Joshua Cohen, deputy director of the Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health at Tufts University The problem is that there is no ideal study that directly answers the question: Does dioxin cause cancer at typical everyday exposure levels, and if so, how big a risk does it pose?
But another reason is that EPA scientists and those outside the agency have yet to agree on how to assess the risk of cancer from dioxin. One reason for the decades of uncertainty is that the agency has had to shift its emphasis from a few high-level exposures like Times Beach to low-level exposures that affect millions of people. But nearly 30 years later, the EPA still can't seem to decide just how dangerous it really is. In December of 1982, the people of Times Beach, Mo., were forced to abandon their town forever because the Environmental Protection Agency found high levels of a chemical called dioxin.Īt the time, dioxin was considered one of the world's most dangerous chemicals. Thirty years later, the Environmental Protection Agency can't decide how dangerous the chemical is.īill Pierce/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Residents of Times Beach, Mo., were forced to leave their town in December 1982 because the chemical dioxin was found in the soil.
