Kildee gives reassessement thumbs up!
Yesterday members of Congress, including Congressman Dale Kildee, signed onto a letter to EPA Administrator Jackson urging the agency to release the decades old dioxin reassessment. The letter was initiated by Congressman Markey and we could not agree more. We appreciate Congress Kildee’s signature.
Below is a dioxin/ dioxin reassessment time-line and Congressman Markey’s letter to the administrator. After years of push back from Dow Chemical and industry it is time for EPA to step up and make protecting public health a priority.
We expect Dow Chemical, their community surrogates and lobbyists will continue to challenge EPA and defend the company’s antics and cleanup delays; they will demand balance and find great comfort in the fabricated ambiguity and uncertainty of dioxin’s toxicity provided courtesy of Dow’s PR machine.
While ignoring the plethora of independent science on the toxicity of dioxin, Dow’s demand for dead bodies whose post mortem shows a neon “D” for dioxin as the cause of death, dominates and drowns out the call for logical and prudent public health measures.
It is not in the interests of Dow or the industry to have this issue settled. They will always have more questions and demand more answers. Administrator Jackson should move to release the reassessment.
From Dr. Linda Birnbaum’s 2005 presentation to the Saginaw Bay Community
- Dioxins affect multiple tissues and organ systems
- The embryo/fetus may be especially susceptible
- Dioxins result in a plethora of non-cancer effects
- Dioxins are human carcinogens
- Dose/Response Assessments, both empirical and modeling, demonstrate that effects may be occurring in the high end of the general population
