Health

Amen, Dr. Caulson. 

These environmental pollutants come primarily from Indian ship breaking.  Other nations in Africa are equally reprehensible for their abuses of workers. 

There is a solution: revision of maritime law to restrict ship breaking to nations that practice the craft safely and with minimum environmental impact.

Germany, France, America, Britain, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Scotland, break ships and do so with great care to avoid environmental contamination.  They do so in their shipyards, and reclaim all that can be responsibly salvaged.

Africa and India are the prime offenders.

I tend to agree with both of you.  Dioxins come in the forms Kelly said, and present all the health hazards that Richards said.  The worst known dioxin contamination is in India, in the 35 beaches where ships are broken and their materials salvaged.  Between dioxins, PCB's, asbestos, and their government's refusal to require appropriate safety gear, the desperately poor men and women who break ships face the highest rates of accidents and fatalities of any nation, period.

The incidence of cleft palate, skeletal deformation, fetal resorption, and other maladies directly related to India's irresponsible policy, has cost their people immeasurable needless suffering.

Old ships must still be broken but the methods used by American and Swedish ship breakers makes the most sense. Where Indian breakers sell everything for scrap, American and Swedish breakers reclaim all that is usable and that way, we build new ships for a third less than Indian ship yards build them. 

The most important advantage of the American and Swedish methods is that they contain the contaminants effectively: you will not breathe what they produce, but what goes into the ocean in Indian breaking yards will show up on your beaches eventually.

DIOXIN is a potent CANCER causing chemical.Can impact learning ability in our children and increased susceptibility to infections in our children exposed to background levels.DIOXIN can impact thyroid and liver functions and cause adverse impacts on human metabolism.DIOXIN has the potential to cause adverse impacts on developmental and/or reproductive biology. DIOXIN has been linked with altered levels of male reproductive hormones, fewer male births, miscarriage and infant death, birth defects, low birth weight and growth retardation.

DIOXIN has been linked with reduced glucose tolerance, and increases in diabetes.DIOXIN has been linked cardiovascular disease and hypertension.DIOXIN has been linked with respiratory cancers and soft tissue sarcoma.DIOXIN is linked to endometriosis and demasculization, and increased susceptibility to bacteria, viruses and immune system suppressions according to animal studies.

According to the World Health Organization:

• Dioxins are a group of chemically-related compounds that are persistent environmental pollutants.
• Dioxins are found throughout the world in the environment and they accumulate in the food chain, mainly in the fatty tissue of animals.
• More than 90% of human exposure is through food, mainly meat and dairy products, fish and shellfish. Many national authorities have programmes in place to monitor the food supply.
• Dioxins are highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones and also cause cancer.
• Due to the omnipresence of dioxins, all people have background exposure, which is not expected to affect human health. However, due to the highly toxic potential of this class of compounds, efforts need to be undertaken to reduce current background exposure.
• Prevention or reduction of human exposure is best done via source-directed measures, i.e. strict control of industrial processes to reduce formation of dioxins as much as possible.

Background

Dioxins are environmental pollutants. They have the dubious distinction of belonging to the "dirty dozen" - a group of chemicals known as persistent organic pollutants. Dioxins are of concern because of their highly toxic potential. Experiments have shown they affect a number of organs and systems.

Once dioxins have entered the body, they endure a long time because of their chemical stability and their ability to be absorbed by fat tissue, where they are then stored in the body. Their half-life in the body is estimated to be seven to eleven years. In the environment, dioxins tend to accumulate in the food chain. The higher in the animal food chain one goes, the higher the concentration of dioxins.

The chemical name for dioxin is: 2,3,7,8- tetrachlorodibenzo para dioxin (TCDD). The name "dioxins" is often used for the family of structurally and chemically related polychlorinated dibenzo para dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs). Certain dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) with similar toxic properties are also included under the term ?dioxins?. Some 419 types of dioxin-related compounds have been identified but only about 30 of these are considered to have significant toxicity, with TCDD being the most toxic.

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The extreme simplicity of these compounds makes them nonselective in their route of absorption.  However, they are virtually insoluble in water, somewhat limiting their dissemination. 

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  Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins
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  Polychlorinated dibenzofurans
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  Polychlorinated biphenyls
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  1,4-dioxin