Dioxin, health effects

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), CFCs, petroleum products, and dioxin are major toxic contaminants in air (Section 3.3.2), soil (Section 3.5.3), and also in water. The readers are referred to Sections 3.3.2 and 3.5.3 for details about PCB characteristics, health effects, treatment technologies, and so on. For water quality management, they have been included in the list of the USEPA priority pollutants [86]. 

CS38731 might have been contaminated with dioxin. Despite a lack of complete toxicity data, It seems unlikely that the short, single exposures to the 64 Irritant chemicals that caused slight or no acute effects on the exposed subjects will cause long-term health effects. 

The number of studies on the health effects of fullerenes and carbon nanotubes is rapidly increasing. However, the data on their toxicity are often mutually contradictory. For example, the researchers from universities of Rice and Georgia (USA) found that in aqueous fullerene solutions colloidal nano-C particles were formed, which even at low concentration (approximately 2 molecules of fullerene per 108 molecules of water) negatively influence the liver and skin cells [17-19]. The toxicity of this nano-C aqueous dispersion was comparable to that of dioxins. In another smdy, however, it was shown that fullerene had no adverse effects and, on the contrary, had anti-oxidant activity [20]. Solutions of prepared by a variety of methods up to 200 mg/mL were not cytotoxic to a number of cell types [21]. The contradiction between the data of different authors could be explained by different nano-C particles composition and dispersion used in research. 

In the early 1980 s, Gough directed OTA s congressionally mandated oversight of Executive Branch studies of cancer in veterans of atom bomb tests and of the health of Vietnam veterans. He chaired a Department of Veterans Affairs advisory committee (1987-90) about the possible health effects of herbicides used in Vietnam and the Department of Health and Human Services committee (1990-95) that advises the United States Air Force study of the health of Air Force personnel who sprayed Agent Orange in Vietnam. In September 2000, he accepted reappointment to the DHHS committee. In 1995, he served on the Environmental Protection Agency s Science Advisory Board committee that evaluated EPA s dioxin reassessment. 

Some 3 billion have been spent on researching possible health effects from dioxin, and the results show that the risks were overstated. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency s Science Advisory Board concluded that the evidence that dioxin is a cause of human cancer and other diseases is unconvincing.3 Furthermore, studies of workers exposed to the highest levels of dioxin ever experienced—levels that will never be seen again— have failed to produce any conclusive evidence of connections between dioxin and cancer4 and the other health effects.5... 

The IOM committee failed to read or heed its own conclusions about health risks from herbicides In contrast to TCDD [ dioxin, as used here], there is no convincing evidence in animals of, or mechanistic basis for, carcinogenicity or other health effects of any of the herbicides, although they have not been studied as extensively as TCDD. 23... 

In 1985,1 left OTA, and during 1986 through 1990,1 worked at a consulting firm, Environ, and a middle-of-the-road think tank, Resources for the Future. My book Dioxin, Agent Orange was published in 1986, and I continued to do research related to dioxin and became more and more convinced that few if any Vietnam veterans had any exposure to dioxin beyond the level common in all people, and that there was no credible evidence that environmental exposures to dioxin caused health effects.36... 

Remarkably, Portier has provided some of the risk assessments for EPA s efforts to label dioxin as a human cancer risk and to calculate risks from environmental exposures to dioxin. I don t know why he dismisses the IOM committee s very similar opinions about the health effects of Agent Orange as political, but I agree with him. 

Nicholson, W.J., Landrigan, P J., 1994. Human health effects of polychlorinated biphenyls. In Schecter, A. (Ed.), Dioxin and Health. Plenum Press, New York, pp. 487-525. 

Birnbaum, L.S., D.F. Staskal, and J.J. Diliberto. 2003. Health effects of polybrominated dibenzo- -dioxins (PBDDs) and dibenzofurans (PBDFs). Environ. Int. 29 855-860. 

Information regarding adverse health effects in animals exposed to CDDs via the oral route was located for the following congeners 2-monochlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (2-MCDD), 2,3-dichlorodibenzo-/7-dioxin (2,3-DCDD), 2,7-dichlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (2,7-DCDD), 1,2,3-trichlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (1,2,3-TrCDD), l,2,3,4-tetrachlorodibenzo-/ -dioxin (1,2,3,4-TCDD), 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-/7-dioxin (2,3,7,8-TCDD), 1,2,3,7,8-pentachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (1,2,3,7,8-PeCDD), 1,2,3,4,7,8-hexa-chlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (1,2,3,4,7,8-HxCDD), 1,2,4,7,8-pentachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (1,2,4,7,8-PeCDD), 1,2,3,6,7,8-hexachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (1,2,3,6,7,8-HxCDD), 1,2,3,7,8,9-hexachlorodibenzo-/7-dioxin (1,2,3,7,8,9-HxCDD), 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,-heptachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (1,2,3,4,6,7,8,-HpCDD), and 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9-octachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (OCDD). Some of the animal studies used a mixture of 1,2,3,6,7,8-HxCDD and 1,2,3,7,8,9-HxCDD. Of all the CDD congeners, 2,3,7,8-TCDD has been the one most extensively studied. 

Pesatori AC, Zocchetti C, Guercilena S, et al. 1998. Dioxin exposure and non-malignant health effects A mortality study. Occup Environ Med 55 126-131. 

Pocchiari F, Silano V, Zampieri A. 1979. Human health effects from accidental release of tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) at Seveso, Italy. Ann NY Acad Sci 320 311-320. 

Stehr PA, Stein G, Falk H, et al. 1986. A pilot epidemiologic study of possible health effects associated with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin contaminations in Missouri. Arch Environ Health 41 16-22. 

Wolfe WH, Lathrop GD, Albanese RA, et al. 1985. An epidemiologic investigation of health effects in Air Force personnel following exposure to herbicides and associated dioxins. Chemosphere 14 707-716. 

According to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in San Francisco, more than 5.5 million pounds of toxic chlorinated substances are released in the area annually. This includes approximately 13,000 pounds of chloroform, 1.4 million pounds of freon, 2 million pounds of perchloromethylene, and trace amounts of dioxin. (Dioxin is one of the most toxic chemicals known.) A report released in September 1994 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) clearly describes dioxin as a serious public health threat. The public health impact of dioxin may rival the impact that DDT had on public health in the 1960s. According to the EPA report, not only does there appear to be no safe level of exposure to dioxin, but levels of dioxin and similar chemicals have been found in the U.S. population that are at or near levels associated with adverse health effects. The EPA report also confirmed that dioxin is a cancer hazard, exposure... 

American Hospital Association, Comments from the American Hospital Association on the United States Environmental Protection Agency Dioxin Exposure and Health Effects Documents, AHA, Chicago, IL, January 13, 1995. 

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