#353: EPA: Dioxin Does Cause Cancer In Humans

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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;

#395: Risk Assessment -- Part 3: Which Problems Shall We Ignore?

=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #395
---June 23, 1994---
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========================

Risk assessment became a hot topic in Congress in 1994. Earlier this year when the Senate passed a bill to elevate EPA [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] to cabinet status, Bennett Johnston --a petrochemical senator from Louisiana --tacked on an amendment requiring EPA to conduct a risk assessment for every regulation the agency issues. The House of Representatives has not acted on the "EPA elevation bill" for fear that the Johnston amendment would snarl EPA in paper, making the agency even less effective. [1]

Representative Herb Klein has sponsored a new bill, H.R. 4306, called the "Risk Assessment Improvement Act of 1994," hoping to make EPA conduct all its risk assessments according to fixed guidelines.

The National Academy of Sciences in January issued a fat volume called SCIENCE AND JUDGMENT IN RISK ASSESSMENT that aims to improve EPA's risk assessments. Yes, risk assessment is enjoying great attention in Washington these days. Why?

The premier think tank on risk assessment --the Center for Risk Management in Washington, operated by Resources for the Future (RFF) --explains it this way: "The subject of risk assessment has leaped to prominence during the past year, both in Washington, D.C. and at the grass roots.... There are several reasons for the sudden interest in risk assessment, but the major underlying reason is the general recognition that government and private sector resources are scarce and that it is therefore necessary to understand what society gains from environmental laws and regulations. The only analytical method for determining this is risk assessment. Once the premise of scarce resources is accepted, the need to set priorities is unavoidable."

Really? Is it really true that in 1994, for the first time, people recognized that resources are scarce? As H.L. Mencken liked to say, "Balderdash." Resources have always been limited and people have always known it. The point of developing a Constitutional democracy in the 18th century was to allocate resources more fairly than a monarchy had ever managed to do. The whole point of "politics" is to influence the allocation of scarce resources. Will our town have a new nursing home or a new golf course? Will we subsidize public housing or give a tax break to the new incinerator? These are typical political choices in a world where resources are scarce. There is nothing new about scarce resources.

But risk assessment as a substitute for the political process is new. And think tanks to promote risk assessment as "the only analytical method" for learning what we gain from environmental laws are CERTAINLY new. Is risk assessment the ONLY way to analyze the benefits we get from environmental laws? What a silly idea. Who would support a think tank to promote such a silly, undemocratic idea? A recent newsletter from the Center for Risk Management lists the following "major corporate supporters:" Browning-Ferris Industries; the Chemical Manufacturers Association; the Dow Chemical Company; E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co.; Monsanto Company; WMX Technologies [formerly Waste Management, Inc.]; the General Electric Foundation; and Philip Morris Companies, Inc., among others. "Other corporate contributors" listed in the newsletter are the American Petroleum Institute and the Union Carbide Foundation. In sum, the Center for Risk Management is supported by many of the corporations that have fostered environmental destruction on a global scale for 50 years. Why might these corporations want to promote risk assessment as a way of establishing environmental priorities?

When risk assessment is used to establish environmental priorities, the effect is to decide which problems will be ignored, which destructive behaviors will be tolerated. As we saw last week (RHWN #394), Judge Stephen Breyer, President Clinton's choice for Supreme Court justice and a self-styled expert on risk, says the nation is wasting money worrying about old chemical dumps, pesticides, and nuclear power. It is evident that Mr. Breyer has reached a personal political conclusion that people exposed to pesticides and industrial chemicals from old dumps don't matter much, and that nuclear power is safe. He believes the American people should ignore these problems and focus resources elsewhere. Naturally he's entitled to his views. 

Unfortunately, he wants to impose those views on the rest of us, and he proposes a vehicle for doing just that: an elite corps of risk assessment "experts" who will be "politically insulated" from Congress and from the American people. This elite corps would make risk decisions for the rest of us. The public would be less involved than presently. For example, Judge Breyer says, "For reasons I have mentioned, to achieve the public's broader health and safety goals may require forgoing direct public control of, say, individual toxic waste dumps." (African Americans and native people, beware.) 

And Judge Breyer explains how the elite corps group could defuse public concerns at the local level: the Judge says his system "offers the local [EPA] administrators insulation and protection from criticism. They can answer the locally posed question, 'Is our swamp clean now?' with, 'Yes, the swamp is clean; the risks are insignificant and national technical (system-based) standards say that is so.'" [2] Unfortunately, all the scientists in the world will never be able to determine by scientific methods that the risks of a contaminated swamp are "insignificant." Science cannot determine that. Chemicals that seem safe today are often recognized as dangerous tomorrow, and that will always be the case. 

Furthermore, science has no way to judge the consequences of exposure to many pollutants simultaneously. Therefore, decisions about how to treat contaminated swamps will always be largely political. Scientists are welcome to join the debate, just like any other citizens. The plain fact is, people are uneasy about strange, unnatural chemicals in their food and water, and even in their local swamp. (Most people are also aware that nuclear power plants can be used to make bombs, and that the threat of nuclear war, even as far from home as North Korea, is a big problem.) 

People are aware of evidence of increased birth defects, developmental disorders, cancer, and other illnesses associated with pesticides, and with strange chemicals leaking from Superfund dumps. Men today produce half the sperm their grandfathers did, most likely as a result of exposure to "acceptable" levels of unnatural industrial chemicals. (See RHWN #343.) IT IS RATIONAL TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT SUCH THINGS. In a democracy, people have a right to be concerned, and to advocate that resources be applied to their concerns. 

That is politics. That is the American democratic system. It is perhaps understandable that Dow and DuPont might want to substitute risk assessment for the political process because they can "talk turkey" with the risk experts, whereas the public cannot, and thus in a less democratic system these polluters might be spared the costs of cleaning up the massive quantities of environmental poisons they have released for 50 years.

Comparative risk assessment --or CRA, as it is know in the risk biz --is chiefly a means for increasing the political power of "experts" and reducing the political power of the general public. The experts will decide what is important and what is safe, and--if people like Judge Breyer have their way--the experts will be allowed to impose their views on the public. But CRA is not an objective, scientific enterprise; for reasons given in RHWN #393 and #394, it is distinctly a political process. CRA "experts" have no more legitimate claim to authority or power than anyone else in society.

Furthermore, CRA simply will not work: who expects people living near a Superfund dump to sit by while the risk experts tell them their problem is insignificant compared to global warming, or that society is better served by spending its money, say, subsidizing nuclear power? Using CRA to set environmental priorities is an invitation to continuous warfare at the local level. It will inevitably lead to new environmental injustices, as the voices of the public are excluded from the debate, and the "experts" --many of them the same people who created major environmental problems we now face --make more bad decisions in a political vacuum. CRA simply will not fly, unless we are willing to abandon democracy. It is apparent that Judge Breyer understands this and is willing to shrink our democratic freedoms so the experts can have their way with us. Is CRA really the "only" way to analyze problems of risk in a complex society? Of course not.

Instead of prioritizing environmental problems, thus admitting that certain problems will be ignored (and certain destructive behaviors will be tolerated), we could instead make a national commitment to solve all environmental problems. Every county (or even municipal) government could produce a "state of the environment" report that assessed what problems existed and what progress was being made toward (or away from) solutions. Environmental goals could be thrashed out as part of this report, which might be updated every 2 or 3 years. New information would be factored into each update.

As part of this process, every business might be required to complete an environmental audit that would discuss THEIR alternatives to reduce THEIR impact on the environment and public health. No one would be required to implement the alternatives, but merely to "rigorously explore and objectively evaluate all reasonable alternatives, and for alternatives which were eliminated from detailed study, briefly discuss the reasons for their having been eliminated," as is required now of federal agencies preparing environmental impact statements under the National Environmental Policy Act.

The publication of environmental audits discussing all available alternatives might lead to public pressure on businesses to adopt environmentally sustainable practices. The pressure might consist of green labeling, taxes on toxics, consumer boycotts, laws, initiatives, or regulations. But these are simply the processes of an informed citizenry in a democracy and THAT is where debate about economic feasibility should come in.

There are many other possible ways to promote rational behavior toward the environment. The point here is not to insist on one particular approach, but to examine the most sensible means of addressing all environmental problems rather than claiming rationality for comparative risk assessment, an inherently irrational system of deciding which problems to ignore. [3]

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

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

[1] Terry Davies, "Message From the Director," CENTER FOR RISK MANAGEMENT NEWSLETTER (Spring, 1994), pg. 1. Available free from: Resources for the Future, 1616 P St., N.W., Washington, DC 20036; phone: (202) 328-5060.

[2] Stephen Breyer, BREAKING THE VICIOUS CIRCLE (Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press, 1993), pgs. 73, 76.

[3] Thanks to Mary O'Brien for many ideas on risk assessment, though she bears no responsibility for their presentation here.

Descriptor terms: risk assessment; stephen breyer; epa; comparative risk assessment; bennett johnston; petroleum industry; us senate; house of representatives; congress; legislation; herb klein; national academy of sciences; nas; center for risk management; resources for the future; bfi; browning-ferris industries; cma; chemical manufacturers association; dow chemical; dupont; monsanto; wmx technologies; waste management, inc.; ge; general electric; philip morris; american petroleum institute; api; union carbide; superfund; radiation; nuclear power; pesticides; science; nepa; national environmental policy act; alternatives assessment; environmental audits; mary o'brien; terry davies;

#329: How We Got Here--Part 2: Who Will Take Responsibility For PCBS?

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

RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #329
---March 18, 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 story of PCBs is a morality play for our time.

PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) were discovered during the 19th century, when petroleum was still more of a curiosity than a recognized foundation for the world's most powerful civilization. As the automobile came into wider use during this century (Henry Ford invented the assembly line around 1910), the demand for gasoline grew. As gasoline was extracted from crude oil, great quantities of other chemicals, like benzene, were left over. Chemists started playing around with these chemicals, to see if something useful could be made from smelly by-products, like benzene.

If you heat benzene under the right conditions, you can glue two benzene rings together, creating diphenyl. If you then expose the diphenyl to chlorine gas under the right conditions, you can create chlorinated diphenyls, or biphenyls as we call them today. Adding more or less chlorine gives compounds with differing properties, and thus PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls, all 75 of them) came into being. They aren't soluble in water, they don't burn, the don't conduct electricity, they do not degrade during use, and they conduct heat very well--viola! An excellent candidate for a variety of uses in the burgeoning fields of electric power equipment and electronics.

By 1914 enough PCBs had already escaped into the environment to leave measurable amounts in the feathers of birds held in museums today. [1]

By the mid-1930s, as we saw earlier (RHWN #327) Monsanto was producing PCBs commercially and PCBs had created a public health problem sufficient in size to attract academic researchers, the U.S. Public Health Service, and several large industrial producers and users of PCBs.

In 1936 a senior official with the U.S., Public Health Service described a wife and child, both of whom had developed chloracne, a combination of blackheads and "pustules," merely from contact with a worker's clothes. The same official wrote, "In addition to these skin lesions, symptoms of systemic poisoning have occurred among workers inhaling these fumes." [2]

By 1947, E.C. Barnes of Westinghouse's medical department wrote, in an internal company memo, that long-term exposure to PCB fumes "may produce internal bodily injury which may be disabling or could be fatal." [3]

By 1959, the assistant director of Monsanto's Medical Department would write to the Administrator of Industrial Hygiene at Westinghouse saying, "...sufficient exposure, whether by inhalation of vapors or skin contact, can result in chloracne which I think we must assume could be an indication of a more systemic injury if the exposure were allowed to continue." [4]

In 1968, when 1300 residents of Kyushu, Japan, fell ill after eating rice contaminated with PCBs, the world's public health establishment woke up from a long sleep and began to examine PCBs, which by this time were everywhere.

In late 1971, a group of Westinghouse staff met to discuss PCBs and they noted that PCBs concentrate in the food chain. A memo summarizing the meeting said, "It was generally concluded that... there is sufficient evidence that pcbs can be deleterious to the health of animal and human life and that the risks of ignoring the evidence that does exist was [sic] inappropriate for Westinghouse." [5] Yet the 1971 memo recommended continued use of PCBs.

Nearly 20 years later, in the late 1980s, researchers began to find that workers exposed to PCBs were dying of skin cancer and, perhaps, of brain cancer. Westinghouse and Monsanto maintain that they always informed their workers completely about the hazards of PCBs, but during the 1990s, workers have begun to sue for damages, saying the companies misled them.

Recently in a court in Travis County, Texas, Westinghouse released a 22-page memo that bears no date, but which company officials say was written by a Westinghouse staff lawyer in 1987 or 1988. [6] In the memo, the Westinghouse lawyer describes extensive paper and microfilm records held by the Westinghouse Industrial Hygiene Department: "The majority of the documents in Industrial Hygiene's files are potential 'smoking gun' documents," the memo says. The memo goes on, "The files are filled with documentation which critiques and criticizes, from an industrial hygiene perspective, Westinghouse manufacturing and non-manufacturing operations. This documentation often times points out deficiencies in Westinghouse operations and suggests recommendations to correct these deficiencies. Industrial Hygiene's files contain information which details the various chemical substances used at Westinghouse sites over the years and often times the inadequacies in Westinghouse's use and handling of the substances. The files contain many years of employee test results, some of them unfavorable," the memo says. [7]

The memo says that Westinghouse executives must ask certain questions before deciding to keep or destroy the smoking gun records. The first question is, "What are the chances of litigation? Is it pending or imminent?" The second question is, "In the case of litigation, which party would have the burden of proof?"

The memo then says, "We recommend that all such files generated prior to 1974 be discarded.... In our opinion, the risks of keeping these files on the whole substantially exceed the advantages of maintaining the records...."

Westinghouse officials deny that the memo was acted upon. They say they still have all the company's files intact. However, in a lawsuit against Westinghouse by Nevada Power and Light (NP&L), Westinghouse did not produce documents, such as correspondence between Westinghouse and Monsanto, requested by NP&L in a "discovery" proceeding. Monsanto, on the other hand, did produce correspondence with Westinghouse officials. [4] NP&L is suing Westinghouse, GE and Monsanto for $48.5 million in compensatory damages for costs the utility says it incurred because of PCBs in electric power equipment.

Furthermore, in sworn testimony in the NP&L case, three Westinghouse employees or former employees described how files that they maintained about PCBs were taken from them by members of Westinghouse legal staff in the 1980s and never returned to them.

It is not clear why Westinghouse handed over the "smoking gun" memo to opposing counsel in the Texas suit. In any case, Westinghouse attorneys tried to have the document declared "privileged" so that it would remain under wraps. On February 9, 1993, Texas Judge Paul R. Davis ruled against Westinghouse, saying the memo "falls within the crime/fraud exemption to privileged documents" under Texas law because, the Judge said, the memo was "prepared, and describe[s] a plan, to commit fraud on the courts of this nation." Westinghouse denies fraudulent intention, but destroying documents that might be needed in foreseeable litigation is forbidden under U.S. law.

Westinghouse will have many opportunities to redeem its good name in the next few years. If company officials still have all their company records dating back to the 1930s, they will be able to produce relevant documents during "discovery" proceedings in dozens of lawsuits now impending or already filed. More than a thousand individuals have already filed lawsuits against Westinghouse, seeking compensation for alleged damages from workplace exposures.

During this '90s, the PCB morality play will move through the courts, where Chapter 11 bankruptcy may be the only way out for the purveyors of PCBs.

Some may see in this history the malevolent machinations of corporate criminals. But others may find in this story well-meaning individuals trapped in circumstances they believe forced them to make choices that they, as individuals, could never condone.

In RHWN #327 we heard General Electric's F.R. Kaimer describe the HUMAN reaction of GE executives to the disfigurement and pain of GE workers exposed to PCBs: "[W]e had 50 other men in very bad condition as far as the acne was concerned. The first reaction that several of our executives had was to throw it out--get it out of our plant. They didn't want anything like that for treating wire. But that was easily said but not so easily done. We might just as well have thrown our business to the four winds and said, 'We'll close up,' because there was no substitute and there is none today in spite of all the efforts we have made through our own research laboratories to find one." [7]

In the end, it does not matter what motivated the actors in our PCB story. Whether they were motivated by good or evil, the necessary remedy is the same.

As a society, and as a species, we cannot survive the launching of many more families of chemicals like PCBs or CFCs. Yet the corporate form of organization shields those who launch such chemicals, preventing them AS INDIVIDUALS from feeling the consequences of their actions. The way out of this thicket is to give back liability to all individuals, removing the corporate shield that prevents individuals from feeling the consequences of their own actions. Through reform of the corporate charter, we can return to everyone their essential humanness, their responsibility for their own choices in their own lives.

  --Peter Montague, Ph.D.

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

[1] Robert Risebrough and Virginia Brodine, "More Letters in the Wind," in Sheldon Novick and Dorothy Cottrell, editors, OUR WORLD IN PERIL: AN ENVIRONMENT REVIEW (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett, 1971), pgs. 243-255.

[2] E.C. Barnes quoted in Michael Schroeder, "Did Westinghouse Keep Mum on PCBs?" BUSINESS WEEK August 12, 1991, pgs. 68-70.

[3] Letter from Elmer P. Wheeler of Monsanto, to H. Wilbur Speicher of Westinghouse, October 23, 1959.

[4] Memo from G.W. Wiener, Research Director, Power Systems, Westinghouse, titled "Minutes of pcb status," dated December 28, 1971.

[5] Stuart Mieher, "Westinghouse Lawyer Urged in '88 Note That Toxic-Safety Records Be Destroyed." WALL STREET JOURNAL February 26, 1993, pg. A-4.

[6] Undated "smoking gun" memo by Westinghouse attorney Jeffrey Bair and C.W. Bickerstaff, then Manager of Corporate Industrial Hygiene for Westinghouse.

[7] Cecil K. Drinker and others, "The Problem of Possible Systemic Effects From Certain Chlorinated Hydrocarbons," THE JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE AND TOXICOLOGY Vol. 19 (September, 1937), pgs. 283-311.

Descriptor terms: pcbs; polychlorinated biphenyls; benzene; monsanto; u.s. public health service; westinghouse; chloracne; kyushu; japan; tx; nevada power & light; np&l; smoking gun memo; fraud; judge paul r. davis; general electric; f.r. kaimer; petroleum; chlorinated hydrocarbons;

#327: How We Got Here--Part 1: The History of Chlorinated Biphenyl (PCBS)

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

RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #327
---March 4, 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========================

If you had to pick one chemical that best exemplified our modern situation, it might well be PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls).

PCBs were first manufactured commercially in 1929 by the Swan Corporation, which later became part of Monsanto Chemical Company of St. Louis, Missouri.[1] Monsanto then licensed others to make PCBs and the product took off. PCBs conduct heat very well, but do not conduct electricity, and they do not burn easily. Furthermore, they do not change chemically--they are stable--and they are not soluble in water. Therefore they are ideal insulators in big electrical transformers and capacitors (devices that store electricity). As electricity came into widespread use during the first half of this century, equipment suppliers like GE and Westinghouse became major users of PCBs.

Many of the characteristics that make PCBs ideal in industrial applications create problems in the environment. Like many other chlorinated hydrocarbons, PCBs are soluble in fat, though not in water, so they tend to accumulate in living things and to enter food webs, where they concentrate. Larger, older predators tend to accumulate PCBs in their fatty tissues, including their eggs (in the case of birds and fish) and their milk (in the case of mammals). PCBs were first recognized as an environmental problem in 1966 when a Swedish researcher reported finding them in 200 pike from all over Sweden, in other fish, and in an eagle.[2] For the next decade, scientists accumulated information about PCBs, finding them disrupting food webs all over the planet. By 1976, the destruction wrought by PCBs was so obvious and so well understood that even the U.S. Congress comprehended the danger and took action, outlawing the manufacture, sale, and distribution of PCBs except in "totally enclosed" systems. Between 1929 and 1989, total world production of PCBs (excluding the Soviet Union) was 3.4 billion pounds, or about 57 million pounds per year. Even after the U.S. banned PCBs in 1976, world production continued at 36 million pounds per year from 1980-1984 and 22 million pounds per year, 1984-1989. The end of PCB production is still not in sight.[3]

The whereabouts of 30 percent of all PCBs (roughly a billion pounds) remains unknown. Another 30 percent reside in landfills, in storage, or in the sediments of lakes, rivers, and estuaries. Some 30 percent to 70 percent remain in use. The characteristics of PCBs (their stability and their solubility in fat) tend to move them into the oceans as time passes. Nevertheless, it is estimated that only one percent of all PCBs have, so far, reached the oceans.[3]

The one percent that HAVE reached the oceans are causing major problems. As noted above, PCBs tend to concentrate in the food chain; the higher you are on the food chain, the greater the concentration of PCBs. Large fish, and creatures that eat large fish, tend to accumulate thousands of parts of million (ppm) in their flesh. Furthermore, by a cruel twist of fate, large birds and large marine mammals (seals, sea lions, whales, and some dolphins) lack enzyme systems to efficiently detoxify PCBs. As a result, PCBs build up in the bodies of oceanic predators and are passed to their offspring through eggs (in the case of fish and birds) and milk (in the case of mammals). PCBs mimic hormones and are a powerful disruptor of the endocrine system that governs reproduction. Marine mammals are already having trouble reproducing.[4] It is entirely possible that, as more PCBs reach the oceans, all large mammals will disappear.[5]

Humans, too, are contaminated by PCBs and are passing these powerful toxins to their infant children through breast milk. In the U.S. and other industrialized countries, PCBs are present in breast milk at about 1 part per million (ppm) in the milk fat. An infant drinking milk contaminated at this level will take in a quantity of PCBs that is 5 times as high as the recommended "allowable daily intake" for an adult, as established by the World Health Organization.[6]

Children exposed in the womb to PCBs at levels considered "background levels" in the U.S. have been found to experience hypotonia (loss of muscle tone) and hyporeflexia (weakened reflexes) at birth, delays in psychomotor development at ages 6 and 12 months, and diminished visual recognition memory at 7 months.[7]

How did we get here?

In 1937--just eight years after Swan Chemical began manufacturing PCBs in commercial quantities--the Harvard School of Public Health hosted a one-day meeting on the problem of "systemic effects" of certain chlorinated hydrocarbons including "chlorinated diphenyl" (an early name for PCBs).[8] The meeting was attended by representatives from Monsanto, General Electric, the U.S. Public Health Service, and the Halowax Corporation, among others.

Before World War I, the Halowax Corporation began manufacturing chlorinated naphthelenes as a coating for electric wire and companies like General Electric began using it. The president of Halowax, Sandford Brown, told the meeting that they had observed no problems in their workers until "the past 4 or 5 years... Then we come to the higher stages [greater number of chlorine atoms in the mixture], combined with chlorinated diphenyl and other products, and suddenly this problem is presented to us."[8] By the mid-1930s, workers at Halowax and at GE, and even some of their customers, were breaking out with chloracne--small pimples with dark pigmentation of the exposed area, followed by blackheads and pustules. In 1936 three workers at the Halowax Company died, and Halowax then hired Harvard University researchers to expose rats to these chlorinated compounds, to see if they could discover the underlying cause. The Harvard researchers made "a number of estimates of chlorinated hydrocarbons in the air of different factories," then designed experiments to expose rats to similar levels. They reported that "the chlorinated diphenyl is certainly capable of doing harm in very low concentrations and is probably the most dangerous [of the chlorinated hydrocarbons studied]."[8] And, they said, "These experiments leave no doubt as to the possibility of systemic effects from the chlorinated naphthalenes and chlorinated diphenyls."[8]

From a brief report on the one-day conference, we can gather that problems caused by PCB exposures were serious and widely known. Mr. F.R. Kaimer, assistant manager of General Electric's Wireworks at York, Pa., said, "It is only 1 1/2 years ago that we had in the neighborhood of 50 to 60 men afflicted with various degrees of this acne about which you all know. Eight or ten of them were very severely afflicted--horrible specimens as far as their skin conditions was concerned. One man died and the diagnosis may have attributed his death to halowax vapors, but we are not sure of that...."[8]

GE's medical director, Dr. B. L. Vosburgh of Schenectady, N.Y., attended the meeting. He said, "About the time we were having so much trouble at our York factory some of our customers began complaining. We thought we were having a hysteria of halowax mania throughout the country."

Monsanto Chemical Company was represented at the meeting by R. Emmett Kelly. Mr. Kelly told the meeting, "I can't contribute anything to the laboratory studies, but there has been quite a little human experimentation in the last several years, especially at our plants where we have been manufacturing this chlorinated diphenyl." He went on to describe the results of Monsanto's human experiments: "A more or less extensive series of skin eruptions which we were never able to attribute as to cause, whether it was impurity in the benzene we were using or to the chlorinated diphenyl."[8]

GE's F.R. Kaimer described the HUMAN reaction of GE executives to the disfigurement and pain of GE workers exposed to PCBs: "[W]e had 50 other men in very bad condition as far as the acne was concerned. The first reaction that several of our executives had was to throw it out--get it out of our plant. They didn't want anything like that for treating wire. But that was easily said but not so easily done. We might just as well have thrown our business to the four winds and said, 'We'll close up,' because there was no substitute and there is none today in spite of all the efforts we have made through our own research laboratories to find one."[8] And so GE executives--contrary to their personal ethics--reached a business decision to continue using PCBs.

[To be concluded next week.] #328

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

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

[1] Robert Risebrough and Virginia Brodine, "More Letters in the Wind," in Sheldon Novick and Dorothy Cottrell, editors, OUR WORLD IN PERIL: AN ENVIRONMENT REVIEW (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett, 1971), pgs. 243-255.

[2] Soren Jensen, "Report of a New Chemical Hazard," NEW SCIENTIST Vol. 32 (1966), pg. 612.

[3] Kristin Bryan Thomas and Theo Colborn, "Organochlorine Endocrine Disruptors in Human Tissue," in Theo Colborn and Coralie Clement, editors, CHEMICALLY-INDUCED ALTERATIONS IN SEXUAL AND FUNCTIONAL DEVELOPMENT: THE WILDLIFE/HUMAN CONNECTION [Advances in Modern Environmental Toxicology Vol. XXI] (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Scientific Publishing Co., [1992).] pgs. 342-343.

[4] See, for example, Robert L. DeLong and others, "Premature Births in California Sea Lions: Association With High Organochlorine Pollutant Residue Levels," SCIENCE Vol. 181 (Sept. 21, 1973), pgs. 1168-1170; and Peter J. H. Reijnders, "Reproductive failure in common seals feeding on fish from polluted coastal waters," NATURE Vol. 304 (Dec. 4, 1986), pgs. [456-457.]456-457.

[5] Shinsuke Tanabe, "PCB Problems in the Future: Foresight from Current Knowledge," ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION Vol. 50 (1988), pgs. 5-28.

[6] Kristin Bryan Thomas and Theo Colborn, "Organochlorine Endocrine Disruptors in Human Tissue," in Theo Colborn and Coralie Clement, editors, CHEMICALLY-INDUCED ALTERATIONS IN SEXUAL AND FUNCTIONAL DEVELOPMENT: THE WILDLIFE/HUMAN CONNECTION [Advances in Modern Environmental Toxicology Vol. XXI] (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Scientific Publishing Co., [1992).] pgs. 365-394. For the comparison of U.S. breast-fed infants' intake vs. World health Organization's standard for adults, see pg. 385.

[7] Hugh A. Tilson and others, "Polychlorinated Biphenyls and the Developing Nervous System: Cross-Species Comparisons," NEUROTOXICOLOGY AND TERATOLOGY Vol. 12 (1990), pgs. 239-248.

[8] Cecil K. Drinker and others, "The Problem of Possible Systemic Effects From Certain Chlorinated Hydrocarbons," THE JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE AND TOXICOLOGY Vol. 19 (September, 1937), pgs. 283-311. Thanks to Bridget Barclay of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater for sending us this revealing article. Ms. Barclay and her colleagues at Hudson Clearwater have worked tirelessly for years to force a sensible cleanup of PCBs that GE dumped, contaminating the length of the Hudson River; Hudson Clearwater can be reached in Poughkeepsie at (914) 454-7673.

Descriptor terms: pcbs; ge; chlorine; sandford brown; halowax corp; usphs; westinghouse; electricity; monsanto; wildlife; fish; mo; landfills; oceans; swan corp;

#400: EPA Investigates Monsanto

=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #400
---July 28, 1994---
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 internal memorandum by an official of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], has accused EPA of conducting a "fraudulent" criminal investigation of Monsanto, the St. Louis chemical corporation. [1]

The 30-page memo, from William Sanjour to his supervisor, David Bussard, dated July 20, 1994, describes a two-year-long criminal investigation of Monsanto by EPA's Office of Criminal Investigation (OCI).

The Sanjour memo says EPA opened its investigation on August 20, 1990 and formally closed it on August 7, 1992. "However, the investigation itself and the basis for closing the investigation were fraudulent," the Sanjour memo says.

According to the Sanjour memo:

** EPA's investigation of Monsanto was precipitated by a memo dated February 23, 1990, from EPA's Dr. Cate Jenkins to Raymond Loehr, head of EPA's Science Advisory Board. 

** The Jenkins memo said that EPA had set dioxin standards relying on flawed Monsanto-sponsored studies of Monsanto workers exposed to dioxin, studies that had showed no cancer increases among heavily exposed workers. 

** Attached to the Jenkins memo was a portion of a legal brief filed by the plaintiffs as part of a trial known as Kemner v. Monsanto, in which a group of citizens in Sturgeon, Missouri had sued Monsanto for alleged injuries they had suffered during a chemical spill caused by a train derailment in 1979. 

** The Jenkins memo had not requested a criminal investigation; instead Jenkins had suggested the need for a scientific investigation of Monsanto's dioxin studies. But in August 1990, EPA's Office of Criminal Investigation (OCI) wrote a 7-page memo recommending that a "full field criminal investigation be initiated by OCI."

** Plaintiffs in the Kemner suit made the following kinds of allegations (which we quote verbatim from the Sanjour memo):

"* Monsanto failed to notify and lied to its workers about the presence and danger of dioxin in its chlorophenol plant, so that it would not have to bear the expense of changing its manufacturing process or lose customers;... 

"* Monsanto knowingly dumped 30 to 40 pounds of dioxin a day into the Mississippi River between 1970 and 1977 which could enter the St. Louis food chain; 

"* Monsanto lied to EPA that it had no knowledge that its plant effluent contained dioxin; 

"* Monsanto secretly tested the corpses of people killed by accident in St. Louis for the presence of dioxin and found it in every case;... 

"* Lysol, a product made from Monsanto's Santophen, was contaminated with dioxin with Monsanto's knowledge." [The Sanjour memo says that, at the time of the contamination, "Lysol (was) recommended for cleaning babies' toys and for other cleaning activities involving human contact."] 

"* The manufacturer of Lysol was not told about the dioxin by Monsanto for fear of losing his business; 

"* Other companies using Santophen, who specifically asked about the presence of dioxin, were lied to by Monsanto;... 

"* Shortly after a spill in the Monsanto chlorophenol plant, OSHA measured dioxin on the plant walls. Monsanto conducted its own measurements, which were higher than OSHA's, but they issued a press release to the public and they lied to OSHA and their workers saying they had failed to confirm OSHA's findings; 

"* Exposed Monsanto workers were not told of the presence of dioxin and were not given protective clothing even though the company was aware of the dangers of dioxin; 

"* Even though the Toxic Substances Control Act requires chemical companies to report the presence of hazardous substances in their products to EPA, Monsanto never gave notice and lied to EPA in reports; 

"* At one time Monsanto lied to EPA saying that it could not test its products for dioxin because dioxin was too toxic to handle in its labs."...

OCI's August memo alleged that "Monsanto did, in fact, produce 'research' to defend its position. 'The Record however, shows a deliberate course of conduct designed to convince its employees and the world that Dioxin is harmless,'" the OCI memo said. [2]

OCI's memo concluded, "Based upon review of the available information submitted to the EPA-OCI by the Office of Enforcement, it is recommended that a full field criminal investigation be initiated by OCI.

"Information in the plaintiff's brief indicate a potential conspiracy, between Monsanto and its officers and employees, exists or has existed to defraud the US EPA, in violation of 18 USC 371. The means of the conspiracy appears to be by (1) providing misleading information to the EPA; (2) intentional failure by Monsanto to fully disclose all pertinent TSCA [Toxic Substances Control Act] related information to the EPA; (3) false statements in notices and reports to EPA; (4) the use of allegedly fraudulent research to erroneously convince the EPA, and the scientific community, that Dioxin is less harmful to health and the environment."

OCI went on to note that, "In addition to the conspiracy, substantive violations of the Toxic Substances Control Act seem to exist for Monsanto's failure to report to EPA, pursuant to TSCA 8(E), the adverse health effects of 2,3,7,8-TCDD. Violations of 18 USC 1001 also appear to exist, although the statute of limitations may have run." Eighteen USC 1001 is a federal law outlawing false statements on any matter within the jurisdiction of any agency of the United States government.

The criminal investigation was opened August 20 and was formally closed 2 years later with Monsanto neither found innocent nor found guilty. OCI said, "The investigation is closed. The submission of allegedly fraudulent studies to the EPA were [sic] determined to be immaterial to the regulatory process. Further, allegations made in the Kemner litigation appear to be beyond the statute of limitations." In other words, OCI did not finish its investigation of the allegations against Monsanto because OCI found that some of the alleged criminal activities were more than 5 years old and thus could not be prosecuted; and, further, they found that the government had not relied on Monsanto's "allegedly fraudulent studies" in setting regulations.

The Sanjour memo is a documentary history of EPA's 2-year investigation, based on a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for all documents related to the investigation. The FOIA request produced a foot-thick stack of papers, all carefully redacted (whited out) to remove the names of individuals.

Sanjour writes that:

** "One gets the impression, on reviewing the record, that as soon as the criminal investigation began, a whole bunch of wet blankets were thrown over it. Almost nothing appears in the record about the first three charges [in the OCI memo] once the investigation began. The investigation concentrated on criminal fraud in the Monsanto studies." 

** A finding of criminal fraud would have required first a finding that Monsanto's studies were scientifically flawed. Only an analysis by government scientists could have reached such a conclusion, and no EPA scientists were engaged in EPA's Monsanto investigation. "None of the scientific groups in EPA, it seems, wanted to touch this hot potato, and no one in position of authority was instructing them to do so," Sanjour writes. This left the criminal investigation essentially crippled. As Sanjour said, opening a criminal investigation without undertaking a scientific analysis was like "trying to make tiger stew without first catching a tiger." 

** Rather than investigating all the allegations regarding Monsanto, EPA actually spent two years investigating Cate Jenkins, the whistleblower whose memo, Sanjour says, precipitated EPA's criminal probe of Monsanto.

After OCI investigators interviewed Jenkins she wrote them a memo on November 15, 1990 (and another on Jan. 24, 1991), describing ways that agencies of the U.S. government --including EPA and the Veterans Administration (VA) --had relied on the Monsanto studies in setting regulations and policies. (Sanjour points out that OCI had to ignore Jenkins's lengthy, detailed memos in closing the investigation on the grounds OCI stated.) Jenkins said the VA used the Monsanto studies to deny benefits to thousands of Vietnam veterans who claimed their wartime exposure to dioxin and Agent Orange had caused cancer and other diseases.

When Jenkins released her Nov. 15 memo to the press, it was the first the world had heard of EPA's criminal investigation of Monsanto and it made headlines. According to Sanjour's memo, Vietnam veterans grabbed hold of the new information in Jenkins's memos and successfully pressured Congress to give benefits to Vietnam vets who had been denied them before. For her work, veterans organizations awarded Jenkins a plaque for exemplary service.

EPA punished Jenkins for her whistleblowing by giving her no assignments during almost 2 years; in April 1992 she was finally given work to do, but it was clerical. She holds a Ph.D. in chemistry. Jenkins filed a complaint with the Department of Labor. The Labor Department found in her favor, that she was being illegally harassed. But EPA appealed that decision to an administrative law judge, thus continuing the harassment. The judge ruled in Jenkins's favor, but EPA --now with Carol Browner at the helm --appealed AGAIN, this time to the Secretary of Labor. He eventually found in Jenkins's favor, thus ending the long period of harassment. Jenkins was reinstated and her attorneys fees were paid.

Sanjour summarizes, "When Jenkins made her allegations, and when the veterans groups made known the full implication of those allegations, a government with a decent respect for the welfare of its armed forces would have publicly ordered a full and impartial investigation with all the resources and support necessary and let the chips fall where they may. Instead, our top government officials were silent or even worse, they let it be known that they despised the messenger and had nothing but friendly feelings for the accused. The United States government gave no support or encouragement to a scientific, civil, or criminal investigation of Monsanto."

--Peter Montague

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

[1] William Sanjour, EPA Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, "Memorandum: The Monsanto Investigation" to David Bussard, Director, EPA Characterization and Assessment Branch, dated July 20, 1994. Available for $5.00 from Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste, P.O. Box 6806, Falls Church, VA 22040; phone (703) 237-2249.

[2] Memorandum from [name redacted] in EPA Office of Criminal Investigation to [name redacted] in EPA Office of Criminal Investigation dated August 16, 1990. A copy of this memo was sent to us by EPA's Freedom of Information Officer in Washington, D.C.

Descriptor terms: william sanjour; whistleblowers; whistleblowing; epa; monsanto; fraud; david bussard; criminal investigations; alleged felonies; cate jenkins; raymond loehr; epa science advisory board; sturgeon; mo; kemner v. monsanto; spills; trains; railroads; accidents; dioxin; epa oci; office of criminal investigation; foia; sab; carol browner; vietnam veterans; agent orange; dioxin; tsca; chlorophenol; santophen; lysol; mississippi river; st. louis;

#370: Environmental Research Foundation, sued by Monsanto epidemiologist William Gaffey libeled article March 1990 issue [#171]

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

RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #370 
---December 30, 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========================

As the controversy over the toxicity of dioxin mounts, a respected environmental writer on the subject is finding himself defending a $4 million libel lawsuit filed by a retired Monsanto Co. scientist. [1] Dr. Peter Montague, founder and director of the grassroots-oriented Environmental Research Foundation, was sued by Monsanto epidemiologist William Gaffey who claims he was libeled in an article Montague wrote in the March 1990 issue [RHWN #171] of RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS. The subject of the article was alleged fraud in dioxin studies conducted by Gaffey and his Monsanto colleagues.

Montague's supporters say the case is a classic SLAPP, a lawsuit filed by a corporation to stifle citizen opposition (the acronym stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). Prior to the lawsuit against Montague, Monsanto's alleged fraud was receiving widespread attention and even created momentum for expanding payments to Vietnam veterans exposed to dioxin-contaminated Agent Orange....

Montague based his article on a memo, "Newly revealed Fraud by Monsanto," prepared by EPA scientist Dr. Cate Jenkins. Montague's article also quoted documents from a lawsuit brought by Missouri residents against Monsanto, which revealed numerous discrepancies in the Monsanto studies.

The lawsuit could help resolve some of the controversy over dioxin, since the key issue at trial is expected to be whether what Montague wrote (and Jenkins alleged) is true or not....

Reached at his home in St. Louis, Gaffey said, "I'm afraid we're completely unable to talk until [the trial] is completely finished or much further along."

[This lawsuit is now pending in federal district court in St. Louis; a trial date has not yet been set.]

[Happy New Year.]

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

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

[1] Except for items inside square brackets, this article and headline are reprinted with permission from ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION (Winter, 1994), pg. 8. ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION is published quarterly by Environmental Action Foundation, 6930 Carroll Ave., Suite 600, Takoma Park, MD 20912; phone (301) 891-1100. Subscriptions are $25/year for individuals.

Descriptor terms: usphs; phs; public health service; barry l. johnson; atsdr; agency for toxic substances and disease registry; hazardous waste; health effects; morbidity; mortality; birth defects; neurological disorders; neurotoxins; leukemia; cardiovascular disease; dermatitis; superfund; leachate; epa; environmental protection agency; trichloroethylene; tce; gastrointestinal cancer; lung cancer; bladder cancer; esophagus cancer; stomach cancer; colon cancer; rectal cancer; rectum; trihalomethanes; thms; chlorination; drinking water; low birth weight; heart defects; neural tube defects; cleft palate; central nervous system; lawsuits; monsanto; william r. gaffey; epidemiology; science; peter montague; dioxin; occupational safety and health; slapps; strategic lawsuit against public participation; agent orange; vietnam veterans; cate jenkins; kemner;