Dioxin - Deadly and Delayed
17 February 2009
by Peter L. deFur, Ph.D.
Federal agencies and scientific research can be incredibly slow, dragging a single topic out for years before resolving the matter. Combine a federal agency with a scientific analysis, and there is no end of possibility for delay, misdirection and reasons for not completing the task at hand. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) reassessment of dioxin is an extreme example of how long an agency can drag out a project. This week marks the next chapter in a near endless search for how little dioxin it takes to cause what harm to whom. EPA holds a technical review of scientific information for consideration in the latest draft of the reassessment.
EPA began the Dioxin Reassessment in May of 1991, eighteen years ago, under Administrator William Reilly. The reassessment began because representatives from the paper industry (then named the American Paper Institute) convinced EPA that the most recent scientific research indicated dioxin did not cause cancer at low doses and that all the paper companies were cleaning up their processes. So, EPA should reassess the toxicity of dioxin. Administrator Reilly made the announcement and assembled a team of scientists to prepare the reassessment of the effects of and exposures to dioxin and related compounds.
Problems arose for the paper industry in short order when it turned out they were wrong about cancer and that the recent evidence indicated dioxin caused a whole range of effects at low doses. The most startling result came out of the lab of Dr. R. Peterson. A single small dose of dioxin given to a pregnant rat caused a range of reproductive problems in the male offspring upon reaching puberty. The results were repeated in multiple strains of rats, mice other animals and in both sexes. The new science had to be incorporated into the reassessment, requiring more time. The first review draft was in September 1994. Several more drafts followed, and I was a peer reviewer for most.
But delays were inevitable, and each time the perfect was the enemy of the good in an effort to incorporate yet more new scientific information on exposure, effects, mechanism of action or modeling. The delays kept EPA from finalizing new regulatory standards or tightening cleanup efforts at contaminated sites.
The last draft of the Dioxin Reassessment was sent to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for a review that was completed in 2006. Now EPA is redrafting the assessment another time in response to the NAS comments. The agency is also planning to convene a peer review group through the Science Advisory Board (I have been nominated to serve) and this week holds a technical session in Cincinnati to inform the EPA redrafting effort.
EPA, like other agencies, can be buffeted by science and politics, but neither should serve to impede the mission of protecting the environment and human health, as I fear has happened in the case of the dioxin reassessment.