Industries Fight EPA Study Linking Dioxin to Cancer

The chemical, beef and poultry industries are waging an intense campaign to further delay an Environmental Protection Agency study showing that consumption of animal fat and dairy products containing traces of dioxin can cause cancer in humans.

EPA scientists and officials say they are confident of the report’s findings, which they began circulating in June, and are urging EPA Administrator Christie Whitman to issue it in its final form this summer. But the study, more than a decade in the works, has drawn such furious opposition from industry groups and congressional Republicans that the report could be held up for several more years.

By any measure, the economic stakes in the dioxin controversy are high: The EPA’s issuance of a final report could result in federal and state regulations costly to chemical manufacturers. It also could provide more adverse publicity for the beef industry at a time of heightened consumer concern about the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Europe.

Industry groups including the American Chemistry Council, the Chlorine Chemistry Council, the Chemical Manufacturers Assn., the American Meat Institute and the National Cattlemen’s and Beef Assn. contend the EPA’s study is seriously flawed and exaggerates the health risk dioxin poses.

“We are alarmed at any study that reaches conclusions not based on science,” said Gary Weber, executive director of regulatory affairs for the cattlemen’s association.

Environmental groups that have closely followed the issue for years charge that the industry and its political allies in government are working to keep the study bottled up indefinitely for political reasons, not scientific ones.

“What we’re saying is the chemical industry has had a big influence over the way the EPA makes its decisions,” said Stephen Lester of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, which monitors hazardous waste. “They’ve affected the way the science policy and business of the agency is done.”

The Bush administration has challenged several Clinton-era environmental and public health rules and initiatives--including a tough new standard for arsenic in drinking water--on the grounds that they weren’t scientifically sound and would cause economic hardship to industry and local governments.

The politically active chemical, livestock and meatpacking industries contributed $1,171,000 to Bush’s campaign last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Industry officials are lobbying the administration to postpone release of the study indefinitely until other agencies, such as the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, can conduct lengthy studies.

EPA officials and representatives of the chemical and meat industries dispute environmentalists’ charges of a “conspiracy” to block the study’s release. They describe the controversy instead as a dispute over the interpretation of mountains of studies on the health effects of dioxin. Moreover, the EPA’s latest report was greeted skeptically by some scientists who predicted it would not stand up to scrutiny.

Whitman declined last week to speculate on the fate of the agency draft report, saying only, “We’re still looking at that.”

Some industry officials concede that their primary goal is simply to keep the study of dioxin--begun during the Reagan administration--going for as long as possible. David Fischer, managing counsel for the Chlorine Chemistry Council, said his group is pressing the administration to take “an interagency approach” that would allow the FDA, the Agriculture Department and other agencies with jurisdiction over food safety to weigh in.

Fischer warned that any attempt by Whitman and the EPA to conclude unilaterally that dioxin causes cancer “is a plan doomed for failure.”

Dioxin is the airborne byproduct of burning plastics and medical waste containing chlorine. These pollutant compounds infiltrate the food chain through grass and feed.

Although there is some research of people who were accidentally exposed to the chemical, most data about the potential health effects of dioxin have come from laboratory experiments on animals.