Organochlorines
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The dioxin 2,3,7,8-TCDD (tetra-chloro-dibenzo-p-dioxin), is thousands
of times more powerful than thalidomide or cyanide, and is considered
by scientists to be the most potent synthetic poison ever created.
Some actually break down into more toxic substances once in the environment.
Industrially-produced organochlorines, on the other hand, are almost
completely foreign to nature. Still, they may be similar enough to
naturally occurring (unchlorinated) substances to "trick" living
organisms, some of which can't easily detoxify or eliminate them. One
theory about dioxin, for example, is that it mimics a steroid-like
hormone. Masquerading as this hormone, it fools the body's standard
chemical response into setting off a variety of physiological effects.
These effects include suppressed immunity, damage to major organs such
as the liver, reproductive and developmental impairment, infertility,
birth defects and cancer. Rainbow trout have experienced delayed
mortality (death 28 days after exposure) and changes in growth and
behaviour at the imaginably low dose of 38 parts per quadrillion of
dioxin, which in numerals looks like this:
38/1,000,000,000,000,000.
Dr. Jack Vallentyne, Senior Scientist, Canada Centre for Inland Waters,
Burlington, Ontario: "toxic chemicals, in large part organochlorines,
have impaired and are impairing the natural populations of fish,
reptiles, birds and mammals in the Great Lakes Basin. The
concentrations of organochlorines in these wild populations are in the
same general range as those found in human populations. Because of
their short generation times, populations of fish and wildlife may be
showing effects that will appear later in human populations. On this
basis, and direct evidence from a limited number of human studies, the
reports also concluded that there is a clear threat to human health.
The dimensions of the human health threat are not well known."
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Paprican Study on Dioxins
