Chuck Harris wrote:


The one part of the discussion that you should note, is that in industry,
folks were literally bathing in the stuff, (occasionally) with no problem.
We have several of those folks here on the group, and they have related
their
personal experience.


Thats a bit like the "My grandad smoked 80 a day all his life and lived
to a 101" chestnut. Is this proof that smoking doesn't give you cancer
or that the cancer statistics are wrong?

Personal experience or anecdotal evidence means very little when dealing
with long term toxicity (unless the illness is specifically associated
with a given exposure, like asbestos and mesothilioma). It is medical
statistics of a large, controled group that shed any truth to a matter
such as this. Unfortunately, these are hard to come by because of the
long term nature of PCB toxicity in a society literally bathed in
chemical contaminants and highly mobile.

Even closely monitored exposures, like the Seveso incident in Italy are
inconclusive (I once spoke to the head of toxicology for the UKs
Chemical Response Unit who reckoned that no-one found any ill effect
from that incident, but she was defending a hazardous waste site at the
time.)


If you take reasonable precautions to keep the stuff off of your
skin, and
out of your mouth, you will not be harmed. Even if you don't, at those
small
amounts, it is very doubtful that you will ever show any symptoms.


'Symptoms' are a sign of acute poisoning, obviously to be avoided, but
the health authorities of EVERY developed country would consider someone
with levels of PCBs in thier bodies millions of times less than that
needed to cause 'symptoms' as being over the limit of reccomended
exposure and at possible risk.

Having been exposed to whopping doses doesn't mean you will be
comparitively more ill than someone with a lot less inside them in the
long term - the mechanisims of toxicity of PCBs are not the same as
mercury or arsenic, where the more you have, the sicker you are. The
endocrine system of the body works with tiny amounts of hormones and
messenger chemicals, and its having these messed with that is the real
worry (especially in developing children), and we DO know that PCB's and
the like do just this.

For instance, there is a disorder of the womb that is rampant today
(can't remember the name right now) that was extremely rare before the
invention of PCB's. There can never be a 'smoking gun' leading to the
prescence of all pervasive PCB's in the environment as being the cause
of this (for a number of reasons), but it is EXACTLY the type of illness
predicted to be caused by long term PCB body burden and endocrine
disruption.

The World Health Organisation place a TDI of 1-4 picograms (a picogram
being a *trillionth* of a gram) on Dioxin-like PCB's. That is an
incredibly small amount Chuck, and when dealing with large amounts of
this stuff (meaning any visible amount) you could easily get
comparitively huge doses inside you without noticing, and you can't in
all honesty state with confidence that 'you will not be harmed' by these
amounts. Nobody knows for sure, but there is certainly enough evidence
and (non-hysterical) concern around to be more than cautious.

Andy

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