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127 Toxicological Myths In the never-ending battle to clean up our environment and make our world safer for humanity , individuals and organizations that profit from polluting the environment have developed a series of scenarios to obfuscate the human effects of exposure to toxic substances. The underlying assumption of toxic waste facilities, and frequently state and federal agencies, is that they know more about the technical aspects of toxicology than the victims of chemical exposure. This arrogance is often manifested in the unnecessary use of technical jargon and misleading or confusing factual information. Informed residents who are knowledgeable as to the adverse health effects of chemical exposure have repeatedly challenged the toxic waste facilities and frequently persevered in obtaining necessary remedial action. The informed citizens of Winona, Texas, are outstanding examples of how to fight for environmental justice and challenge the questionable assertions of the toxic waste facility as well as state and federal agencies. In 1997, moses (Mothers Organized to Stop Environmental Sins), under the leadership of one of our present-day environmental heroines, Phyllis Glazer, was instrumental in shutting down the major polluting facility in the community of Winona. It is my hope that the following list of what I term “Toxicological Myths” will help informed citizens in challenging a toxic waste facility, and thereby arrive at the true facts concerning the adverse health effects of industrial chemicals. 1. The absence of data is the same as negative data. This is one of the most frequently used statements by those who wish to pollute the environment . Equating the absence of studies to characterize the hazard of a chemical, to running definitive experiments that indeed show the lack of presence of toxicity for a given agent, is a widely used approach to deliberately mislead victims of chemical injury. How often have we heard the statement, “There is no evidence that chemical X causes cancer, birth defects, etc.?” The truth of the matter is that in many instances there have been no studies undertaken Dr. Marvin Legator was in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, Division of Environmental Toxicology The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston Dr. Marvin Legator 128 Dr. Marvin Legator to exonerate the chemical of toxic effects. This is a classic case of the failure of the regulatory governmental agencies to carry out the proper studies, and then use this as an argument to indicate the chemical is free of harm. As long as we consider negative data to be the same as absence of data, there will be little incentive to fill in the huge information gaps that now exist. The literature contains numerous examples where chemicals that were assumed to be safe were later found to be toxic when the proper studies were performed.1 Always challenge the assertion that chemical X is not toxic, by asking for the references that indicate the chemical is indeed non-toxic. 2. Most industrial chemicals have been tested for hazardous effects. This myth is a direct consequence of the first myth. The National Research Council has concluded that more than 70 percent of industrial chemicals have not been evaluated for definitive toxic effects.2 This means that we are exposed to numerous man-made substances where the health effects are unknown. Again, there is little incentive to fill in the gaps when the non-tested chemicals are assumed to be safe from adverse health effects. 3. Animal studies are not relevant for determining human toxicity. I have always marveled at the fact that none of us would think of using drugs that had not been first tested in animals, but believe that there is a lack of concordance between human and animal studies in the area of industrial toxicology. Actually, animal studies have shown to correlate extremely well with human experience. In the area of chemical carcinogesis, all known human carcinogens were detected or could have been detected in properly conducted animal studies. With many carcinogens, where high level animal studies were used (with extrapolation to human exposure), it has been shown that animal studies actually underestimate the true effects of the carcinogen.3 4. A specific chemical produces a specific cancer. For many years we were of the opinion that a chemical such as vinyl chloride produces a specific cancer such as angiosarcoma of the liver. We know that with the exception of a few chemicals (asbestos) the great majority of chemical carcinogens have multi-organ effects. Vinyl chloride, for instance, produces lung and...

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