Dioxin emissions are creating increasing public concern about background dioxin levels in the environment, in our food and in our tissues.

Dioxin emissions are easily captured in the food chain. Dioxins released from incinerators, whether in large quantities from badly operated facilities, or in smaller quantities, enters the food chain very easily through grazing animals and fish. One litre of milk can deliver as much dioxins as a human would get from air in eight months. In one day a grazing cow puts as much dioxin into its body (from dioxin which has deposited on the grass), as a human being would get from air over fourteen years. In 1989, 16 dairy farmers downwind of a huge incinerator in Rotterdam, were told not to sell their milk, because it contained three times higher dioxin levels than anywhere else in the Netherlands. In 1998, three incinerators were shut down in the Lisle region of France, because local milk produced downwind of these facilities had been contaminated with dioxin to levels three times higher than the permitted sale level (5 parts per trillion TEQ in the milk fat).

This has also occured in the UK. Indeed, Rechem near Bolsover had to replenish whole herds and acres of topsoil after they were implicated in a pollution accident in Derbyshire in the early nineties. This is why, during the foot and mouth crisis, the public became familiar with "dioxins". The burning cattle released incredible amounts of these chemicals, and all of the chemicals entered the cattle through food contaminated by industry - and municipal incinerators alone are responsible for at least 20-40% of these emissions.

Instead of issuing a massive apology for permitting this pollution of the food supply, the UK government is still proposing to build more incinerators as part of their "alternative" energy program.

If the courts recognized the statistical evidence required to link the emissions to incinerators the industry would grind to a halt. If litigation ever favors the public, the industry will be bankrupted. It is still the case that even our 'protectors', such as Baroness Young of the Environmental Protection Agency, are willing to quite transparently lie for these people. Despite a decade of activism, the EPA is still telling the public that these chemicals are not a problem in massive doses, and that they are "natural" anyway, as they occur in nature. Yes they do, in very small amounts and near extreme heat. It is obvious by virtue of the fact that humans can live on this planet that the temperatures concerned, in excess of 300 degrees [indeed, up to 2-3000 degrees], are very rare in nature - but are not at all rare in human industry. Add chlorine based products such as plastics and, voila, you have far more endocrine-disrupting organochlorines than nature could create in centuries - chemicals that are known to be toxic in parts per trillion.

Of particular concern, is the fact that the highest doses of these potent endocrine-disrupting synthetic chemicals are reaching us from our food and being delivered to the unborn foetus. A critical finding occurred in 1992, when Dutch scientists discovered that even at background exposures dioxin was capable of interfering with the thyroid metabolism of babies at one week of age. Industry argues that dioxin emissions are extremely low (especially when compared to conventional pollutants). However, dioxins interfere with several hormonal systems, in which the hormones function in human tissues at part per trillion levels.

"Hormonally active synthetic chemicals can damage the reproductive system, alter the nervous system and brain, and impair the immune system. Animals contaminated by these chemicals show various behavioural effects, including abherrent mating behaviour and increased neglect of [offspring]. Synthetic chemicals can derail the normal expression of sexual characteristics of animals, in some cases masculinizing females and feminizing males. Some animal studies indicate that exposure to hormonally active chemicals prenatally or in adulthood increases vulnerability to hormone-responsive cancers, such as malignancies in the breast, prostate, overy and uterus...

"Laboratory experiments... link hormone disruption with a variety of male & female reproductive problems that appear to be on the rise on the general human population - problems ranging from testicular cancer to endometriosis...

"The most dramatic and troubling sign that hormone disruptors may already have taken a major toll comes from reports that human male sperm counts have plummeted over the past half century [approx. 50%]...(p. 172)

"It would be comforting to know that hormonally active chemicals are not casting a shadow on the next generation, but the evidence provides no such assurance. As the list of hormone-disrupting chemicals continues to expand, each new addition argues agauinst the likelihood that male sperm count levels will fully recover in the years ahead.

"So we find ourselves at an unsettlijng juncture - uncertain whether the dire trend in human male sperm count will soon bottom out or whether it will continue downward. [Despite some recent restrictions] surprising discoveries of hormonally active chemicals in unexpected places such as plastics raise new concerns about chronic widespread exposure.

"...humans do appear to be gambling with their ability to reproduce over the long term, which should be of grave concern.

"...We worry about the power of hormone-disrupting chemicals to undermine and alter the characteristics that make us uniquely human - our behavior, intelligence, and capacity for social organization. (p. 234)

Image 1: Hormone receptors are confused by some POPs Image 2: POPs can be bio-magnified 25,000,000 times between the top & bottom of the foodchain. Man, of course, is also at the top! Image 3: Chemicals manufactured on one continent can travel thousands of miles away. This path traces the journey of a DIOXIN molecule from its origin in a factory in Alabama to a refinery in Texas and up the food web in the Great Lakes and North Atlantic regions. The concentration of POPs can be magnified MILLIONS of times as they travel to the ends of the earth.

"... Why did the Scholastic Aptitude Test scores of high school seniors seeking college admission begin to fall sharply from their high point of 1963 and continue downward for almost two decades? Is it solely the result of demographic and social factors, such as changes in the pool of college aspirants - or reduced motivation on the part of students, as studies have suggested? What about the problems in our schools? Why can't many children read? Is it becasue they watch too much TV or spend all their time playing video games,becasue of a lack of family support for schools - or because they were exposed to PCBs or other thyroid-disrupting chemicals before birth?

"While any connection is still speculative, the human and animal studies reporting learning difficulties and hyperactivity in those exposed prenatally to PCBs [and other thyroid-disrupting chemicals] suggest to us that synthetic chemicals may indeed be increasing the burden on our schools...

"If such invisible losses are already taking place, they will have greater impact on the society as a whole than on any individuals. ...a five-point loss in measurable IQ ...would have 'staggering' implications... the last thing we can afford is the loss of human intelligence and problem-solving powers. (p. 235-6)

"The time has come, however, to pause and finally ask the ethical questions that have been overlooked in the headlong rush of the twentieth century. Is it right to change Earth's atmosphere? Is it right to alter the chemical environment in the womb of every unborn child? It is imperative that humans as a global community give serious consideration to this question and begin a broad discussion that reaches far beyond the usual participants - the chemical companies, government regulators, farmers, economists, scientists, and environmental groups." (p. 247)

- Our Stolen Future, Colborn, Myers & Dumanoski

Whilst much of the above will appear to be apocalyptic rhetoric to the casual reader, a brief perusal of the literature [see Information Resources] should scare the living daylights out of anyone who looks into the matter.