studies demonstrate that chronic exposure to the chemical toxicant dioxin is directly correlated with an increased incidence in the development of endometriosis in rhesus monkeys. As determined by [standardized] scoring systems, stage II [mild], III [moderate], and IV [severe] disease were exclusively found in animals exposed to either 5 or 25 ppt dioxin. Furthermore, the severity of disease, as reflected by the [standardized severity] score, was positively correlated with the daily and cumulative dose of dioxin administered."

The reproductive history of these particular monkeys had previously been reported. Reproductive function of mothers exposed to 5 ppt was not significantly different from the control group. Seven of eight females bred after 7 months of exposure to 5 ppt dioxin were able to conceive; 6 of these females gave birth to viable infants and one gave birth to a stillborn infant. In contrast, among the moneys dosed with 25 ppt, only 5 could conceive and of these only one gave birth to a viable infant; there were 3 spontaneous abortions and one infant died shortly after birth.

These data suggest that maternal exposure to dioxin before and during pregnancy can result in fetal mortality without overt toxic effects on the mother. Humans in industrial countries now eat an average of 133 picograms [trillionths of a gram] of dioxins each day, 90 percent of it in fish, meat and dairy products, according to the World Health Organization.[3] A 1992 study from Germany revealed that endometriosis is correlated with the presence of PCBs in humans,[4] thus confirming findings first reported in 1985 linking PCBs to endometriosis in rhesus monkeys.[5] PCBs and dioxin both interfere with the immune system and with the endocrine system (the body's chemical control system made up of endocrine glands, which produce hormones). Researchers have suspected for some time that endometriosis is somehow caused by malfunction of both the immune and endocrine systems.

Dr. Audrey Cummings with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is now conducting laboratory research to see if dioxin exposure causes endometriosis-like changes in rats.

Dioxin and PCBs are not the only potential culprits. As Dr. Theo Colborn has recently shown, at least 45 chemicals widely distributed in the environment, including 35 pesticides and 10 industrial chemicals, are now thought to damage or impair the endocrine systems of fish, birds and mammals, including humans.[6]

For further information on endometriosis, contact: The Endometriosis Association, 8585 North 76th Place, Milwaukee, WI 53223. Fax: (414) 355-6065. Families affected by the disease can call the Association's toll free line: 1-800-992-3636 for a free packet of information.

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

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


[1] David E. Larson, editor, MAYO CLINIC FAMILY HEALTH BOOK (N.Y.: William Morrow, 1990), pgs. 1101-1102.

[2] Sherry E. Rier and others, "Endometriosis in Rhesus Monkeys (MACACA MULATTA) Following Chronic Exposure to 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-P-dioxin," FUNDAMENTAL AND APPLIED TOXICOLOGY Vol. 21 (1993), pgs. 433-441.

[3] World Health Organization, SUMMARY REPORT; CONSULTATION ON TOLERABLE DAILY INTAKE FROM FOOD OF PCDDS AND PCDFS [REPORT NO. EUR/ICP/PCS 030(S) 0369N] (Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 1990).

[4] I. Gerhard und B. Runnebaum, "Grenzen der Hormonsubstitution bei Schadstoffbelastung und Fertilitatsstorungen," ZENTRALBLATT FUR GYNAKOLOGIE," Vol. 114 (1992), pgs. 593-602.

[5] J.S. Campbell and others, "Is simian endometriosis an effect of immunotoxicity?" Presented at the Ontario Association of Pathologists 48th Annual (1985) Meeting, London, Ontario, cited in Sherry Rier, note 2, above.

[6] Theo Colborn and others, "Developmental Effects of Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals in Wildlife and Humans," ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES Vol. 101 No. 5 (October 1993), pgs. 378-384.

Descriptor terms: endometriosis; msc; immune system; endocrine system; allergies; lupus; hashimoto's thyroiditis; rhesus monkeys; studies; laboratory research; university of wisconsin biotron; harlow primate lab; laparoscopy; audrey cummings; epa; theo colborn; pesticides;

#337: Risk Assessment in the Northern Rockies

=======================Electronic Edition========================

RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #337 
--- May 13, 1993 ---
News and resources for environmental justice.
------
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org==========
RACHEL-4CM = DIOXIN FOCUSED DIRECTORY Remote Access Chemical Hazards Electronic Library. Dioxinnz.com =======================Original Source========================

by Mary O'Brien, Ph.D.

[Editor's note: Most of us encounter risk assessment in the context of a dispute over waste disposal technologies and/or toxic exposures. But during the past 15 years risk assessments have come to be used throughout our society to justify all sorts of decisions that have been made for narrow purposes. Risk assessment is now routinely used to justify decisions about land use and resource allocation in the western states. The argument that Dr. O'Brien develops, that it is time to consider "alternatives assessment" instead of "risk assessment" as a guide for decision-making, applies to toxics as well.]

Much of my work over the last ten years has been with alternatives to use of toxics: pesticides throughout society, chlorine in the pulp and paper industry, and currently the potent ozone depleting fumigant, methyl bromide.

During these years, I have come to hate the use of risk assessment, which is used obsessively in the U.S. to determine how much of a toxic substance will be dumped into the world: How much pesticide will be allowed on the apples you eat; how much dioxin a company like Stone Container can dump in the Clark Fork River; the size of an air pollutant permit one company can buy from another in a polluted urban area. Now the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is aggressively teaching other countries like Mexico and the Ukraine how to do quantitative risk assessment so that everyone will use the same language for global free trade in toxics.

The whole point of risk assessment is to determine how much damage people will be permitted to do in the world. The alternative, largely ignored, is to figure out how LITTLE damage people can do to the world.

But risk assessment is not confined to toxics, and I want very briefly to describe five behaviors characteristic of risk assessors and then relate these to what risk assessors do in the world of natural resources and wildlands. These can be risk assessors in the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Sierra Club, Audubon Society, or other agency or big environmental group.

1. Toxics risk assessors act as if they know what damage a toxic chemical does, and as if they can, on the basis of this knowledge, determine some safe or "insignificant" level of exposure to the toxic. But of course they don't know this. They may know what kind of chronic damage or birth defects a single chemical causes in a genetically pure line of healthy laboratory rats. They generally have no information on whether it causes immune suppression, endocrine disruption, or nerve damage in infants; or chronic damage in people who already are damaged in some other way. 

2. Toxics risk assessors focus on one chemical at a time. When I recently asked the Director of the National Institutes for Environmental Health Sciences about the possibility of switching the focus of the National Toxicology Program from testing a handful of individual chemicals for cancer a year to looking at types of mixtures of chemicals faced by people living near multiple industries or incinerators or hazardous waste dumps, he indicated that studying mixtures of chemicals is "too hard." The problem, however, is that we and wildlife are exposed to mixtures of chemicals and indeed are born with them, our mothers having passed on many to us. 

3. Toxics risk assessors focus on whether the world can withstand a particular activity. The assessors try to figure out, for instance, whether you will survive if Stone Container uses chlorine to make cardboard blinding white. They may ask whether fish at the end of the mill's nine-mile "mixing zone" will be able to reproduce. 

4. Toxics risk assessors decide what levels of risk and damage and killing are acceptable for other people. But can anyone decide an acceptable risk for you? Isn't it premeditated murder to give permits to industries with the estimate that one in 100,000 people will get cancer? Other, perhaps more vulnerable, species are seldom considered in the permits. 

5. Toxics risk assessors focus on the risks and damages caused by business-as-usual, not business-as-it-could-be. The alternative to determining how much damage people will be permitted to do in the world is to determine how little damage people COULD do in the world.

Let's look at the analogous activities of risk assessors in the world of wildlands, wildlife, and natural resources, and what they could do differently.

1. Land management risk assessors assume they know what damage clearcutting or road-building or grazing or pesticide spraying or mining does to an ecosystem's web of life. Do Forest Service risk assessors know what is happening to bats on lands they oversee? Do they know the needs of rare butterflies on that land? Do they know what organochlorines are doing to reproductive success of Peregrine Falcons? Land managers and users need to admit they don't know enough to say what human activity is safe. They can only have an inkling of the damage humans do. They don't know what the rare butterflies and the bats need. They don't even know what butterflies and bats are out there. 

2. Land management risk assessors focus on one activity, one timber sale, one stream, maybe one watershed, or one Congressional bill at a time. Do the risk assessors know what happens when a watershed is subjected to grazing and clearcutting and pesticides and road-building at the same time? Do they know what happens when Peregrine Falcons are faced with reduction in prey and loss of solitude and organochlorines in the food chain, all at once? Land managers and users need to focus on cumulative effects and the interdependence of various elements of the ecosystem. Cumulative effects are often impossible to quantify; and risk assessors get nervous when they can't reduce decisions to numbers. Yet, effects are cumulative. 

3. Land management risk assessors focus on whether the land can withstand a certain action. For a year and a half, the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest convened a citizens committee to suggest management of the Snake River. The committee was called the Limits of Acceptable Change Committee. How many more jet boats could the river stand? Could airports fit within the "limits of acceptable change?" How many domestic sheep allotments are compatible with Bighorn Sheep in Hells Canyon? What is the minimum acreage of roadless areas in Montana that must be protected to constitute a Wilderness bill? Rachel Carson asked a different, more appropriate question in SILENT SPRING: "Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?" Land managers and users need to focus on what the natural world needs and what our options are for living in accordance with those needs. As Aldo Leopold wrote in SAND COUNTY ALMANAC, "The practices we now call conservation are, to a large extent, local alleviations of biotic pain. They are necessary, but they must not be confused with cures. The art of land doctoring is being practiced with vigor, but the science of land health is yet to be born." 

4. Land management risk assessors assume they can define acceptable damage for society. In the March 1992 edition of the Northern Region Forest Service paper called "Our Approach to Sustaining Ecological Systems," the Forest Service says that the Desired Condition (DC) of a landscape at any scale must account for the goods, services and amenities desired by society." Who is "society?" What "society" demands salvage logging? What amenities will our children want? The risk assessors in some environmental groups ask, "What level of conservation is acceptable to our members? To our granting foundations and corporations?" Land managers need to face their responsibility to advocate for the land and educate the public regarding the benefits of behaving well toward the land. Instead of acting as if they know what da-mage is acceptable to society, they need to sell the public and Congress on the social, environmental, spiritual, and economic benefits of wildlands. 

5. Land management risk assessors focus on business-as-usual rather than business-as-environmentally-responsible. Again, risk assessors do not look at how our society might treasure, and benefit from forests that are whole and wild. They do not look at the best forestry that could be done. They do not present the uses of our National Forests that would be least damaging, most protective, most restorative. Instead, they look at business-as-usual: They uphold timber, grazing, and mining interests. Land managers need to constantly search for the most environmentally responsible alternatives for behaving on public and private lands. The Forest Service and environmental organizations need to go beyond looking at incremental improvements in mining, grazing, predator killing, and tree cutting. They need to systematically consider what behaviors are truly compatible with diverse plant life, clean water, recovering fish populations, and silence. In all of our work with the Northern Rockies lands and peoples, we need to reject the process of figuring out the limits of acceptable degradation. We need to reject the current dominant role held in our society by risk assessment and replace it with alternatives assessment. We need to take the high scientific, ecological, political, and moral ground and advocate for the best possible behaviors of people toward the Earth. Always.

This article is reprinted, with permission, from WILD EARTH Winter 1992/93. WILD EARTH is published quarterly by The Cenozoic Society, P.O. Box 492, Canton, NY 13617; telephone (315) 379-9044. Annual subscription to WILD EARTH: $25.00.

Mary O'Brien has a Ph.D. in botany. From 1983 to 1990 she served as staff scientist for the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides in Eugene, Oregon and during the same period she edited the Coalition's quarterly JOURNAL OF PESTICIDE REFORM. She is president of the board of directors of the international Pesticide Action Network (PAN) in San Francisco, CA. Later this year, Dr. O'Brien will join the staff of Environmental Research Foundation as staff scientist.

Descriptor terms: risk assessment; stone container; clark form river; oregon; montana; or; mt; epa; mexico; ukraine; niehs; chlorine; dioxin; species loss; wildlife; land use planning; land use management; organochlorines; cumulative effects; snake river; aldo leopold; sand county almanac; usfs; usda; us forest service; wild earth;

#325: A Sea Of Troubles Engulfs Incineration

=======================Electronic Edition========================

RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #325
---February 17, 1993---
News and resources for environmental justice.
------
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org ==========
RACHEL-4CM = DIOXIN FOCUSED DIRECTORY Remote Access Chemical Hazards Electronic Library. Dioxinnz.com
=======================Original Source========================

The incineration industry has suffered a series of major setbacks in recent weeks. The federal government's showcase dioxin-burning incinerator in Jacksonville, Arkansas--to which Bill Clinton personally gave a green light one week before he was elected President (see RHWN #311)--was shut down last week by a federal judge. Lawyers for EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) admitted to U.S. District Judge Stephen Reasoner in Little Rock that the Jacksonville incinerator could not destroy 99.9999% of the dioxin fed into it, as is required by EPA regulations, whereupon the judge ordered the plant shut.

It was a stunning victory for Greenpeace chemist Pat Costner, who had been the first to reveal that incinerators could not achieve 99.9999% destruction (see RHWN #312 and #280), and for local activist-citizens like Sharon Golgan in Jacksonville who had fought the incinerator proposal for at least six years.

The nation's other showcase incinerator--built by Waste Technologies Industries (WTI) on the banks of the Ohio River in East Liverpool, Ohio--was fighting for its life in federal court in Cleveland earlier this week. Local citizens there have been opposing the WTI incinerator proposal for 12 years. EPA's Region 5 office in Chicago and Ohio state officials bent the rules, and even broke a few, to give WTI a permit to start burning wastes (see RHWN #287). The state of West Virginia, local citizens, and Greenpeace filed a lawsuit January 13 asking a federal judge to prevent WTI from conducting a "test burn."[1] As soon as a test burn is completed, the WTI incinerator can begin commercial operation for up to a year while EPA evaluates the test results. (Vice-President Al Gore said December 7, 1992, that he and Mr. Clinton would stop WTI from proceeding until a study was completed of all health issues, and all legal issues surrounding EPA's issuance of a permit [see RHWN #315]]--but it now appears that Mr. Gore has changed his mind.) Federal Judge Ann Aldrich in Cleveland issued a temporary restraining order against WTI January 15 and set February 16 as the day she would decide whether to issue a preliminary injunction, which would prevent WTI from conducting the trial burn until a full court trial could be held.[2]

As we go to press, it is not clear how this phase of the battle will come out. However, secret EPA documents that came to light during in court have raised serious health questions about every incinerator in the country, including solid waste incinerators.

Background

At issue in every instance is dioxin, which is created as an unwanted byproduct of incineration (and as a byproduct of other industrial processes, such as pulp and paper manufacture, and the manufacture of some pesticides). In April, 1991, EPA began a major "scientific reassessment" of dioxin and discovered that effects of dioxin can be observed in human cells at the levels of exposure now present in the environment. In other words, there's already sufficient dioxin in the environment to produce observable effects in humans. The Clinton/Gore administration knows this is a problem because a December, 1992, briefing document prepared by the EPA Transition Team says, "This [EPA's dioxin reassessment] is likely to be an extremely controversial document as there are new findings indicating adverse reproductive effects at existing environmental levels."

A Secret Risk Assessment and a Leaked Memo

EPA's position throughout the 1980s has been that incineration is safe, even though every incinerator is known to produce dioxin. To "prove" the safety of incinerators, EPA has used a technique called "risk assessment." A risk assessment estimates the amount of dioxin being released, estimates various pathways it might travel through the environment, and calculates the resulting exposures of humans. Finally, a risk assessment estimates the health effects resulting from the calculated exposures.

In the case of dioxin, over the years EPA's "standard" risk assessment has assumed that airborne dioxin only enters humans through their lungs. Dioxin that falls to the ground and is then incorporated into the food chain and eaten has always been ignored in EPA risk assessments.

However, the EPA's team of scientists conducting the official "reassessment" of dioxin's toxicity published a draft report last summer called, ESTIMATING EXPOSURE TO DIOXIN-LIKE COMPOUNDS in which they clearly stated that a proper risk assessment for an incinerator must include all routes of exposure for dioxin, not merely via the lungs.[3] It is well known that dioxins accumulate in the food chain, and that meat, milk and fish are the major sources of dioxin exposure for humans.[4]

When Greenpeace researcher Joe Thornton did his own risk assessment on the WTI incinerator, using the technique recommended in EPA's draft report, including dioxins in beef and milk, he found that WTI posed risks 10000 times higher than EPA had calculated. To counter Thornton, EPA did its own food-chain risk assessment, which was not released to the public, but which came to light in court.[5] The EPA's secret risk assessment concludes that dioxin from WTI is 1000 times more dangerous than the "official" published EPA risk assessment says it is.

Leaving aside the serious ethical issue of EPA refusing to publish important health and safety information about WTI, an internal memo from Richard Guimond, acting chief of EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, dated January 22, 1993, leaked to Greenpeace, says, "There are very serious implications associated with adopting risk assessment procedures based on indirect exposure routes for air emission sources."[6] Translation: if food-chain exposures are now to be counted in incinerator risk assessments, many incinerators will be found to be unacceptably dangerous.

The new understanding of dioxin--that it's already present in the environment at levels that affect humans--plus the inclusion of food-chain exposures in risk assessments, plus the failure of incinerators to achieve the destruction efficencies required by regulations--all seem to add up to a mushrooming debacle for the incineration industry.

What are the alternatives to incineration?

Jacksonville holds the key

EPA scientists have known since 1985 that incinerators cannot achieve 99.9999% efficiency in destroying wastes present in low concentrations (see RHWN #280 and #312a.), but EPA officials have stated at hundreds of public presentations since 1985 that 99.9999% could be achieved. Lying to the public carries no penalty, but lying to a judge is a different matter. At the hearing in Little Rock February 12, EPA was represented by U.S. Justice Department lawyer Ron Spritzer. Judge Reasoner said to Spritzer, "Indulge me for a moment. If I asked you to prove that you could achieve a six 9 DRE [99.9999% destruction and removal efficiency] on dioxin, could you physically produce technological data that shows that?" "No sir, we could not," said Mr. Spritzer.[7]

That damaging admission was sufficient for the judge. He ordered the plant shut. EPA is considering appealing the judge's verdict, but they do not appear to have a strong case. In all likelihood, the Jacksonville incinerator is shut for good.

The Jacksonville incinerator was in considerable trouble even before Judge Reasoner's decision. On January 22, an Arkansas state official revealed that the incinerator was producing a larger volume of hazardous waste than it was destroying. The machine had been set up in a residential neighborhood of Jacksonville to "destroy" 30,000 drums of hazardous liquids left over from a defunct chemical factory that had made chemical warfare agents on the site for many years (most recently, herbicides for Vietnam). Local citizens had recommended moving the waste out of town by rail, or simply building a concrete mausoleum on the site to contain the waste safely until someone found a way to detoxify it. But Arkansas and federal EPA officials insisted that incineration was the safest, cheapest solution to the problem. They convinced then-Governor Bill Clinton to put up $10.7 million of state money to build and operate the incinerator.

At the end of a year's burning, 9,600 drums of waste had been "destroyed" by the Jacksonville incinerator, but in the process the incinerator had created 12,000 drums of salt and another 1730 drums of ash (13,730 drums total) for a net gain of 43% in the volume of waste. Furthermore, the salt and the ash are so laced with dioxin that they are legally a "hazardous waste" and thus cannot be taken off the site.

"We did not anticipate this," said Doug Szenher, a spokesperson for the Arkansas state department of Pollution Control and Ecology. "The whole idea was that the salt and ash was to have been de-listed [declared non-hazardous] and taken to a landfill site. It just didn't work out that way," he said.[8]

So after spending $7 million burning chemicals fruitlessly for a year, EPA is now spending $400,000 to build a 30,000-square-foot building on the site, to store the hazardous salt and ash until someone can figure out how to detoxify it. So far as we know, this is the first above-ground mausoleum built to store hazardous waste. (See RHWN #260.) In Jacksonville, above-ground concrete storage will soon be a real, demonstrated alternative to incineration.

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

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

[1] GREENWIRE staff, "WTI Incinerator: Foes File Suit in Effort to Block Test," GREENWIRE Vol. 2 No. 171 (January 14, [1993).] GREENWIRE is "the daily executive briefing on the environment" available on-line; phone (703) 237-5130.

[2] GREENWIRE staff, "Incinerator: WTI Counters with Suit of its Own," GREENWIRE Vol. 2 No. 172 (January 15, 1993). GREENWIRE is "the daily executive briefing on the environment" available on-line; phone (703) 237-5130.

[3] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ESTIMATING EXPOSURE TO DIOXIN-LIKE COMPOUNDS [EPA/600/6-88/005B] WORKSHOP REVIEW DRAFT (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, August, 1992).

[4] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, cited above, Appendix B.

[5] Memo from William Farland, director of EPA's Office of Health and Environmental Assessment, to Brian Grant, U.S. Department of Justice, "WTI Screening Level Analysis," dated Feb. 8, 1993, attaching a 21-page risk assessment called "Screening Level Analysis of Impacts From WTI Facility," dated Feb. 5, 1993.

[6] Memo from Richard Guimond, Acting Assistant Administrator, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency response, to EPA Administrator Carol Browner, "WTI Incinerator Issues," dated January 22, 1993. 2 pgs.

[7] Sandy Davis, "Judge Halts Dioxin Burn at Vertac," ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT GAZETTE February 13, 1993, pgs. 1A, 13A.

[8] Sandy Davis, "At vertac, more waste rolls out than in," ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT GAZETTE January 24, 1993, pg. 12A.

Descriptor terms: incineration; epa; oh; risk assessment; ar; dioxin; wti; waste technologies inc; hazardous wastes; health; jacksonville; east liverpool; waste disposal technologies; waste treatment technologies;