U.S. environmental watchdog "irresponsible" not to test for dioxin: The Guardian

LONDON, March 3 (Xinhua) -- It is "irresponsible" for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not to test for dioxin, a highly toxic substance, a month after a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, U.S. state of Ohio, British newspaper The Guardian has reported.

"These are important questions that deserve to be answered. Today there are no clear answers. Why? Because no one has done any testing for dioxins anywhere in East Palestine. No one. And, it seems, that the EPA is uninterested in testing for dioxins, behaving as though dioxin is no big deal," said The Guardian in an opinion article published Thursday.

Testing for dioxin should have been one of the first things to look for, especially in the air once the decision was made to burn the vinyl chloride, said the article by Stephen Lester, a toxicologist.

Without testing, no one will know and the people who live there will remain in the dark, uncertain about their fate, the article said.

Exposure to dioxins can cause cancer, reproductive damage, developmental problems, type 2 diabetes, ischemic heart disease, infertility in adults, impairment of the immune system and skin lesions, it added.

"So why is EPA unwilling to test for dioxins in the soil? My guess is because they know they will find it. And if they find it, they'll have to address the many questions people are asking. It will not be easy to interpret the results of the testing for dioxins in soil, but to avoid testing is irresponsible," said the article.