Doctors, agencies disagree on toxicity of dioxins

While there is much debate about how dangerous dioxin is, everyone agrees it is poisonous in large doses.

The chemical is an endocrine system disrupter, which means dioxin acts like hormones in the body, interfering with sexual development and causing other systemic problems.

Dioxins are largely found in milk, fatty meat products and on the surface of fruits and vegetables. The chemicals are not produced deliberately but are largely unwanted byproducts of many industrial processes and of all combustion processes.

In the human body dioxin accumulates in fatty tissues and never goes away, resulting in a dioxin cache inside every person.

It is not known at what levels dioxin becomes dangerous or if the substance is a definite human carcinogen. Various doctors and health associations worldwide have produced drastically different opinions on the relative toxicity of dioxins.

The World Health Organization recently release this statement:

"This group of persistent environmental chemicals (dioxins) has consistently grabbed headlines, although the real effect of these substances is difficult to determine." However, "new epidemiological data has emerged, notably concerning dioxins' effect on neurological development and the endocrine system, and WHO thus convened a consultation to re-evaluate the tolerable daily dose of dioxins to which a human can be exposed. . . . They recommended that every effort should be made to reduce exposure to the lowest possible level."

With such opposing views from so many "experts" the public has been left with no reliable dioxin data. The information gap has fueled suspicions and created a near hysteria for many living in the shadow of the world's garbage incinerators.