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#390 (05/19/94): Dioxin Reassessed, Part 1 Page 5 of 9 "Modeling estimates suggest that, if dioxin and related compounds are adding to human cancer burden, current backgrounc exposure may result in upper bound population cancer risk estimates in the range of one in ten thousand (10E-4) to one it thousand (10E-3) attributable to exposure to dioxin and relatec compounds. " [pgs. 43-44] In other words, EPA's best estimate j that existing levels of dioxin in the U.S. population may be sufficient to cause cancer in somewhere between one-in-every-ten-thousand people and one-in-every-thousand people during a lifetime (70 years) . Since there are 250 million Americans, EPA is saying that existing dioxin levels me be causing somewhere between 25, 000 and 250, 000 cancers in a lifetime (70 years) , or 350 to 3500 new cancers each year. EPA expresses the same risk another way: the agency says the amount of dioxins sufficient to create a one-in-a-million cancE hazard is a daily intake of 0.01 picograms of dioxin per kilogram of body weight [pg. 431 . (A picogram is a trillionth a gram. ) EPA says the average daily intake of total dioxins among Americans is presently 3 to 6 picograms per kilogram of body weight [pg. 50] , or 300 to 600 times the one-in-a-million hazard level. If EPA's estimate of the dioxin cancer hazard is correct, an individual 's lifetime probability of getting cancer from dioxin in the U.S. falls in the range of 1 in 1700 to 1 in 3300. Thi: is the same risk you would get from 300 to 600 chest x-rays. [2] Another way to look at this hazard is to compare it to the chance of being dealt 4-of-a-kind in poker, which is about 1 it 4200, or 240 per million. You're more likely to get cancer frc dioxin than to be dealt 4-of-a-kind. [3] http://www.monitor.net/rachel/r390.html 8/13/98