U.S. Rep. Dale Kildee signs letter urging EPA to release dioxin assessment report

By Lindsay Knake

From © The Saginaw News

More than 70 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, including Rep. Dale Kildee, are urging the Environmental Protection Agency’s dioxin assessment.

Kildee, a Flint Democrat, joined 72 representatives in signing a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson that expresses concern the agency missed its end of 2010 deadline to file a report about dioxin’s health effects.

“The American people have waited for more than twenty years for EPA to complete its reassessment of the potential health risks of human exposure to dioxin,” stated the letter, dated April 11.

This is not the first time the EPA has missed the deadline, the letter stated.

The EPA’s draft stated dioxin found in the general population may cause a lifetime cancer risk as high as one in 1,000.

Dioxin is a group of chemical byproducts from combustion. People exposed to the human carcinogen can delay motor skills and neurodevelopment in children and impact growth, metabolism and reproductive hormones. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 95 percent of Americans have dioxins in their blood.

In 2001 EPA’s Science Advisory Board told then Administrator Christie Whitman to release the report, but the document is not yet completed.

“We request your detailed timeline for finalizing and releasing the Dioxin Reassessment once the (board) review is complete,” the letter stated.

The EPA is organizing a dioxin cleanup of the Tittabawasee and Saginaw rivers and the Saginaw Bay.

The University of Michigan Dioxin Exposure Study indicates dioxin is ingested through food, and researchers in another study believe dioxin is the cause of breast cancer hotspots in Frankenmuth, Midland and St. Louis.