Dioxin and The Times Beach Evacuation

Dioxin and The Times Beach Evacuation

The Jingle Bells of 1982 did not bring in a merry Christmas for the residents of Times Beach, Missouri, a small town of some 1400 people. During the annual town Christmas dinner the residents finally received the news that they had hoped would never come. The residents of Times Beach were to be relocated and the town were to be bought out by the federal government. This was the first time such a thing was done since the founding of the nation. The buyout of Times Beach and some 50 other sites in Missouri by the government beginning in 1983 was prompted by the largest civilian exposure to dioxin in the United States.

Dioxin is a member of the family of organic compounds known as aromatics. Dioxin is the shorthand that refers to a family of polychlorinated dibezodioxins or PCDDs. Their general structure is that of two chlorinated benzene rings joined by two oxygens, hence dioxin. Dioxin is not made intentionally but are usually formed as by-products in many large scale chemical processes such as paper pulp bleaching with chlorine and most significantly, the manufacture of chlorophenol chemicals.

This last process is significant not only because it brought dioxin the current notoriety but it also is a chemical process used to make products that were used and are still been used in many applications. These applications include pesticide, herbicide, defoliating agent such as Agent Orange, cleaning agent and electrical insulation. Consequently, human exposure to dioxin is not a recent phenomenon and the dangers of dioxin are not unknown. Only in recent years, especially after the Vietnam War, has the media concentrated on the dangers and impact of dioxin.

The physical effect of exposure to dioxin was first seen in skin diseases developed by chemical plant workers in 1895. The exposure to dioxin results in a type of skin disease like acne called "chloroacne," since its cause was initially and incorrectly linked to chlorine gas. In 1957, in Germany, Dr. Karl Schulz of the University of Hamburg identified chloroacne in several workers from a Boehringer chemical plant. The disease in its mildest form resembles teen-age acne but differs in that the blackheads and cyst cluster in two locations: appearing in a crescent shape outside of and under the eyes and ears. In more pronounced cases, pus-containing spots erupt and spread across the rest of the face, neck, shoulder and down to the rest of the body.