Environment: Dioxin Puts Dow on the Spot

Memos of 1965 meeting hint at company's fears

On a chilly morning in March 1965, a highly unusual gathering took place at Dow Chemical Co.'s headquarters in Midland, Mich. Without any corporate fanfare, Dow scientists met with colleagues from three rival firms, Hooker Chemical, Diamond Alkali and Hercules Powder. On the agenda that day was a discussion of the effects on human health of a family of chemicals known as dioxin. The chemicals, including Agent Orange, later used by the U.S. to defoliate the jungles of Viet Nam, are an unwanted byproduct in the making of herbicides. At the time, most chemists were only vaguely aware of dioxin, or its problems. But Dow had just experienced an outbreak of dioxin poisoning among workers in Midland. It wanted to sound a private alert to prevent similar incidents at other chemical plants, including those of its competitors.

Last week this seemingly generous gesture of good will came back to haunt Dow. According to a report in the New York Times, memorandums from participants in that almost forgotten session indicate that Dow's objective may not have been corporate benevolence. Rather, the documents show, the meeting appears to have been part of an effort to keep discoveries about dioxin's perils from exploding into a public scandal, which could have brought a new outcry for governmental regulation of the chemical industry. Wrote a participant from Hercules Powder: "They [Dow] are particularly fearful of a congressional investigation and excessive restrictive legislation on the manufacture of pesticides."

The documents were unearthed during the preliminary legal maneuvering in a class-action lawsuit that has been brought on behalf of 20,000 Viet Nam veterans, their widows and children against Dow and other producers of Agent Orange Scheduled for trial on Long Island next month before U.S. District Court Judge George C. Pratt, the suit charges that the dioxin contained in Agent Orange caused cancer and other ailments among the soldiers and genetic defects in their children. Dow has resolutely denied the charges. In a television interview, Dow President Paul F. Oreffice said, "There is absolutely no evidence of dioxin doing any damage to humans, except something called chloracne. It's a rash."

Many scientists do not take the chemical so lightly. They say that even concentrations as low as 5 parts per trillion can cause birth defects, cancer and other serious illness in laboratory animals. Last week the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta reported that 112 of 130 residents tested in Imperial, Mo., near dioxin-contaminated Times Beach, showed abnormalities in blood, liver or kidney functions. Says Dr. Irving Selikoff, director of the environmental-science lab at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan: "No question about it, dioxin is harmful to humans. It is manmade. As a result, the human body doesn't know how to break it down. We store it in our bodies and accumulate it."