
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 27, 1990                   TAG: 9007270329
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

OFFICIAL FINDS DIOXIN MUCH LESS HARMFUL

One of the country's leading public health officials said Thursday that the health risks posed by dioxin - the chemical that became notorious during the Love Canal and Agent Orange environmental crises of the 1970s - may have been overstated.

In testimony before the House Human Resourcess and Intergovernmental Relations subcommittee, Assistant Surgeon General Vernon N. Houk said that new scientific evidence suggests that dioxin may be only a weak carcinogen and that the limits placed on the release and cleanup of the chemical - which have cost American society billions of dollars - may be stricter than necessary.

Houk's comments, which came with the approval of the director of the Centers for Disease Control, represent one of the first signs that federal health officials may be willing to amend their much-criticized position on dioxin and bring U.S. policy on the chemical into line with that of other Western nations.

In the past few years, several European countries as well as Canada have re-calculated their assessments of dioxin's dangers, saying that the estimates of a safe daily dose of dioxin used by the U.S. may overstate the risks of the chemical by as much as 1,000 times.

- Associated Press

by CNB