Friday, November 12, 2004
JEREMIAH STETTLERTHE SAGINAW NEWS
The state Department of Community Health has declared a Dow Chemical Co. study of dioxin-exposed workers legitimate -- so long as the company sticks to the study.
State health officials reported Wednesday that they support the findings of a Dow investigation into dioxin exposure among its employees. The study confirms through blood testing that the workers it followed through decades of dioxin monitoring were exposed to high levels of the toxin.
Dow officials say the results could lend credence to 17 previous studies that examined workers' health. The studies showed little evidence of adverse health effects.
State spokesman T.J. Bucholz warned against making generalizations about health based on the study.
"We don't disagree with the findings," he said. "But it is going too far to say that dioxin doesn't have any deleterious health effects. We don't know what those types of levels can do to people."
Dow scientists reported this week that they do not believe company workers face any additional threat of illness because of dioxin exposure -- a statement they attribute to previous health studies.
They echoed the same conclusion for residents along the Tittabawassee River.
Spokeswoman Anne Ainsworth said the company is not drawing any scientific links between the workers study and contamination downstream of the Midland plant. She called it a "reasonable deduction."
"We know now that this was a highly exposed group," she said. "In studying them for decades, we have not seen any long-term health effects of dioxin. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that it would be difficult to find the health effects of dioxin in a group of less-exposed people."
Bucholz said the company cannot connect those dots from its workers studies.
"We don't have enough information to determine what the short-term or long-term health effects mean," he said.
Dow's most recent study examined the blood of 62 employees who worked in its chlorophenol plants. The plants, which manufactured agricultural products such as pesticides, produced high levels of dioxin.
The company also sampled blood from 36 employees who lived within 50 miles of Dow and worked in areas with no known dioxin exposure.
The study found that exposed workers had an average dioxin level of 68 parts per trillion -- with a high of 300 parts per trillion -- compared to 33 parts per trillion in the control group. v
Jeremiah Stettler is a staff writer at the Saginaw News. You may reach him at
776-9685.
© 2004 Saginaw News
For additional articles like this one, go to the Tittabawasse River Watch web site www.trwnews.net for complete coverage of the Tittabawassee River Dow Chemical dioxin contamination saga. . The Newspaper / Media page of our site contains an extensive archive of media articles dating back to January 2002. The source organization's web site link is listed to the right of the article, visit often for other news in our area. The Newspaper / Media page may be accessed by scrolling down to the bottom of the CONTENTS section and clicking on the Newspaper/Media link.