ONGOING DIOXIN STUDIES

The literature on-line can be overwhelming. It can sometimes be contradictory, other times reasonably consistent in their findings. Problems exist in calculating toxicities of various chemicals because among other things while it is legal (moral???) to inject animals with toxins and observe the results, generally speaking human testing has been universally frowned upon. I've long had a problem with Risk Assessments because they attempt to mathematically "prove" that which is impossible to prove. While human beings around the world are remarkably similar biologically, their environments, living conditions and exposures to toxins are incredibly diverse. Literally one human being could be dosed accidentally with dioxins and walk away apparently unscathed while another with different background past exposures combined with different genetics could require immediate hospitalization and intensive care. There is also the issue of longterm effects. Dosing either accidentally or intentionally today may give apparent zero health effects yet the individual twenty-five years down the road may suddenly develop cancer (or other serious disease) with no obvious additional toxic exposures. It is all very difficult to mathematically determine safe levels, action levels etc. especially when those levels are based upon study of that one chemical/toxin at a time. The reality is that all toxins are in conjunction with other factors including past exposures, future exposures, different toxins, different diets, heat, humidity, type of exposure (eg. inhalation, ingestion, dermal etc.). In other words one size (criteria) does not fit all human beings nor does it fit any single human being throughout their life span. A strong and healthy female in her mid twenties does not have the identical immune system, metabolism etc. when she reaches the age of sixty. Her response to toxic exposures can change dramatically over her lifetime including when she is pregnant which also raises the issue of unborn children and their exposures. I have always shuddered at the prospect of a toxicologist in a lab somewhere determining a "safe" concentration for known manmade poisons that have no redeeming values. Yes medications are "safe" at the appropriate concentrations but can be poisonous if ingested above those levels. The point is that medications do have a redeeming social value. Dioxins do not! ........................................................................................................................... At one point in time I was advised that some chemicals have no threshold value. In other words there is no concentration low enough that ALL human beings will avoid negative health effects. This included dioxins. Various criteria, provincial and federal, acknowledge the toxicity of dioxins in comparison to other chemical compounds. For example we are advised that drinking water with less than 5 parts per billion (ppb) of benzene is supposedly "safe". Over 5 ppb. however can cause leukemia in human beings. Dioxins on the other hand have a criteria in drinking water of 15 parts per quadrillion. That is million, billion, trillion and then quadrillion. Each number is a thousand times larger than the preceding one and hence one part per quadrillion is 1,000 x 1,000 x 1,000 times SMALLER than one part in a million. You can see how much more toxic dioxin is than benzene, yet benzene is still a killer of human beings. .............................................................................................................. My conclusion is this. No concentrations of either benzene or dioxin should be in our drinking water. Or in our air. Or in our food. Then there are the thousands of other toxic chemicals used in industry and cheerfully discharged day in and day out into the natural environment. And yet industry and their professional shills blithly tell the public that this amount of chemical poison is safe and this amount is not. I believe that they are talking through their hats. Maybe the 44% of Canadians who will get cancer in their lifetimes feel the same way. I'm one of them although I think that I was very lucky. Many others are not. Yet we continue down this path of justifying and quantifying "safe" levels of toxins in our air, drinking water, ground water, surface water, soils and foods. Safe levels of toxins are a myth which allows some human beings to profit financially while exposing others to unecessary health risks.