Health Risks from Dioxin and Related Compounds

Although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency presented a comprehensive review of the scientific literature in its 2003 draft reassessment of the risks of dioxin, the agency did not sufficiently quantify the uncertainties and variabilities associated with the risks, nor did it adequately justify the assumptions used to estimate them, according to this new report from the National Academies' National Research Council. The committee that wrote the report recommended that EPA re-estimate the risks using several different assumptions and better communicate the uncertainties in those estimates. The agency also should explain more clearly how it selects both the data upon which the reassessment is based and the methods used to analyze them.Table of ContentsFront MatterPublic SummarySummary1 Introduction2 General Considerations of Uncertaintyand Variability, Selection of DoseMetric, and Dose-Response Modeling3 Toxic Equivalency Factors4 Exposure Assessment5 Cancer6 Noncancer End Points7 Review of Risk Characterization8 Conclusions and RecommendationsReferencesA Biographical Information onCommittee MembersB EPA's 2005 Guidelines forCarcinogen Risk Assessment