It's in our food. It's in our bodies and it is making us sick.

The EPA in the US has been studying dioxin exposure for years and has produced two 1,000 page reports titled the Dioxin Reports. The following is based on extraction from these.

One type of Dioxin is 2,3,7,8, -tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin or TCDD the most toxic of the dioxin family. It is one of a family of 75 dioxins. The average background "body burden" is at a level that causes health impacts. People in Northern climates have higher body burden levels of dioxin due to the migration patterns of pollutants to the North.

Cancer rates increases were found at levels as low as 5 parts per trilllion (Vanmiller 1977) Finding cancer rates increases at these extremely low levels make dioxin the most potent carcinogen ever tested and "and "the most toxic chemical known to man".

Canada and Ontario are very dated in the appreciation of the toxic nature of dioxin according to Webster the acceptable daily doses are:

US EPA .0006

California .007

Canada/Ontario 10.

National Research Council of Canada .07

The acceptable level that was set by the Canada and Ontario on dioxin is ten thousands times higher than that recommended by the EPA. This makes Canada a free-for-all when it comes to dioxin exposure. Companies can bring up the level of exposure 10,000 times higher than the EPA's level in Canada without going beyond the provincial "Acceptable daily dose" level. This may explain the movement to license incinerators in Canada to burn US waste.

Further studies were done by an EPA working group after complaints by the paper industry that the daily acceptable level was too low. These studies concluded that there was a linear model of impact and that there was no threshold. Their conclusion was that cancer increases occurred in direct relationship to exposure. Any increase in exposure to dioxin would result in increases in cancer rates. Despite extreme political pressure from the industries' Chorine Institute to lower the threshold rates, there could be no evidence developed to support the change and the standard has stood.

Dioxin mimics a hormone with effects that include neurotoxicity, imminotoxicity, reproductive, development, and endocine toxicity including diabetes. Animal and human impacts are similar.

While much of the studies have been focused on dioxin, other chemicals relatives of dioxin such as PCBs and furans have similar structures and a similar toxic effect. These studies led to the term "toxic equivalence" being applied to the PCB and furian family of chemicals.

Studies by the EPA estimate that the current dioxin related cancer risk level is between 1 in 1000 and 1in 10,000 which is 100 to 1000 times the generally accepted risk of one in a million. This makes dioxin the not only the most toxic but also the largest chemical cause of cancer.

Bio-accumulation is the accumulation of chemicals in tissue. The rate of accumulation for dioxin is at or just below the level where adverse effects(other than cancer) occur.

The major route of human exposure is through ingestion of a wide variety of common foods containing small amounts of dioxin. Dioxin has been found in high levels in breast milk and results in an attack on the weakest and fastest growing portion of the population infants.

Dioxin and its toxic equivalents suppress immune system, reduce testosterone levels, which effect fertility, and reduce glucose tolerance, which increases risk of diabetes at levels to which the general population is exposed.

As a society we have been accumulating body burdens of dioxin in our bodies. Because the body burdens are at or near the level where serious problems begin , only small additional increase would be needed to trigger adverse health effects. Studies indicate that the increasing rates of infertility, diabetes, learning disabilities, childhood cancers and a host of other immune relates sickness and disease may be directly related to accumulated levels of dioxin in early stages in life that are not expressed until puberty or adult hood.

While dioxin has been studied by many experts the controversy stems between the scientists of organizations that produce and market Dioxin related chemical and the health scientists. We can not expect them to agree.

Dioxin and its related chemicals may very well be like lead was to the Romans, an inside killer that went unrecognized for too long.

Compiled by Ambrose Raftis from the book by Lois Barie Gibbs titled Dying from Dioxin by black Rose Books