Thursday, December 16, 2004
JEREMIAH STETTLERTHE SAGINAW NEWS
Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko fell prey to a poison that has haunted the courtrooms and political chambers of mid-Michigan.
Although oceans apart, Saginaw residents are bound to the ailing leader by a common chemical: dioxin.
That tie ma-terialized last week for Gary Henry, the chief litigant in a dioxin-related lawsuit against Dow Chemical Co. and administrator of a contamination-centered Web site. Reports of Yushchenko's blood-borne attacker prompted a 300 percent increase in hits on the Freeland man's Tittabawassee River Watch Web site, at www.trwnews.net.
Henry said the buzzword was chloracne. The disfiguring skin condition, evident in Yushchenko's pock-marked complexion, is a known symptom of high dioxin exposure.
"That was the one that jumped," he said.
Henry declined to give specifics about how many Internet hits he gets a day. However, he said he regularly outpaces the WSGW-AM, 790, Web site, which averages 6,600 to 7,200 hits a day.
New tests on Yushchenko's blood reveal dioxin levels more than 6,000 times higher than normal. The concentration, about 100,000 parts per trillion, is the second highest ever recorded in a human, said Abraham Brouwer, professor of environmental toxicology at Free University in Amsterdam.
A normal dioxin level ranges from 15 to 45 parts per trillion, depending on the person's age, the professor said.
Dr. Neill D. Varner, medical director for the Saginaw County Public Health Department, said Yushchenko's poisoning lends little to the dioxin debate in mid-Michigan.
The question that lingers along the Tittabawassee River is how long-term low-level contamination will affect humans, not the effect of a high-level poisoning.
"The long-term health effects of dioxin remain an unanswered question," he said. "We don't know what effects to expect in the life of Mr. Yushchenko as a result of exposure any more than in people who are less exposed."
Bill Egerer, founder of the Midland Matters coalition, hopes the leader's survival will subdue fears about a chemical that people perceive as a monster under the bed in mid-Michigan.
Egerer said the toxin is widely viewed as an equivalent to cyanide or anthrax. Not so, he says, as the Yushchenko poisoning illustrates.
"People think dioxin has that kind of potency," he said. "Scientists for years and years have said the only known human health effect is chloracne. All the other stuff shows up in animals. It is not relevant to human beings."
Egerer pointed specifically to studies conducted on dioxin-exposed workers at Dow. That research has revealed no increased mortality rate in people exposed to high levels of dioxin, he said.
Henry believes the outcome of Yushchenko's poisoning will do little to bolster or weaken either side of the dioxin debate.
"This was acute toxic poisoning," he said. "We're not concerned about that and never have been. We are worried about the effect of long-term, low-level exposure on the immune system and reproduction."
If nothing else, Henry said, news reports and photographs of Yushchenko's blistered face will keep dioxin in the forefront of people's minds as a "nasty chemical."
As for Yushchenko? Experts have not yet determined what specific dioxin caused the poisoning. They have narrowed the search from more than 400 to 29, the Associated Press reports. Experts say they will identify the poison by week's end. v
Jeremiah Stettler is a staff writer at the Saginaw News. You may reach him at 776-9685. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
© 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.