Document e127bVoq53LnkV8r1Yx41Zqjp

Talking Points re News Media Coverage of Dioxin: 1) Local news media virtually ignored Monsanto1s Nov. 1982 press release announcing the results of Dr. Suskind's University of Cincinnati Health Study -- the most significant piece of hard medical research ever done on a group of people exposed (years ago) to dioxin. Missourians exposed to amounts far less may have found sane comfort is knowing that the likelihood of long-term problans is extremely remote,vbased on Suskind's work. 2) News media accepted the CDC's 1 ppb "safe" level on blind faith. If anything over 1 ppb is dangerous, why does EPA permit up to 100 ppb in herbicides for conmercial use? Do you know dioxin has been detected in the background air in St. Louis and other large cities at levels far above 1 ppb? If you looked into hew the 1 ppb level was arrived at, i.e., they took the most sensitive animal data (the guinea pig) and added a safety factor of 1,000 and then assured that people would eat the dirt for years. Don't take our word for this, check it. And while you're at it, why not ask independent scientists what they think of the practicality of this risk asses sment vis-a-vis buying out contaminated sites. 3) Dr. Robert Neal, president of the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology, visited St. Louis last fall to help the media, state officials and the public understand dioxin, ids credentials, expertise and motives were imrediately challenged by some news media - fair enough! But why, on the other hand, do most reporters, including the TV networks, instantly grant "expert" status and prominent space to the likes of Dr. Samuel Epstein and Dr. Bertran Camow, both of Chicago, without similarly challenging their exper tise and especially their motives? Why are only pro-industry pronouncements suspect? Neither of these "media experts" have every published any of their so-called research in scientific journals I Nor have they ever submitted any of their work to critical scienti fic peer review. Hie only thing Epstein ever published is "best selling" novels like "The Politics of Cancer," in which he charges there is a cancer epidenic - chemically induced and that the chemical industry is engaged in a "Watergate -type" cover up. So it should be clear where he's coming from. Dr. Camow's claim to fame is that of an "expert" witness for the plaintiffs in dioxin - related lawsuits. His fee in the Sturgeon law suit last sunmer was $750,000. o 4) And finally, much of the media coverage of dioxin fits Time magazine's definition of what it recently called "water torture Journalism" -- news stories that add one little fact and then go on to lengthily repeat familiar allegations. The St. Louis media have run literally hundreds of stories on dioxin, all repetitiously emphasizing human health aspects that are both unproved and unfounded. A case in pointywas the Post-Dispatch coverage of a June 1 Symposium on Didxin in which considerable positive, good information was presented, which would clearly suggest that Missourians are not going to suffer cancer or other serious long-term health effects from the dioxin present in the local environment. While some of this good information was indeed included in the Post-Dispatch article, it was hard to find buried deeply under the headline: "Researchers Tell of Ills Linked to Dioxin". Prepared by Dan Bishop June 27, 1983 jI t l CJ7150