Student returns home despite danger

Drinking milk, eating fish or meat or simply breathing can be a health risk due to dioxin, the chemical the Environmental Protection Agency calls the "most toxic man-made pollutant."

A group of about 20 SF State students have launched a campaign against the toxic chemical, hoping to inform the public about dioxin and, ultimately, stop dioxin emissions in the Bay Area.

Many people are not even aware of the effect of dioxin on human bodies.

According to a 1994 EPA report, dioxin found in food, air and water may cause cancer, impairment of the reproductive system, suppression of the immune system and disruption of regulatory hormones.

Anna Nicole Spector, president of Students for the Environment, an on-campus environmental group, said members of the club have collected petitions for the campaign to push for testing on airborne dioxin emissions in the Bay Area.

Spector, an English major, said she and other members have collected about 1,000 signatures since early February and plan to reach their goal of 1,500 signatures by early April.

The petitions will be sent to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District next month to urge the district office to start comprehensive testing on dioxin for the first time, according to the group.

Jason Dell, organizer for the San Francisco office of Green Corps, is working closely with the student group on this issue. Dell said the testing is necessary because the public has a right to know who is releasing dioxin.

"Ignorance is toxic," Dell said. "What you don't know can really hurt you." "Dioxin is very harmful," Spector said. "It's not like smog or oil spills. It's invisible, you can't even see it."

Dioxin is the name for a group of chemical compounds which are unintentionally produced as a result of burning medical waste, chemical manufacturing and paper/pulp processing with chlorine bleaching.

The most famous member of the dioxin family known to the public is probably Agent Orange, which was used to kill agricultural crops in Vietnam during the war.

There are more than 200 forms of dioxin, and of those, 12 forms are so highly toxic they are commonly called the "Dirty Dozen." Incinerators, oil refineries, paper/pulp mills and cement manufactures have been reported to be major sources of dioxin emissions.

The EPA's 2,000-page report also found that once dioxin is released into the environment, it enters the food chain and becomes concentrated in fatty tissue. People can get a daily dose of the chemical from meat, fish, milk and eggs.

EPA Assistant Administrator Lynn Goldman, who oversaw the report, said people should not worry about the harmful effects of dioxin.

"We don't think they (dioxin levels) are so high that people need to fear or panic over them. But we do think they're high enough to warrant public health concern," Goldman said in the Baltimore Sun in 1994.

Dell, of the Green Corps, disagreed with the EPA about the safety issue.

"EPA says a 'safe' daily dose of dioxin is 0.006 pg/kg per day, which is very small amount of dioxin," he said. But, he argues, dioxin accumulates and stays in the system.

In addition to petitioning Students for the Environment, volunteer Ian Neumann, a geography major, spends his time reaching out to the local scientific community for support.

Neumann said he is contacting about 25 local scientists and university faculty to get their signatures to be included in the petition. So far, he has gotten support from three people, he said.

Unlike public petitioning, Neumann said it is hard to get support from the scientific community.

"It's been very difficult and very time-consuming," he said. "It's my feeling that they (scientists and university faculty) are trying to stay out of controversy, even though we are approaching in non-controversial ways."

Anyone interested in supporting airborne dioxin testing can attend a weekly meeting of the Students for the Environment Wednesdays at 5 p.m. at the new HUM #212.

[ Golden Gater Online March 28, 1996 ]

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