Dioxins in Beef and Dairy Toxic to the Body

[Guest guest]

Dioxins-- in Beef and Dairy Toxic to the Body

mcli- (McLibel Support Campaign) Jon Campbell

 

Letter from Jon Comments- by Mike Mike's site

Hi,

I met Dave at the CCHW convention in Arlington, VA several weeks

ago. You might recall that I promised I'd send some info about dioxin in beef.

Sorry for the delay.

 

Basic information about dioxin, and recommendations regarding dioxin

in diet can be found at:

http://www.cqs.com/edioxin.htm

 

More detailed information can be found in the book

Dying From Dioxin by Lois Gibbs.

 

The long and the short of it is:

 

1. The EPA, in 1994, re-assessed the toxicity of dioxin, and confirmed the

finding that it was the most toxic organic chemical known, with measurable

health effects in our bodies at levels of as little as 10-15 ppt, cumulative

over a lifetime.

 

Based on this, the EPA set the " acceptable " dose of dioxin to be .006 picograms

(six million millionths of a gram) per kilogram of body weight, or about 0.40

picograms for an adult (proportional to body weight - much less for a child).

 

2. Beef is about the most dioxin-contaminated food, at about 1 part

per million million (or 1 picogram per gram of food).

 

That means that a single McDonald's hamburger in the U.S. has about 100

picograms of dioxin (assuming a 100-gram patty).

 

(I don't know whether food testing for dioxin has been done by the British govt;

I assume it has...). That is 250 TIMES the EPA " acceptable daily dose " for an

adult (and double that for a child).

 

If people knew that by eating at McDonalds that threatening their health and the

health of their children, rather dramatically, they might be less inclined to

eat there... You might, if you have a chance, check out the rest of my website

(www.cqs.com)

 

and let me know what you think... Regards Jon Campbell

 

Mike Ewall

D Briars Dave, I trust that Jon Campbell knows his stuff on this. He's

working on a book, actually. It's about personal ways to reduce your exposure to

dioxin and similar problems.

 

Yes, 90% of the dioxin you're exposed to is through meat and dairy

products. Sadly, while the main anti-toxics groups will admit this, they all but

refuse to recommend a vegan diet.

 

Beef is the most dioxin-contaminated food according to EPA. There is a wonderful

chart from their 94 report that I scanned and put on my dioxin website at -

http://www.envirolink.org/issues/dioxin/

(see below) Mike

 

From Mike's page --

 

What is dioxin? Dioxin is one of the most toxic chemicals known. A

report released for public comment in September 1994 by the US

Environmental Protection Agency 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 1960's.

 

According to the EPA report, not only does there appear to be

no " safe " level of exposure to dioxin, but levels of dioxin and

dioxin-like chemicals have been found in the general US population

that are " at or near levels associated with adverse health effects. "

 

 

The EPA report confirmed that dioxin is a cancer hazard to people;

that exposure to dioxin can also cause severe reproductive and

developmental problems (at levels 100 times lower than those

associated with its cancer causing effects);

 

and that dioxin can cause immune system damage and interfere with regulatory

hormones.

 

Dioxin is a general term that describes a group of hundreds of

chemicals that are highly persistent in the environment.

 

The most toxic compound is 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin or TCDD. The

toxicity of other dioxins and chemicals like PCBs that act like

dioxin are measured in relation to TCDD.

 

Dioxin is formed as an unintentional by-product of many industrial

processes involving chlorine such as waste incineration, chemical and pesticide

manufacturing and pulp and paper bleaching.

 

Dioxin was the primary toxic component of Agent Orange, was found at

Love Canal in Niagara Falls, NY and was the basis for evacuations at Times

Beach, MO and Seveso Italy.

 

 

Where does dioxin come from?

 

Dioxin is formed by burning chlorine-based chemical compounds with hydrocarbons.

The

major source of dioxin in the environment (95%) comes from

incinerators burning chlorinated wastes.

 

Dioxin pollution is also affiliated with paper mills which use chlorine

bleaching in their process and with the production of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)

plastics.

 

What health effects are related to exposure to dioxin and dioxin-like compounds?

 

Sperm count in men worldwide has dropped to 50% of what it was 50 years ago.

 

The incidence of testicular cancer has tripled in the last 50 years, and

prostate cancer has doubled.

 

Endometriosis - the painful growth outside the uterus of cells that

normally line the uterus - -which was formerly a rare condition, now

afflicts 5 million American women.

 

In 1960, a woman's chance of developing breast cancer during her lifetime was

one in 20. Today the chances are one in eight.

 

How are we exposed to dioxin? The major sources of dioxin are in our diet.

 

Since dioxin is fat-soluble, it bioaccumulates up the food chain and it is

mainly

(97.5%) found in meat and dairy products

(beef, dairy products, milk, chicken, pork, in that order... see chart

below).

 

In EPA's dioxin report, they refer to dioxin as hydrophobic.

 

This means that dioxin avoids other vegetation. Rather,Dioxin will find

animals to go in to, working its way to the top of the food chain.

 

 

Men have no ways to get rid of dioxin other than letting it break down according

to its chemical half-lives.

 

Women, on the other hand, have two ways which it can exit their bodies: It

crosses the placenta... into the growing infant;

 

It is present in the fatty breast milk, which is also a route of exposure which

doses the infant, making breast-feeding for non-vegetarian mothers quite

hazardous.

 

 

This is where you get dioxin from Total exposure/injestion = 119 pg/day

 

Beef 38.0

Dairy 24.1

Milk 17.6

Chicken 12.9

Pork 12.2

Inhalation 2.2

Soil .8

Water Negligible

Chart from EPA Dioxin Reassessment Summary 4/94 - Vol. 1, p. 37 (Figure

II-5.Background TEQ exposures for North America by pathway) EPA's reports on

dioxin.

 

 

Much of this new research into the health effects of dioxin was

undertaken in response to industry challenges to EPA's findings on

the toxicity of dioxin in 1991.

 

Now, 3 years later, dioxin was found to be more dangerous than ever.

 

Copies of the EPA Health Assessment report may be obtained by contacting:

CERI/ORD Publications Center

USEPA 26 W. Martin Luther King Drive Cincinnati, OH 45268 (513) 569-

7562; fax (513) 569-7566. EPA's Scientific Advisory Board has

completed its reassessment of dioxin.

 

To get copies of the dioxin report, contact Sam Rondberg at the EPA at (202)

260-2559. The final report issued by the Health and Exposures Panels of the

Science Advisory Board regarding the dioxin reassessment is now

available.

 

Get your copy by calling the SAB at: 202-260-8414, or

fax: 202-260-1889. Environmental Research Foundation's RACHEL's

Environment & Health Weekly Issues (many links follow)

 

Jon's site

What Is Dioxin?

 

Dioxin is the name generally given to a class of super-toxic chemicals, the

chlorinated dioxins and furans, formed as a by-product of the manufacture,

molding, or burning of organic chemicals and plastics that contain chlorine.

 

It is the nastiest, most toxic man-made organic chemical; its toxicity is second

only to 'radioactive' waste.

 

Dioxin made headlines several years ago at places such as Love Canal, where

hundreds of families needed to abandon their homes due to dioxin contamination,

and Times Beach, Missouri, a town that was abandoned as a result of dioxin.

 

Dioxin - An Unprecedented Threat

 

We now know that dioxin exhibits serious health effects when it reaches as

little as a few parts per trillion in your body fat.

 

Dioxin is a powerful hormone- disrupting chemical.

 

By binding to a cell's hormone receptor, it literally modifies the

functioning and genetic mechanism of the cell, causing a wide range

of effects, from cancer to reduced immunity to nervous system

disorders to miscarriages and birth deformity.

 

Because it literally changes the functioning of your cells, the effects can be

very obvious or very subtle. Because it changes gene functions, it can

cause so-called genetic diseases to appear, and can interfere with

child development.

 

There is no " threshold " dose -the tiniest amount can cause damage, and our

bodies have no defense against it.

 

Unfortunately, according to the EPA, much of the population of the

U.S. is at the dose at which there can be serious health effects.

 

How did this happen?

 

For about 40 years we have seen a dramatic increase in the manufacture and use

of chlorinated organic chemicals and plastics.

 

For chemicals, it was insecticides and herbicides (weed killers). For plastics,

it was primarily polyvinyl chloride (PVC). From phonograph records to automobile

seat covers to wire insulation to shampoo bottles to handbags to house siding to

plumbing pipes to wallpaper, we are literally surrounded by PVC.

 

When these chemicals and plastics are manufactured or burned, dioxin

is produced as an unwanted (but inevitable) by-product.

 

Dioxin had been a little-known threat for many years near factories that

produce PVC plastic or chlorinated pesticides and herbicides, and

where those pesticides and herbicides have been heavily used, such

as on farms, near electric and railway lines, apple orchards, paper

company forests.

 

It became better known when Vietnam War veterans and Vietnamese civilians,

exposed to dioxin-contaminated Agent Orange, became ill.

 

It has been a hazard downstream of paper mills

(where chlorine bleach combines with natural organics in wood pulp

and produces dioxin).

 

Several towns and cities have become contaminated as a result of chemical spills

or manufacturing emissions, some that needed to be evacuated. Love Canal

(Niagara Falls, N.Y), Seveso (Italy), Times Beach (Missouri), Pensacola

(Florida), and the entire city of Midland, Michigan have high concentrations of

dioxin.

 

Bizarre health effects, such as cancer, spina bifida (split spine) and other

birth defects, autism, liver disease, endometriosis, reduced immunity, chronic

fatigue syndrome, and other nerve and blood disorders have been noted. But in

the last

20 years we have begun to burn household and industrial trash and

medical waste in mass-burn incinerators.

 

The result - given that we have disposable vinyl plastic all around us - has

been a dramatic

increase in dioxin contamination everywhere in the U.S. Dioxin,

formed during burning, is carried for hundreds of miles on tiny

specks of fly-ash from the incinerators.

 

It settles on crops, which then get eaten by cows, steers, pigs, and chickens.

It contaminates lakes, streams, and the ocean.

 

Like the pesticides such as DDT, dioxin 'accumulates' in the fat cells of the

animals,

and re-appears in meat and milk.

 

Dioxin is virtually indestructible in most environments, and is excreted by the

body extremely slowly.

 

How To Avoid Dioxin --

Do not eat beef, pork or Dairy, which have some of the largest concentrations of

dioxin of all food sources.

 

Chicken has the lowest dioxin content of all meats, but is still 'significant'.

 

Vegetarian meat substitutes such as organic tofu, beans, and rice have

essentially no contamination.

 

If your family drinks milk, drink only organic skim milk, since dioxin is

carried in the 'butterfat'.

 

Avoid all full-fat dairy products, such as butter, cheese and ice

cream.

 

Use dairy substitutes. Do not breast-feed infants, as human milk contains more

dioxin than any other food (in relation to an infant s body weight), unless you

have eaten a non-dairy, low-fat vegetarian diet for several years.

 

Avoid all organic chemicals that have " chloro " as part of their names (such as

the wood preservative pentachlorophenol, which is probably the most dioxin-

contaminated household chemical).

 

Avoid chlorine bleach (sodium hypochlorite) and products containing it. (Use

oxygen bleach nstead). Use unbleached paper products. Do not use weed killers or

insecticides that contain chlorine.

 

Especially avoid the chlorophenol weed killers, such as 2,4-D, found in most

fertilizer/weed killers and used by commercial lawn services.

Avoid " Permethrin " flea sprays for pets.

 

Avoid household or personal products and toys made of or packaged in polyvinyl

chloride - PVC - labeled V or #3 plastic.

 

(For example, Beanie Babies are filled with PVC beads, which often produce

cancer-causing vinyl chloride fumes

and are often contaminated with dioxin.)

 

 

Avoid using Saran Wrap and similar " cling-type " plastic wraps (unless they are

clearly

identified as non-chlorinated plastic.).

 

Wash all fruits and vegetables carefully to remove chlorophenol pesticide

residue.

 

Avoid grapes and raisins unless they are clearly labeled as organic

(grown without pesticides).

 

Avoid all products which have *cottonseed* oil as an ingredient (such as potato

chips), since cotton is often sprayed

with chlorophenol insecticides.

 

Do not use soaps containing tallow (most soaps), as it is made from animal fat.

 

Avoid " deodorant " soaps and deodorants containing " triclosan, " a chlorophenol.

 

What You Can Do

 

The way to reduce the dioxin threat is to stop burning trash and

to stop producing PVC and other chlorinated chemicals. If your town

sends its trash to an incinerator, tell your town officials to

institute comprehensive recycling.

 

Write to companies that use vinyl and ask them to use the known safe

substitutes.

 

Ask your supermarket

and office supply stores to sell Totally Chlorine Free (TCF) products. Learn

more about the dioxin threat.

 

Read the books " Dying From Dioxin " by Lois Gibbs, and " Our Stolen Future " by

Theo Colborn.

 

 

Talk to your friends and neighbors about dioxin and what you can do

to reduce the threat.

 

Join a community environmental organization, or form one if there are none in

your town. Call a state or national organization to get help.

 

Download a copy of a Microsoft Word Version 6-compatible version of this

document for a community information leaflet.

 

U.S. McLibel Support Campaign Email dbri- PO Box 62

Phone/Fax 802-586-9628 Craftsbury VT 05826-0062

http://www.mcspotlight.org/

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Mitchell B. Stargrove,N.D., L.Ac.

 

Integrative Medical Arts Group, Inc. 503/526-1972 4720 SW Watson

Avenue, Beaverton, OR 97005 fax: 503/643-4633

Integrative Medicine, Natural Health and Alternative Therapies

IBIS Medical Software: Interactive BodyMind Information System

 

http://www.HealthWWWeb.com http://www.Integrative-Medicine.com

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