EPA updates health risk of dioxins

Policy   Mining
By Dina Cappiello on February 17, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — A long-awaited federal study on the health effects of dioxins released Friday says the persistent contaminants at current exposures don't pose significant health risks.

The analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency was more than two decades in the making. It sets the first benchmark for how much dioxin a person can be exposed to over lifetime without potentially experiencing health effects other than cancer. Those include damage to the immune and reproductive systems, skin rashes and liver damage.

The EPA already has a benchmark for cancer risk posed by dioxin, which is a known human carcinogen. That risk level is being re-evaluated separately.

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