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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Friday, March 18, 2016

War On Science: Bogus Human Carcinogens

Posted on by Frank Schnell

In the last 15 years, EPA has invented three bogus human carcinogens: dioxin, formaldehyde, and TCE.

Prior to the late 1990s, EPA’s cancer Risk Assessment Guidelines (CRAGs) required sufficient evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship in humans before a substance could be classified as a “known human carcinogen”.   However, during the late 1990s, EPA modified its CRAGs to allow itself to classify substances as known human carcinogens without sufficient epidemiological evidence to support such a decision.

The new CRAGs were specifically designed to enable the agency to classify the “celebrity” pollutant dioxin as a human carcinogen, using the agency’s speculative policies (e.g., the so-called TEF approach to the risk assessment of “dioxin-like” compounds) as surrogates for the missing evidence of carcinogenicity in humans.

Dioxin had been a “celebrity” pollutant ever since it came to public attention during the Vietnam War. The chemical’s status followed, not from the its known toxicity in humans (which was largely limited to chloracne, a serious skin condition associated with heavy exposures), but from its association with the second most divisive war in American history.  EPA’s determination to classify it as a human carcinogen had little to do with toxicology and everything to do with the politics of pollution......

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