Ask A Scientist© Environmental Science Archive

Author:      shennan harris
How would a high school student go about testing dioxin levels in the air?
Are there any known health risks caused by dioxin?

Response #:  1 of 1
Author:      mortis
Both Time and Newsweek had articles on dioxin in their September 19, 1994 
issues.  The chemical has been linked to fetal damage and a reproductive 
disease called endometriosis.  Scientific American (January 1994) and Science 
(September 10, 1993) have articles on a study of cancer rates in victims of a 
chemical factory accident that released dioxin in Seveso, Italy in 1989.  The 
National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine reviewed research related 
to the exposure of soldiers in Vietnam to Agent Orange, a herbicide that 
contains dioxin, and concluded that exposure increased the risk of Hodgkins 
disease, lung, and prostate cancer.  I do not know how to test for dioxin in 
the air.