A draft report from the Environmental Protection Agency says dioxin could pose 10 times the cancer risk as previously believed for people who eat large amounts of fatty meats and dairy products. Carol Browner, EPA administrator, urged caution in interpreting the report, noting that “this is not a final document” and that its conclusions have not been reviewed by an EPA scientific advisory board. Dr. John Doull from the University of Kansas, a former advisor to the EPA on dioxin, says the draft “appears to be ill-timed, political rather than scientific, and is an embarrassment to science and certainly to toxicology.”
Despite the obvious problems with drawing conclusions from the preliminary report, nannies from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Greenpeace, and the Center for Environment and Justice proceed to do just that. Ever the anti-choice advocate, CSPI’s Michael Jacobson says, “At restaurants we should avoid foods like cheeseburgers and pepperoni pizza and instead choose salads, pizzas topped with vegetables and little or no cheese, grilled chicken sandwiches, and side orders of vegetables,” to cut down on dioxin intake.
